Civilization  West  African  Empires(Ghana,  Mali  and  Songhay)

The sahel was the intensive point of contact and trade between sub-Saharan Africa (Africa south of the Sahara Desert),and North Africa and the world beyond, along with contact and trade along Atlantic and Indian Ocean seacoasts. In western Africa a number of black kingdoms emerge whose economic base lay in their control of trans-Saharan trade routes. Gold, kola nuts, and slaves were sent north in exchange for cloth, utensils, and salt. This trade enabled the rise of the great empires—Ghana, Mali, and Songhai--of the savanna ("savanna" refers to a treeless or sparsely forested plain.)

Growth of trans-Sahara gold trade across the sahel ("sahel" is Arabic for "shore" or "coast") at southern boundary of the Sahara Desert, which was likened to a sea.

Kingdom of Ghana

Sahara Desert

which preceded Muslims and Islam by several centuries, brought about a gradual change in trade, and, for the first time, the extensivegold, ivory trade, and salt resources of the region could be sent north and east to population centers in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe in exchange for manufactured goods.

The domestication of the camel,

Ghana Empire of Soninke peoples (in what is now SE Mauritania) at height of power. The earliest of the 3 great West African states (emerging ca. 300 CE), Ghana equipped its armies with iron weapons and became master of the trade in salt and gold, controlling routes. By the early 11th century, Muslim advisers were at the court of Ghana.

Civilizations in Africa: Ghana (Richard Hooker, World Civilizations, WSU):http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CIVAFRCA/GHANA.HTM

Tenkamenin - King of the kingdom Ghana 1037 to 1075 AD

But his greatest strength was in government. Each day he would ride out on horseback and listen to the problems and concerns of his people. He insisted that no one be denied an audience and that they be allowed to remain in his presence until satisfied that justice had been done. His principles of democratic monarchy and religious tolerance make Tenkamenin’s reign one of the great models of African rule.

Ancient Ghana Empire Ruins (Kumbi Saleh) 900 AD

Larabanga-Mosque

MALI Empire - Trade and settlement

Mansa Musa - Maliruled

1312 - 1337

GOLD = #1 product that produced WEALTH for WEST AFRICAN EMPIRES

Mining for GOLD in West Africa, 2014

A manuscript page from Timbuktu showing a table of astronomical information

Mingana Islamic Arabic BOOK , Timbuktu 1563

Rise of the Mali Empire o f t h e M a n d e ( o r Mandinka) peoples in West Africa.. The Mali Empire was strategically located near gold mines and the agriculturally rich interior floodplain of the Niger River. This region had been under the domination of the Ghana Empire until the m i d d l e o f t h e 11 t h century.

Western Sudanic Empires: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (African Odyssey Interactive, Art's Edge, Kennedy Center): http: / /artsedge.kennedy-center.org/aoi /history/ao-guide.html#ancient

• The World of the Mande: History, Art and Ritual In the Mande Culture (People and Cultures of Africa: Anthropology 269, Franklin & Marshall College):http://www.fandm.edu/departments/Anthropology/Bastian/ANT269/man.html

• The Road to Timbuktu (PBS Online's Wonders of the African Worldwith Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 1999):http://www.pbs.org/wonders/fr_e5.htm

Timbuktu looking west, René Caillié (1830)

Timbuktunear the Niger River. An old center of Islamic culture, it was important because of its position on the trans-Saharan caravan route.

Established in the 11th century as a seasonal camp by Tuaregs, it became part of the Mali Empire by the 14th century and was a major trading center of the western Sudan. Famed for its gold trade, it came under the Songhai Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries and was a Muslim educational center of great renown.

SONGHAI EMPIRE

civilization characteristic

Highly DevelopedWAY of LIFE

i s a Wes t A f r i can h i s to r i an , storyteller, praise singer, poet and/or musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition and is often seen as a societal leader due to his traditional position as an advisor to royal personages.

In the MALI empire each aristocratic family of griots accompanied a higher-ranked family of warrior-kings or emperors, cal led jat ig i . In traditional culture, no griot can be without a jatigi, and no jatigi can be wi thout a gr io t ; the two are inseparable and worthless without the other. However, the jatigi can accept a "loan" of his griot to another jatigi.