[Central African Republic] The Bouar Megaliths
The Central African Republic (CAR; or Centrafrique) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest, and Cameroon to the west. The Central African Republic covers a land area of about 620,000 square kilometres (240,000 sq mi). As of 2021, it had an estimated population of around 5.5 million. As of 2022, the Central African Republic is the scene of a civil war, ongoing since 2012. Most of the Central African Republic consists of Sudano-Guinean savannas, but the country also includes a Sahelo-Sudanian zone in the north and an equatorial forest zone in the south. Two-thirds of the country is within the Ubangi River basin (which flows into the Congo), while the remaining third lies in the basin of the Chari, which flows into Lake Chad.
The Bouar Megaliths
The Bouar region, located in the north-west of the Central African Republic, is, from an archaeological point of view, of great scientific richness. Located on the watershed of the Chadian and Congolese basins, the megalithic monuments have been the subject of in-depth studies. The megalithic zone covers 130 km long by 30 km wide and extends over an area of approximately 7500 km2.
The megaliths were first reported by Commander J. d'Aubraumont. The stay of the French anthropologist Pierre Vidal in the region allowed a first study in 1966, followed by the work of Etienne Zangato from the University of Paris X (Nanterre) and Nicholas David from the University of Calgari in Canada.
The megalithic area of Bouar is of obvious scientific and cultural interest.
The megaliths of Bouar have kept their original characteristics. They are distinguished from the architectural, functional and geomorphological point of view by:
Their situation always at the source of a stream,
Their orientation always towards the east or in the direction of the watercourse,
Their thickness is approximately the same,
The presence of cistus on the outskirts of the site,
Their concentric character.
However, there is a tendency to degradation linked to the phenomenon of erosion, anthropogenic actions (use of stones as building materials, passage of animals) and withdrawals.
were added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on April 11, 2006 in the Cultural category
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Notre-Dame of Bangui Cathedral
BUILT IN THE EARLY 1900S, the Notre-Dame of Bangui Cathedral is a large red brick church built in the French colonial style. Above the three-door entrance is a white plaster icon of the Virgin Mary looking out from a niche. The interior of the cathedral features a crucifix and four massive windows featuring colored glass. The symmetrical double-tower design harkens back to Paris’s own Notre Dame Cathedral.
Though today it has a population of nearly 900,000, the Central African Republic’s largest city was established as a small outpost in 1889. A 1906 decree transformed the small post into the French colony’s capital. Catholicism was introduced into the newly established colony around the same time, with the arrival of Monsignor Augouard in 1893. Augouard established the Saint-Paul mission, which opened its doors in 1894. A few years after that, the Notre-Dame of Bangui Cathedral was built in the center of the so-called “European city.” The cathedral, along with the majority of other religious buildings in Bangui, was constructed with fired bricks that are a reddish color.
The Central African Republic is home to an estimated 2.9 million Christians today, about a third of whom are Roman Catholic. Many of these conversions happened when Catholic missionaries focused their efforts on the Central African Republic after World War I.
Since declaring independence from France in 1960, the Central African Republic has experienced a series of conflicts. Political unrest in the 1990s prompted then-Archbishop Joachim Ndayen to begin hosting peace talks at the cathedral in 1996. Later in 1999, Pope John Paul II visited Bangui and spoke about the “difficult and complex situation” facing the country.
Since 2012, the Central African Republic has been in the midst of a civil war spurred on in part by tensions between Muslim and Christian groups.
In November 2015, Pope Francis visited the cathedral as well as the nearby Grande Mosquée de Bangui, offering a message of peace and resilience.