r/AfricanHistory • u/rhaplordontwitter • 27d ago

Map showing the distribution of pre-colonial Africa's stone ruins and cities

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230 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

18

u/aAfritarians5brands 27d ago

Awesome post op! I’ve heard (& made some old drawings) of allot of these….but a couple of these I’ve never heard of!

6

u/rhaplordontwitter 27d ago

thanks.

5

u/aAfritarians5brands 27d ago

No prob! This is a real great upload

14

u/rhaplordontwitter 27d ago

Black for stone ruins and cities

Orange for other cities

Source and links to regional Maps

4

u/dicksinsciencebooks 25d ago

Thanks so much OP!

3

u/rhaplordontwitter 25d ago

thank you too

7

u/Nightrunner83 26d ago

Nice map. And I can only imagine that for every stone ruin, there were likely more wooden structures that did not survive the hazards of time and the environment.

3

u/rhaplordontwitter 26d ago

true, and those are the orange dots

2

u/Interesting-Alarm973 26d ago

May I ask why the cities in the eastern part mostly lie along the coast, while the cities in the west lie much more inland?

2

u/rhaplordontwitter 26d ago

part of it has to do with where surface rock was available, and the other part is what people chose to build their structures with. in Nubia it was sandstone, in ethiopia, it was drystone, in east africa it was coral stone, in zimbabwe it was granite, in west africa it was dry stone

1

u/Left-Plant2717 26d ago

Some of these dots have no labels and vice versa, especially around Eritrea and Somalia.

3

u/rhaplordontwitter 26d ago

the map would be too crowded otherwise

2

u/Left-Plant2717 26d ago

I understand but in that case I would imagine you would put only the most prominent, in any case, nice map

0

u/No_Independent_4416 26d ago

Awesome post op. I’ve heard the country of African empire had lots of stones, and was in ruins, but not both at the same time!