Afonso I known as Afonso the Conqueror (b. 1109/11, Guima- raes. Port.—d. Dec. 6, 1185, Coimbra) First king of Portugal (1139-85). He defeated his mother to take the throne (1128), ruling first as a vassal of his cousin Alfonso VII of Leon but later securing Portuguese indepen¬ dence and gaining the title of king (1139). He defeated nearby Muslims and imposed tribute on them, then took Lisbon (1147) with the help of Crusaders. Afonso eventually extended Portugal beyond the Tagus River. He shared power with his son Sancho I and left him a stable, independent monarchy.
Afonso III (b. May 5, 1210, Coimbra, Port.—d. Feb. 16, 1279, Lisbon) King of Portugal (1248-79). He emigrated to France and became, by marriage, count of Boulogne. He gained the Portuguese crown when his older brother Sancho II was deposed by order of the pope. As king, Afonso regained control of the district of Faro (1249) and completed the recon¬ quest of the Algarve from the Muslims. His reign saw the first admission of commoners to the Portuguese Cortes (parliament). Afonso’s assertion of the royal right to repossess church lands led to his excommunication by the pope.
Afonso the Great See Afonso de Albuquerque
Africa Second largest continent on Earth. It is bounded by the Mediter¬ ranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean and is divided almost equally by the Equator. Area: 11,717,370 sq mi (30,348,110 sq km). Population (2001 est.): 816,524,000. Africa is com¬ posed largely of a rigid platform of ancient rocks that underlies vast pla¬ teau regions in the interior. Its average elevation is about 2,200 ft (670 m), but elevations range from 19,340 ft (5,895 m) at Mount Kilimanjaro to 515 ft (157 m) below sea level at Lake Assal. The Sahara, the world’s largest contiguous desert, occupies more than one-fourth of the total land area. The continent’s hydrology is dominated by the Nile River in the north, the Niger River in the west, and the Congo River in central Africa. Less than one-tenth of the land area is arable, while nearly one-fourth is for¬ ested or wooded. The peoples of Africa probably speak more languages than those of any other continent. Arabic is predominant from Egypt to Mauritania and in The Sudan. Northern Africans speak a family of lan¬ guages known as Afro-Asiatic. The vast majority of sub-Saharan peoples speak Bantu languages of the Niger-Congo family, while smaller num¬ bers in central Africa speak Nilo-Saharan languages and in southern Africa Khoisan languages. Peoples of European descent are found mostly in the south; Dutch (Boer) migrations began in the 17th century, and the English first settled in what is now Kenya and Zimbabwe in the 19th cen¬ tury. Africa as a whole is a developing region. Agriculture is the key sec¬ tor of the economy in most countries. Diamond and gold mining are especially important in the south, while petroleum and natural gas are produced particularly in the west. Most African governments are con¬ trolled by the military or a single party. Many legal systems combine laws introduced by European powers during the colonial era with traditional law, though North African countries derive many laws from Islam. Afri¬ can leaders have sought to develop a pan-African approach to the conti¬ nent’s political and military affairs through the Organization of African Unity and its successor, the African Union. Africa is widely recognized as the birthplace of humankind. Archaeological evidence indicates that the continent has been inhabited by humans and their hominid forebears for some 4,000,000 years or more. Anatomically modern humans are believed to have appeared about 100,000 years ago in the eastern region of sub- Saharan Africa. Somewhat later these early humans spread into northern Africa and the Middle East and, ultimately, to the rest of the world. Afri¬ ca’s first great historical kingdom, Egypt, arose along the Nile c. 3000 bc and flourished for nearly 3,000 years. The Phoenicians established a colony at Carthage and controlled the western Mediterranean for nearly 600 years. While northern Africa was dominated by the Romans for several centuries, the first known empire in western Africa was Ghana (5th—11th century ad). Muslim empires included those of Mali (c. 1250-1400) and Songhai (c. 1400-1591). In eastern and central Africa the emphasis was on trade with Arabia, and several powerful city-states, including Moga¬ dishu and Mombasa, were established. The Portuguese explored the west¬ ern coast in the 15th century. Before the late 19th century, Europe showed little interest in colonizing Africa, but by 1884 European countries had
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24 I Africa ► Afrikaner
begun a scramble to partition the continent, and by 1920 much of it was under colonial rule. Anticolonial sentiment developed gradually, becom¬ ing widespread after 1950, and one by one the colonies became indepen¬ dent, the last in 1990. Political instability, refugee problems, famine, and AIDS are the chief problems facing the continent at the start of the 21st century. See map on following page.
Africa Proconsular Roman province. It was founded after Rome defeated Carthage in 146 bc and was subsequently extended to include Numidia and the northern part of modem Libya. Between 30 bc and ad 180, other parts of northern Africa, including Cyrenaica and Mauretania, became part of the Roman Republic and Empire. In the 5th century the region was taken by the Vandals, though areas were later reconquered by the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire; the Muslims conquered the area in the late 7th century.
Africa, Horn of See Horn of Africa
African ant bear See aardvark
African arts Visual, performing, and literary arts of sub-Saharan Africa. What gives art in Africa its special character is the generally small scale of most of its traditional societies, in which one finds a bewildering variety of styles. The earliest evidence of visual art is provided by fig¬ ures scratched and painted on rocks c. 3000 bc. Pastoral cultures in the east emphasize personal adornment; sculpture predominates in the agri¬ cultural societies in the west and south. Clay figurines found in Nigeria date to 500 bc. Metalworking was practiced from the 9th century ad. Sculptures in stone, ivory, and wood date from the 16th-17th centuries; some of the finest wood sculptures date from the 20th century. Architec¬ ture dominates the arts of the north and of the eastern coast, where Islam and Christianity exerted their influence; important work includes mag¬ nificent mosques built of mud and rock-hewn churches. Perhaps the most distinctive features of African music are the complexity of rhythmic pat¬ terning achieved by a great variety of drums and the relationship between melodic form and language tone structure. Without this the text of a song is rendered meaningless; but, even in purely instrumental music, melodic pattern is likely to follow speech tone. Dances are realized in radically different styles throughout Africa. Movement patterns often depend upon the way in which environmental, historical, and social circumstances have been articulated in working, social, and recreational movements. Often there is no distinction between ritual celebration and social recreation. The masquerade is a complex art form employing many media; masquerades may entertain, be used to fight disease, be consulted as oracles, initiate boys to manhood, impersonate ancestors, judge disputes, or execute crimi¬ nals. The mask is essentially a dramatic device enabling performers to stand apart from their everyday role in the community. The content and style of urban African theatre are influenced by both African dramatic tra¬ ditions and Western theatre. The literary arts of Africa—especially its oral traditions—are immensely rich and varied. They include myths, praise songs, epic poetry, folktales, riddles, spells, and proverbs. Written litera¬ tures have existed for several centuries in Hausa, Swahili, and Amharic. In the 20th century, written literatures in other African languages also developed, alongside those in English, French, and Portuguese. See also Buu style; deble; segoni-kun; telum figure; trickster tale; and African authors by name, such as Chinua Achebe; Aime Cesaire; Birago Diop; Athol Fugard; Nadine Gordimer; Wole Soyinka; Amos Tutuola.