and regulations of the community are adhered to. When-
ever there are problems that might lead to a serious crisis,
the gods communicate with the priest, who in turn works
with the rulers and the entire community to ensure that the
danger—a poor harvest, famine, or a short rainy season—is
averted. Spiritual cleaning is needed to appease the gods and
put things on the desired track.ASTRONOMY AND DIVINATION
Astronomy was the most esoteric science known in ancient
Africa. Th e appearance and movements of the stars, planets,
and moon posed a diffi cult question to ancient observers. In
attempting to explain their observations, African astrono-
mers relied on religious traditions and their knowledge of the
spirit world. Th ey also devised pragmatic systems in order to
make something useful of the mysterious celestial events. In
some ancient societies the time and position of sunrise and
sunset were gauged to plan journeys and decide the activities
required for each day. Th e appearance of certain stars, partic-
ularly Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, delineated the
annual calendar of river fl ood and proper dates for planting
and harvesting. Th e moon, the Milky Way, the constellation
Orion, and the bright planet Venus also played important
roles in astronomical science.
Archaeologists have excavated several sites in Africa
that may have served as observatories or celestial calendars.
Stones placed artifi cially in a row or circular arrangement
may have marked the position of heavenly bodies at certain
times of year. Such arrangements have been discovered in
Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Kenya, and
the western African nations of Togo and Benin. For example,
in what is now Kenya a stone circle known to archaeologists
as Namoratunga II was laid out by ancestors of the Borana
people. Th is site is an early calendar that fi xed the dates of the
year by measuring the positions of seven diff erent stars and
the moon.
One of the most famous ancient objects possibly relat-
ing to astronomy is the Ishango bone, found in what is today
Zaire and dated to about 20,000 b.c.e. Th e bone (a baboon’s
femur) has markings that may indicate the 28-day cycle of
the moon. Some experts have seen in the pattern of marks a
counting system or some kind of mathematical table. With-
out a written record, however, the specifi c uses and purposes
of this object and of such astronomical sites as Namoratunga
II remain unknown.
Ancient societies commonly took celestial phenom-
ena into consideration for important undertakings, such as
wedding ceremonies, going into battle, migration to a new
region, and building their homes. In Togo and Benin the
people known as Tamalimba built their houses so that they
were aligned with the sun at the time of the equinoxes. Th e
pyramids of Meroë, the capital of the Kushite kingdom, are
aligned to face Sirius as it rises on the eastern horizon. Con-
temporary Africans still hold to many of these traditions.
Sirius, Orion, and the star cluster known as the Pleiades guidecoastal navigators in eastern and western Africa. Th e Dogon
of Mali consider Sirius and a small companion star, known to
them as Po Tolo, as celestial anchors, keeping all other heav-
enly bodies in their proper courses and guiding events and
important decisions on earth.
Th e appearance of heavenly bodies was interpreted both
as a guide to present events and as a portent of the future.
Like medicine, divination was a skill reserved to those with
specialized knowledge, whose secrets were carefully kept. Th e
purpose of this craft was to access information not available
through empirical means. Divination allowed people to un-
derstand problems or prepare for imminent danger. Diviners
were, and are, consulted before naming a baby, before un-
dertaking a journey, in preparation for war, and to judge the
worth of a potential spouse.
Th e origin of African divination systems is shrouded in
mystery. In modern times they fall into two broad categories:
the tool system and the medium system. In the latter a human
being serves as a medium who interprets coded information
accessed through an earthly entity—typically, messages from
dead ancestors who communicate through selected individu-
als. Th is type of divination is popular among the Shona of
modern Zimbabwe. In the tool system a diviner makes use of
tools such as palm-nut shells, stones, or animals. Th e Banen
and Mambila of modern Cameroon use spiders and land
crabs as tools of divination.
Th e Ifa system, as one example, is a well-studied system
that survives among the Yoruba of Nigeria. Th e priest of Ifa
divination is called babalawo (father of secrets). To become a
babalawo, an apprentice required several years of training and
the study of an enormous body of literature, the odu, which
consists of 256 parts further subdivided into verses called ese.
Th ere are about 800 ese in each odu. A person becomes a ba-
balawo aft er going through all the initiation ceremonies and
mastering enough verses needed for communication with
Orunmila, the deity associated with divination.
Among the Yoruba and other African cultures evidence
of ancient divination science exists only in the form of mod-
ern practices that echo those of the past. In a continent where
archaeological evidence is oft en scanty, this is the best re-
source historians have for reconstructing the knowledge sys-
tems of societies that have long been extinct.EGYPT
BY LEO DEPUYDT AND TOM STREISSGUTH
Among the ancient societies of the Mediterranean region,
Egypt was home to esoteric and practical knowledge that
placed it in a realm apart from all others. Egypt was the
center of advanced medicine, mathematics, and astronomy.
Moreover, Egyptian engineering technology—embod-
ied by towering monuments, pyramids, palaces, and pub-
lic works—had no rival in the ancient world. Th e ancient
knowledge of Egypt, however, was hidden in hieroglyphics,
a system of picture writing that fell into disuse in the time ofscience: Egypt 9250895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i925 925 10/10/07 2:30:27 PM