Reading path · 9 stops

Empires of Africa

Gold, faith and trade in the great states of Nubia, Ethiopia and West Africa.

Africa's empires were built on control of gold, trade routes and the loyalty of diverse peoples. Kush ruled Egypt as its Twenty-Fifth Dynasty; Aksum struck its own gold coins and traded with Rome and India; and in West Africa a succession of states, Ghana, Mali and Songhai, grew rich on the trans-Saharan exchange of gold and salt. This path follows that story from the Nile to the forest kingdom of Asante, whose Golden Stool embodied the soul of the nation.

Suits the Timekeeper · the Navigator

  1. 1 · Profile · 1070 BCE – 350 CEKushite EmpireFrom Napata, Piye and his successors united Nubia and Egypt as the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, before Meroë became a great centre of iron.
  2. 2 · Profile · 100 CE – 940 CEAksumite EmpireControlling the Red Sea port of Adulis, Aksum issued its own gold coins and conquered Kush around 350 CE.
  3. 3 · Profile · 300 CE – 1240 CEGhana EmpireThe Soninke 'land of gold' taxed both salt moving south and gold moving north, reserving every gold nugget for the king.
  4. 44 · Encyclopedia · Person · d. c. 1255Sundiata KeitaThe founder of Mali, whose victory at Kirina united the Manding chiefdoms and whose epic is still preserved by griots.
  5. 5 · Profile · 1235 CE – 1600 CEMali EmpireMali controlled the goldfields of Bambuk and Bure and made Timbuktu and Djenné centres of trade and Islamic learning.
  6. 66 · Encyclopedia · Event · 1324Mansa Musa's pilgrimageMansa Musa's lavish spending of gold in Cairo in 1324 put Mali on the map, quite literally in the Catalan Atlas.
  7. 7 · Profile · 1430 CE – 1600 CESonghai EmpireThe largest empire in West African history, built by Sunni Ali and Askia Muhammad on the cities of Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné.
  8. 88 · Encyclopedia · Event · 1591Battle of TondibiIn 1591 a small Moroccan force armed with arquebuses routed a much larger Songhai army in a single engagement.
  9. 9 · Profile · 1670 CE – 1902 CEAshanti EmpireOsei Tutu I and the priest Okomfo Anokye united the Akan chiefdoms around the Golden Stool and defeated Denkyira at Feyiase in 1701.

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