Century of Changes 3


 * Century of Changes 3
 * by Jonathan I. Edelstein
 * 22 January 2002

East Africa ... Africa was hard hit by the plagues. From the epicenter in Khartoum, the Black Death was carried on ships and caravans throughout the Merchant Kingdoms. The decline in sea trade also deprived the coastal kingdoms of much of their livelihood; although the volume of trade began to increase again by 375 [1147 CE], it would not fully recover its pre-plague levels until the first quarter of the sixth century. The plagues no doubt hastened the final demise of Zimbabwe, which was sacked and burned in 317 [1089 CE], but its effects in other places were almost as great...

... The chaos was greatest in Axum and the Nilotic provinces of Egypt, where some districts lost two people in three. By 320 [1092 CE], Egypt had lost control of its southern provinces, which reverted to petty kingdoms and chieftaincies. The fall of Axum was even more spectacular; rebellious nobles seized the opportunity to break away from imperial rule, and in 331 [1103 CE] the royal seat at Gondar was sacked. For more than a century, there would be no negus negusti reigning over all Axum, although many claimed the title. Axum had entered the Age of the Princes.

Reshem, too, was devastated by the plague. Unlike Axum, however, it survived as a united kingdom. The virtual closing of the caravan routes south from Egypt brought hardship, but pilgrims still journeyed to the source of the living water, and isolation only made Reshemite steel scarcer and more valuable...

... Like the kingdoms of the Mediterranean world and the House of Submission, the Merchant Kingdoms turned to slavery to replenish their depleted labor force, which inevitably led to warfare with the Cattle Kingdoms of the interior. For the most part, the Merchant Kingdoms had the advantage in these battles, but in 361 [1133 CE], Tutsi warriors succeeded in conquering Kilwa Kisiwani and Zanzibar. Like most barbarian conquerors, the Tutsi quickly adopted the ways of the people they had conquered, but the syncretic religion they shared with the Reshemites established a permanent presence along the coast.

The most far-reaching effect of this was completely unanticipated. The new dynasty combined the Reshemite emphasis on the holiness of the written word with the skilled craftsmanship of the Sawahil cities. By 375 [1147 CE], it was common for both priests and laymen to carve images of words and letters and form them into the holy correspondences, but it was not until the 390s that an unknown genius first began to mount these carvings on blocks or frames. This movable type was initially used for religious purposes, but it was only a matter of time before merchants and bureaucrats discovered its secular uses...

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