Omalicha Slim History Blog

A team of forensic scientists has managed to extract DNA from a 4,000-year-old mummy, and their finding has solved a century-old mystery of its ransacked tomb. Advertisement The Egyptian mummy wasn't a fully preserved corpse, but rather a decapitated, mutilated, bandage-wrapped head that archaeologists found on top of a coffin when they excavated a tomb back in 1915. And that was the source of the mystery. As the researchers explained in a paper published  March 1 in the journal Genes , the tomb belonged to an Egyptian Middle Kingdom governor named Djehutynakht. But by the time modern scientists found the tomb, it had been ransacked; it was robbed in ancient times. In an article describing the discovery, The New York Times  reported  that the robbers had set the place on fire "to cover their tracks."  All that remained of the tomb's occupants was a dismembered torso in one corner of the tomb and a head placed on top of Djehutynakht's coffin. For more t...

The Koma people believe in the existence of a supreme being called Zum or Nu, otherwise meaning the sun. The neighboring Chamba also uses the same word Su for the sun, and for Almighty God.   For reasons too obvious to ignore, some have described the Koma people as ancient. Others, in their own observation, have termed them primitive. Whichever the case may be, the Koma people have refused to tag along with civilization. In the Atlantika Mountains of Adamawa state, the Koma ethnic group is made up of people who are entirely committed to their traditional culture. They share a border with Cameroon and are divided into three major groups: the hill-dwelling Beya and Ndamti, and the Vomni and Verre lowlanders. Scores of Nigerians, after the discovery, described the Koma people as primitive and pagan, and even named the mountain on which they live as Alantika which in Kanuri language means “God hasn’t yet arrived.” This is because the Koma people still hold ...

It is otherwise known as  “Okujepisa omukazendu” , which simply  means   “offering a wife to a guest.” According to the demands of this culture, a husband can allow his wife to sleep with any male visitor that chooses to spend the night in their home. While the wife is given to the guest for sexual relations, her husband must spend the night in a  different room.  Where there is no available room, he is expected to sleep outside. When a male visitor comes with his own wife, he can reach an agreement to exchange wives for the night. Within the Northern Namibian tribes, the men are the heads of their families and they  possess  more rights than the women. These men make most of the decisions, while the women are left with the tasks of procreating, feeding and taking care of the home. Shockingly, some women see nothing with this tradition and do not mind giving themselves to other men. Some women also  offer girlfriends  ...

Chief   Susanne Wenger   MFR ,  1915 – 12 January 2009).  Chief Susanne Wenger MFR, also known as Adunni Olorisha, was an Austrian-Nigerian artist, illustrator and comics artist, who resided in Nigeria. Her main focus was the Yoruba culture and she was successful in building an artist cooperative in Osogbo. EARLY LIFE Susanne Wenger was born in  Graz ,  Austria . She is the daughter of an English and French high school teacher and a mother born to a high ranking Austro-Hungarian army officer. Wenger attended the School of Applied Arts in Graz in 1930, specializing in pottery. She later continued her studies, first at the Higher Graphical Federal Education and Research Institute and then at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alongside, among others, Herbert Boeckl. While at the academy, she learned the fresco technique and improved on her drawing skills. After the end of the war, Wenger was an employee of the communist children's magazine...

The Dufuna Canoe  is the oldest boat to be discovered in Africa. It was found in 1987 by a herder of Fulani descent, a little way from the village of Dufuna located in the Fune Local Government Area, sharing borders with the Komadugu Gana River, in Yobe State, Nigeria. Radiocarbon dating  of a sample of charcoal found near the site dates the canoe at 8,500 to 8,000 years old, linking the site to  Lake Chad . The canoe is 8.4 metres (28 ft) long and is 0.5 metres (1 ft 8 in) tall at it largest point. It is currently located in  Damaturu , Nigeria. BACKGROUND The Dufuna canoe was found in the village of Dufuna, which is located between  Potiskum  and  Gashua , in Yobe State.    On 4 May 1987, Mallam Ya'u, a Fulani cow herdsman was digging a well and hit a hard object at 4.5 meters. He informed his village chief about the discovery. In 1989 and 1990, the  University of Maiduguri  carried...

Human saliva has a lot of minerals in it, and thus might have antibacterial properties. When we kiss, we release more saliva, which can help wash away the plaque on our teeth. This helps prevent tooth decay and keep the teeth healthy. There are so many benefits to getting a little kissing action.

Queen Amina of Zaria, also known as the warrior queen, was the first woman who ruled an African kingdom for over 30 years in the sixteenth century.  Amina was a Hausa Muslim a historical figure in the city-state Zazzau (present-day city of Zaria in Kaduna State), in what is now in the northwest region of Nigeria. Commonly known as the warrior queen, Queen Amina of Zaria was the first woman to become the Sarauniya(queen), in a male-dominated society during her reign between 1576 to 1610. She expanded the territory of the Hausa people of north Africa to its largest borders in history. Early Life Amina was born in the middle of the sixteenth century CE to King Nikatau, the 22nd ruler of Zazzau, and Queen Bakwa Turunku (r. 1536– c.  1566). She had a younger sister named Zaria for whom the modern city of Zaria (Kaduna State) was renamed by the British in the early twentieth century. According to oral legends collected by anthropologist David E. Jones, Amina g...