Exploring the golden age of Southern Africa
Documentary for television revealing the growth of city-states in the
interior of the African continent: Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe, and the growth of the
gold trade to the coast and the Swahili Trade across to Madagascar, and beyond to Arabia,
China, and India.
Winner of Best Documentary Film, Southern African Film Festival, 1998
"Sumptuous images of Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar,
the Comoros and Tanzania, shot by award-winning cameraman Jaoa Costa, recreate this relatively
unexplored, complex, and integrated economic community."
ScreenAfricaNews
Tides of Gold - the Treatment
New evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals that the Roman Empire was trading with Tanzania as early as 100 AD. At the same time Ptolomey and Pliny wrote about a famous trade centre down the east coast of Africa called Rapta. Tanzanian archaeologists now believe they have found the Rapta.
Parts of present day South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe were linked by trade from the 8th to the 18th century AD, and that those links extended as far as China, Venice, and Persia. Few people realise the scale of the trade, which began well before the Europeans rounded the Cape and "discovered" the east coast of Africa. The Indian and Pacific oceans have witnessed migrations and trade a thousand years before the Atlantic became a thoroughfare. Tides of Gold will show how and why Madagascar was first populated by Africans and sailors from Java.
As Southern Africa settles towards peace under majority rule, the possibility of an African renaissance dawns. And as governments try to build a Southern African common market, it is fascinating and timely to remember the trading capabilities of our countries that existed over a thousand years ago.
Zimmedia, together with its regional partners, African archaeologists from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Comores, and Madagascar, proposes a documentary series. Drawing on the recent upsurge in their archaeological discoveries, we aim to uncover this hidden history.
Tides of Gold will breathe with the flavour of old texts from the period, visually beautiful in themselves and full of vivid description: "The Periplus of the Erythrian Sea", a first century account of travelling across the Indian Ocean; the tenth century diaries of Arabic geographer al-Massudi, which cover the early period of the Swahili trade, and the fourteenth century illustrated reports of Ibn Battuta, an Arab scholar and historian. Painstakingly drawn maps will illustrate the importance of this trade for the Europeans, ranging from the second century Ptolomaic world map, to the English sixteenth century "New and Accurate Map of the southern parts of Africa", with important information marked in: "City of Monomatapa. Residence of the Emperor", and a nearby note "It is rich in gold mines".
Small reconstructed scenes - a beautiful woman being presented with a glass vase; a porter carrying ivory on his head; will be mixed with live action -- for example small scale gold miners today, panning and excavating with techniques very similar to those used by the state of Great Zimbabwe. Boats and the sea will feature as we travel up the coast of East Africa, where the sailing technology of jahazis has not changed much in the last thousand years, and we will be able to recreate the feeling and the beauty of the lateen rig plying up and down the palm fringed coastline.
The information on which this film is based comes from the recent discoveries of the African historians and archaeologists who have recently started working together to correlate and compare the latest pieces in the fascinating jigsaw of African history.
Through this wealth of recently uncovered history, and through our own long experience as African filmmakers, we will evoke the mood of the cultures and the movement between them, rather than giving a dry account of the history taken from archaeological remains.
