- published: 08 Aug 2014
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The Sao were an African civilization that flourished from ca. the sixth century BCE to as late as the sixteenth century CE. The Sao lived by the Chari River south of Lake Chad in territory that later became part of Cameroon and Chad. They are the earliest people to have left clear traces of their presence in the territory of modern Cameroon. They may have originated in the ancient Near East, in the Nile valley, or near Lake Chad. Sometime around the 16th century, conversion to Islam changed the cultural identity of the former Sao. Today, several ethnic groups of northern Cameroon and southern Chad but particularly the Kotoko claim descent from the civilization of the Sao.
There are several theories concerning the origin of the Sao. Archaeologists J.-P. Lebeuf and A. Masson-Détourbet suggest that the civilisation characterized by city-states may have been influenced by the advanced Nubian civilization of the Nile. According to the historian Dierk Lange, the Sao were immigrants from the ancient Near East in consequence of the fall of the Assyrian Empire at the end of the seventh century BC. Victor Fanso believes that the Sao were the descendants of the Hyksos who conquered Ancient Egypt in the sixteenth century BCE who may have moved southwest from the Nile valley into middle Africa in several waves under pressure from Arab invaders. A more widely accepted theory is that the Sao were simply the indigenous inhabitants of the Lake Chad basin and that their ultimate origins lie south of the lake.