The southern half of the African continent is populated by speakers of about 550 closely related languages that are referred to as the Bantu languages.

Among the corpus of terracotta figurines discovered in the Greco-Egyptian city of Alexandria dating back to the 2nd century BC is a fine clay vessel in the form of a Nubian priestess of Isis of Philae, who is depicted in a kneeling position while performing a Greek-type mortuary wine libation.

Nsibidi is one of Africa's oldest independently invented writing systems.

For much of African history, the construction of fortresses and fortified structures was a mostly urban phenomenon associated with large states.