584 illumination: Africa religion, there were many purposes, including marking sacred ground or altars and indicating places for worshipping the sun Many Africans believed the sun to be sacred, and archaeologists have found evidence that a profound interest in the sun dates back several thousand years As in other parts of the world, management of light probably began with campfires In modern times the San of southern Africa centered many of their activities on a fire that provided a central gathering place in their communities In Saharan Africa there was a mix of ethnic groups for thousands of years, as their rock paintings make clear For regions where different cultures mixed, the area around a campfire became a gathering place for people to share information and stories Thus, the fire’s light in the dark not only helped people to see but also drew them together When the Sahara was a fertile land, it was populated first by hunter-gatherers (perhaps 27,500–5095 b.c.e.) and then herders of cattle and sheep They used torches of wood to light their way at night The exact mechanisms of the torches have yet to be defined, but these early peoples probably just ignited sticks of wood at one end and then let them burn down However, the ancient Saharans had at hand what they needed to make more sophisticated torches, such as sticks wrapped at one end with grass or cloth soaked in animal fat Whether the Saharans used torches in their religious ceremonies is uncertain The history of ancient Africa is very incomplete, but here and there archaeology offers hints at how ancient Africans dealt with illumination The management of light seems to have been very important for them by the time they begin to show up in ancient histories Their homes show that sunlight was often an enemy Whether the homes were woven huts, grass and wood huts, houses of clay, or houses of stone, throughout central and northern Africa, from west to east, houses tended not to have windows They did not even have openings in their roofs to let out smoke from hearths A single door was often the only source of outside light, perhaps because the sun can be harsh in Africa, and keeping cool inside one’s home may have been more important than having light During the Meroitic Period (ca 590 b.c.e.–ca 350 c.e.), the Kushites (ca 900 b.c.e.–ca 350 c.e.) of eastern Africa south of Egypt developed a way of managing sunlight that would be duplicated in later cultures in West Africa City dwellers built homes that consisted of a walled enclosure with rooms at its corners A single door opened into the enclosure, giving the homeowners the privacy of a home, but the enclosure was open to the sun The rooms had single doorways into the enclosure, and they were otherwise without openings Those who lived in the house could have the benefits of sunlight for their daily activities but could retreat into cooler rooms when they wished to escape the heat The Bantu-speaking peoples of the third century c.e seem to have used torches to light their villages at night Some of their ancient altars consisted of a large uncut stone on which a statue or mystical symbol rested To the sides of these altars were torches, perhaps just to frame the altar in light The torches may also have had a ritual purpose, now unknown The Kushites were heavily influenced by the Egyptians, and they adopted Egyptian lighting techniques for their own homes, temples, and civic buildings As early as the 2600s b.c.e Egyptians were using indirect sunlight to illuminate interiors of underground tombs An aperture was cut at an angle through the roof and ceiling so that direct sunlight did not fall into the passage below but a haze of light did This construction may have been used in Kushite temple passages, keeping some of the heat of the sun outside while enabling sunlight to play on bright, glistening interior decorations of precious metals, creating a display of sparkling art The Egyptians are often credited with inventing the oil lamp This method of lighting quickly became known to the peoples in touch with Egypt, called “Libyans” to the west of Egypt and “Nubians” to the south of Egypt, where the kingdom of Kush eventually arose Archaeology has yet to reveal how extensive the use of oil lamps was in Kush, but it was probably widespread The simplest oil lamps, shallow bowls made of clay with impressed lips for holding wicks of cotton, could have been used by even ordinary Kushite farmers In Kushite cities there may have been stands of metal to hold them or niches in the walls of stone buildings They probably did not entirely supplant torches, because torches made a dramatic image when arrayed in a large assembly hall or along an otherwise dark passage leading into the depths of a large temple An example of Kushites’ managing light is the Sun Temple outside the city of Meroë, once the capital city of Kush The temple is in a hollow in the ground but is raised above the ground at the bottom of the hollow, perhaps to accumulate rainwater, which was used to water a grassy lawn around the temple The floor of the temple was yellow, and its walls were blue Its sanctuary was surrounded by columns On the back wall, facing the entrance, was a golden circle representing the sun It would have dazzled people, with the reflected sunlight seeming to thrust out of the earth, while the temple seemed to float on yellow light By the time Kush fell out of history around 350 c.e., another ancient kingdom, Axum (ca 500 b.c.e.–ca 950 c.e.), was on the rise The Axumites were a cosmopolitan people who were constantly visited by traders from Europe, the Near East, and southern and eastern Asia They built houses with columns similar to those used in India’s architecture Short awnings of stone or wood extended over the columns, and behind them were windows, often arched at their tops These windows had latticework shutters that would allow some light into the rooms beyond but that would keep the rooms somewhat shadowy It is possible that the shutters were carved so that decorative patterns would fall on the floor as sunlight passed through The windows probably had panes of glass Glass windows inspired an explosion of creativity when Axumites converted to Christianity in the mid-fourth century c.e Techniques for making colored glass were prob-