Besides Egypt, many other great civilizations once existed in Africa.

Some of these autochthonous civilizations (genuinely African in their roots) built pyramids akin to the Egyptian ones, some built great cities (the remains of which can still be visited today) and some even invented their own writing systems thousands of years ago…

This first civilisation to be studied in this series is the Kingdom of Numidia. The best known also because many ancient texts (Carthaginian, Greek and Roman) mention it.

Numidia existed centuries BC and in its long history got involved in many wars and notably in the Punic wars between Rome and the Carthaginians. Both rivals tried to get the support of the powerful Numidian kings.

One of these king called Massinissa was so famous that his love story with Sophonisbe (daughter of the enemy Hasdrubal Gisco, a Carthaginian general) was turned into a play by Corneille and some even mutter it might be the basis for the story "Romeo and Juliet"....