VT (for all of my design-obsessed peeps)

photopieterhugo courtesyflavorwire Peeps, I'm convinced that I'll never visit the Dark Continent for reasons too numerous to list, of which many are purely irrational.  Nevertheless, the birthplace of human civilization continues to fascinate my interest and imagination.  Well before Picasso, Braque, and the Cubists grasped the extent of artistry and creativity to be found in the art of ' Les Savages, ' artisans and craft-persons were producing work quite innovative and more advanced than their Western (meaning European and Mediterranean) counterparts. For example, iron-working technology in eastern Niger dates to about 1500 BC, and the remains excavated from a 10th century burial site in eastern Nigeria (Igbo-Ukwu) demonstrated superb bronze-casting techniques, far superior to the achievements of other cultures of the same period.  A brief survey of world history as taught within most American class-rooms, could lead one to believe that until the 19th or 20t...