Cultural Anthropology Sociology Ethnology \"Forest People\" African Congo Pygmies For Sale

The Forest People: A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo by Colin M. Turnbull.

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DESCRIPTION: Softcover: 295 pages. Publisher: A Touchstone Book published by Simon and Schuster; (1962). Dimensions: 8½ x 5½ x 1 inches; 1 pound.\"The Forest People\", a study of the BaMbuti Pygmies of the Congo, has become a classic work in the finest tradition of literate anthropology. Its author, Colin M. Turnbull, was at the time a young anthropologist and eventually Curator of African Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, lived with the BaMbuti for three years. He did so not as a clinical observer from the outside world, but as a friend learning their customs and sharing their daily life.

In this celebrated account, he describes their hunting parties and nomadic camps, their love affairs and ancient ceremonies - the molimo, in which they praise the forest as provider, protector, and deity; the elima, in which the young girls come of age; and the nkumbi circumcision rites, in which the villagers of the surrounding non-Pygmy tribes attempt to impose their culture on the Pygmies, whose forest home they dare not enter.

CONDITION: VERY GOOD. Lightly read oversized softcover. Touchstone Books (1983) 196 pages. The book appears to have been read lightly once, by someone with a very light hand, if read at all. Based on the tightness of the binding, it\'s possible it was merely flipped through a few times, perhaps read only partially. Pages are pristine; clean, crisp, unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, with no prominent \"reading wear\". From the outside the book does evidence some modest shelfwear. This is relegated to very minor edge and corner shelfwear to the covers, except for the fact that there is a long, half-formed vertical crease which runs most of the way up and down the back cover. It\'s only half-formed, not a heavy crease, as if the back cover was caught against another book and the cover was bent, but not folded over. Otherwise the exterior of the book is not unattractive. Though clearly this book lacks the \"sex appeal\" of a \"shelf trophy\", nonetheless it is a clear and presentable copy which remains firmly bound and still possesses \"lots of miles under the hood\"). Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING! Meticulous and accurate descriptions! Selling rare and out-of-print ancient history books on-line since 1997. We accept returns for any reason within 30 days! #1033a.

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PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.

PUBLISHER REVIEW:

REVIEW: Colin M. Turnbull\'s best-selling, classic work describes the author\'s experiences while living with the BaMbuti Pygmies, not as a clinical observer, but as their friend learning their customs and sharing their daily life. Turnbill conveys the lives and feelings of the BaMbuti whose existence centers on their intense love for their forest world, which, in return for their affection and trust, provides their every need. We witness their hunting parties and nomadic camps; their love affairs and ancient ceremonies \"The Forest People\" eloquently shows us a people who have found in the forest something that makes their life more than just living, a life that, with all its hardships and problems and tragedies, is a wonderful thing of happiness and joy.

PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS:

REVIEW: \"The Forest People\" adds an entirely new dimension to literature on primitive people. The book is constructed with great dexterity, so that the reader is carried along by the charm and movement of the narrative, almost unaware of the underpinning of arduous scientific field work that lies like bedrock below. The reader feels sheer delight in an entirely new world. [Margaret Mead]

REVIEW: [Harry Shapiro, Curator of Physical Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History] \"The Forest People\" is about the life of a Pygmy people living in the Ituri Forest of the Congo. Its author is an anthropologist. The book is exceptional. Most of the literature on the life of \"primitive\" people is in the form of fairly technical reports in which individuals are swallowed up by the abstractions and feeling is replaced by analysis. Consequentially you get little idea from these monographs of what it is like to lead the kind of life they describe, or what the people observed are really like as human beings.

One of the reasons why \"The Forest People\" is an exceptional book is because its author, Colin M. Turnbull, was an anthropologist who knew the Pygmies intimately from years of living among them. In this book he has fortunately chosen the unusual course of writing about them as individuals, as his friends, each with a personality of his own. From his knowledge of their culture and its adaptation to the conditions of an African rain forest, he is able to provide another dimension to their lives that the casual visitor might easily miss altogether. As a result the reader can enter into some understanding of the meaning of their lives and enjoy the exhilaration of participating in a culture other than his own.

READER REVIEWS:

REVIEW: I first read The Forest People when I was in college. I took an anthropology course, and I was absolutely enchanted by this book. First of all, do not fear that this book is written by an anthropologist using dry and boring language and by an absolutely objective thus unimpassioned observer. This is not a book filled with statistics and boring observations and theories. No, Turnbull described the life of the Mbuti pygmies with such color, exuberance, detail and a healthy dash of humour that you cannot help but just being entranced by this book.

You will learn of their daily lives, their hissy fits with each other, their methods of punishment, their relationship with the \"negro\" villagers whom they think are animals because they do not understand the forest. You will see their marriage rites, the rituals of the Molimo and the celebration of the Elima, when young pygmy girls are first \"blessed\" by menstrual blood. You will see the pygmies as individuals each with his or her own personality. Kenge the author\'s best friend, Moke an elderly and respected member of the Mbuti, Cephu the \"bad hunter\", beautiful Kidaya of the Elima, Kondabate the pygmy belle who filed her teeth like a shark\'s, flirtatious Akidinimba with her infamously huge bosoms, \"ugly\" Aberi, Kamaikan, Kelemoke and even Amina, the daughter of a sub-chief from a nearby village. You will get to know them and feel as if you have known them all your lives.

REVIEW: The Forest People is one of the best books ever written on anthropology. You can\'t help but think about how life, as simple as it seems for the Pygmies, is still filled with both joy and tribulations. I have read this book many times and every time it still has not lost its magic on me. This book was written in the 1960\'s. Turnbull has since passed away. I cannot help but think about what happened to all these wonderful people we meet in the book today. Did Kenge have any children since? Did Kondabate ever have a child? Did Akidinimba stayed married? I just wish that there\'s a sequel to this wonderful book.

REVIEW: This is an account first published in 1961, of a year (1956) spent by the author, anthropologist Colin Turnbull, among a clan of Pygmies of the Ituri Forest in Northwestern Belgian Congo (later Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo). I found it a fascinating read. It\'s fashionable, and all too easy, to pooh-pooh the work of anthropologists living amongst primitive tribes, but the author\'s done something that none of us have, and for that, and for the obvious love and respect that he felt for the pygmies with whom he lived, the work is worthy of respect.

What stands out most, for me, in the account is the essential common humanity of the pygmies. In their petty jealousies, rivalries, flirtations; in their practical joking, on each other and on the African villagers who view them as property, as much as the romanticized, spiritual world of the forest, I saw \"us\" reflected clearly. Some of the aspects that will stay with me include the double-edged relationship with the African negro \"villagers\", for whom the pygmies are a kind of property; one that supplies them with a less than reliable source of meat, honey and other forest foods, and occasionally labor - and who compel the pygmies to observe their initiation, marriage and funeral rites.

The pygmies on the other hand receive some food from the villagers\' plots, and steal more without compunction, and disappear into the forest for months when the whim takes them. Equally indelible were the spiritual forest rites, especially the men\'s kumamolimo, with its mysterious voice of the forest the molimo. Actually an instrument like an Australian aboriginal didgeridoo, normally made from a hollowed out tree. Turnbull is \"put out\" by the sacrilege of his clan using a 15-foot metal pipe for this purpose, which they proceed to demonstrate at first by blowing a \"long, raucous raspberry\", but is told quite firmly \"What does it matter what a molimo is made of? This one makes a great sound, and besides, it does not rot like wood.\"

The author explained that the first Turnbull was a borderland Scot who turned the head of a charging bull and saved the King, so the pygmies named him Eba-mu-nyama - literally, \"His father killed an animal\". A well-meaning European\'s attempts to convince some pygmy clans to settle and farm cleared land on the edge of the forest - where they died at a high rate from exposure to the sun. The tears of a mother when Turnbull showed her daughter, crippled by hip dysplasia, how to walk using crutches. All in all a fascinating account of a world that was then, and still is under threat. I\'ve written this in the present tense - hopefully that\'s not entirely in vain.

REVIEW: This was a fantastic book. I had to read it for my Ethnology class and fell in love with the MaButi Pygmies. Turnbull does a great job of explaining the lives of the \"forest people.\" His few years with the Pygmies are portrayed in this book. It is enchanting and amusing. I would recommend it to anyone.

This ethnography of the Mbuti Pygmy of Africa\'s Ituri forest is a fabulously romantic piece, and a refreshing look at a people that have suffered from exploitation and the image of being hopelessly primitive. The late Dr. Turnbull uses reflexivity and a particularly observant eye to capture his subjects in time and offer up this portrait to his readers. As such, the book\'s appeal is undeniable.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

ANCIENT AFRICA III: Islam in Africa: Following the conquest of North Africa by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century AD, Islam spread throughout West Africa via merchants, traders, scholars, and missionaries, that is largely through peaceful means whereby African rulers either tolerated the religion or converted to it themselves. In this way, Islam spread across and around the Sahara Desert. In addition, the religion arrived in East Africa when Arab traders crossed the Red Sea and, in a second wave, settled along the Swahili Coast. Military campaigns did occur from the 14th century AD against the Christian kingdoms of Nubia, for example, while in the 18th century AD the Muslim Fulani launched a holy war in the Lake Chad region. There were also sometimes violent resistance by supporters of traditional African beliefs such as animism and fetish, spirit and ancestor worship.

Nevertheless, for at least six centuries Islam spread largely peacefully and gradually wherever there were trade connections with the wider Muslim world of the southern Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The religion was not adopted uniformly, and neither did it maintain its purity of origin, very often existing alongside traditional practices and rituals. With the religion came other ideas, too, especially those concerning administration, law, architecture, and many other aspects of daily life. It is perhaps worth noting at the start that the spread of Islam in Africa was much more than the passing on and adoption of religious ideas. As the UNESCO General History of Africa summarizes, unlike many other faiths: “Islam is not only a religion: it is a comprehensive way of life, catering for all the fields of human existence. Islam provides guidance for all aspects of life - individual and social, material and moral, economic and political, legal and cultural, national and international. It is thus perhaps more comprehensible, given the above, why so many African rulers and elites were ready to adopt a foreign religion when it also brought with it definite advantages of governance and wealth.”

Islam spread from the Middle East to take hold across North Africa during the second half of the 7th century AD when the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 AD) of Damascus conquered that area by military force. From there, it spread via Islamized Berbers (who had been variously coerced or enticed to convert) in the 8th century AD along the trade routes which crisscrossed West Africa, moving from the east coast into the interior of central Africa, finally reaching Lake Chad. Meanwhile, the religion also spread down through Egypt and swung westwards through the Sudan region below the Sahara Desert. A third wave brought the religion to Africa\'s eastern shores, the Horn of Africa and the Swahili Coast, directly from Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

Once the religion had reached the savannah region which spreads across Africa below the Sahara Desert, it was adopted by ruling African elites, although very often indigenous beliefs and rituals continued to be practiced or were even blended with the new religion. As Muslim traders penetrated deeper into Africa so the religion spread from one empire to another, taking hold first at Gao in 985 AD and then within the Ghana Empire (6th-13th century AD) from the late 10th century AD. From there, the religion spread eastwards to the Mali Empire (1240-1645 AD) and the Songhai Empire (about 1460 - about 1591 AD). With the adoption of Islam by the rulers of the Kingdom of Kanem (about 900 - about 1390 AD) between the 11th and 13th century AD and Hausaland from the late 14th century AD, the religion\'s encirclement of Africa below the Sahara Desert was complete.

In East Africa, Islam faced stiff competition from Christianity which was firmly entrenched in Nubia and states such as the Kingdoms of Faras (aka Nobatia), Dongola, and Alodia, and in the Kingdom of Axum (1st - 8th century AD) in what is today Ethiopia. It was not until the 14th century AD and military intervention from the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt (1250-1517 AD) that these Christian kingdoms became Muslim, the exception being the Kingdom of Abyssinia (13th-20th century AD). In addition, two important Muslim states in the Horn of Africa were the Sultanates of Adal (1415-1577 AD) and Ajuran (13-17th century AD). Aside from genuine spiritual conviction, African leaders may have recognized that adopting Islam (or seeming to) would be beneficial to trade.

Islam had more immediate success further south on the Swahili Coast. From the mid-8th century AD, Muslim traders from Arabia and Egypt began to permanently settle in towns and trading centers along the Swahili coast. The local Bantu peoples and Arabs mixed, as did their languages, with intermarrying being common, and there was a blending of cultural practices which led to the evolution of a unique Swahili culture. Islam was more firmly established from the 12th century AD when Shirazi merchants arrived from the Persian Gulf. As the historian P. Curtin puts it: \"The Muslim religion ultimately became one of the central elements of Swahili identity. To be a Swahili, in later centuries, meant to be a Muslim\" (125). Islam was a success on the coast but it made no impact at all on peoples living in the interior of East Africa until the 19th century AD.

There were other challenges besides the Christians of Nubia. There were many who vehemently held on to their traditional beliefs in the face of this new religion. Another group which fought against the tide of Islam were the Mossi people, who controlled the lands south of the Niger River and who attacked such cities as Timbuktu in the first half of the 15th century AD. Then the Christian Portuguese arrived in Africa on both the West and East coasts where they challenged the spread of Islam. Where the Europeans traded extensively such as on the western coast of Africa states like the Kingdom of Kongo (14-19th century AD) became Christian, and from the 16th century AD, Islamic domination of the Swahili coast was challenged.

Aside from genuine spiritual conviction, African leaders may have recognized that adopting Islam (or seeming to) or at the least tolerating it would be beneficial to trade. The two spheres of Islam and trade are closely intertwined, as here explained in the UNESCO General History of Africa: “The association of Islam and trade in sub-Saharan Africa is a well-known fact. The commercially most active peoples, the Dyula, Hausa and Dyakhanke, were among the first to be converted when their respective countries came into contact with Muslims. The explanation of this phenomenon is to be found in social and economic factors. Islam is a religion born in the commercial society of Mecca and preached by a Prophet who himself had for a long time been a merchant, provides a set of ethical and practical prescripts closely related to business activities. This moral code helped to sanction and control commercial relationships and offered a unifying ideology among the members of different ethnic groups, thus providing for security and credit, two of the chief requirements of long-distance trade.

However, in the Ghana Empire, for example, there is no evidence that kings themselves converted to Islam, rather, they tolerated Muslim merchants and those from Ghana who wished to convert. Ghana\'s capital at Koumbi Saleh was, significantly, divided into two distinct towns from the mid-11th century AD. One town was Muslim and boasted 12 mosques while the other, just 10 km away and joined by many intermediate buildings, was the royal residence with many traditional cult shrines and one mosque for visiting merchants. This division reflected the continuance of indigenous animist beliefs alongside Islam, the former being practiced by rural communities.

In contrast, in the Mali Empire, the kings did convert to Islam, the first certain case being Mansa Uli (aka Mansa Wali or Yerelenku), who went on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the 1260s or 1270s AD. Many subsequent rulers followed suit, most famously Mansa Musa I (ruled 1312-1337 AD) who visited Cairo and Mecca and brought back to Mali Muslim scholars, architects, and books. Mosques were built such as Timbuktu\'s Great Mosque (aka Djinguereber or Jingereber), and Koranic schools and universities were established which quickly gained an international reputation. One noted Timbuktu scholar was the saint Sharif Sidi Yahya al-Tadilsi (died about 1464 AD) who became the patron saint of the city. A clerical class developed, many of whose members were of Sudanese origin, and many frequently acted as missionaries, spreading Islam into the southern parts of West Africa.Many native converts studied & became scholars, missionaries, & even saints, & so Islam came to be seen no longer as a foreign religion but a black African one.

As more people were converted, so more Muslim clerics were attracted from abroad and the religion was spread further across West Africa. Many native converts studied in such places as Fez, Morocco, and became great scholars, missionaries, and even saints, and so Islam came to be seen no longer as a foreign religion but a black African one. Finally, Muslim clerics often made themselves very useful to the community in practical daily life (and so they increased the appeal of Islam) by offering prayers on request, performing administrative tasks, offering medical advice, divining - such as the interpretation of dreams, and making charms and amulets.

Another motivation for rulers to adopt Islam besides greater riches with which to impress their people and hold on to power was that a new dynasty may have been bolstered in its claims of legitimacy by also adopting a new religion. This could well be the most important factor in the Kingdom of Kanem\'s adoption in the late 11th century AD. Adopting Islam permitted, too, the exchange of diplomatic embassies with North African states, as well as the possibility to send scholars for training, both of which brought the sub-Saharan states, in particular, into contact with the wider Mediterranean world and increased the prestige of rulers. Yet another appeal of Islam was that it brought literacy, a tremendously useful tool for empires who built their wealth on trade.

Rulers were not always so keen to adopt Islam, King Sunni Ali of the Songhai Empire (ruled 1464-1492 AD), for example, was vehemently anti-Muslim, but King Mohammad I (ruled 1494-1528 AD) did convert, and he imposed Islamic law on his people and appointed qadis (Islamic magistrates or judges) as heads of justice at Timbuktu, Djenne, and other towns. As in Ghana and Mali, though, the rural populace of Songhai remained stubbornly loyal to their traditional beliefs. As noted, ancient indigenous beliefs continued to be practiced, especially in rural communities, as recorded by travelers like Ibn Battuta who visited Mali about 1352 AD. In addition, Islamic studies were, at least initially, conducted in Arabic, not native languages, and this further impeded its popularity outside the educated clerical class of towns and cities.

Even the Islam that did take hold was a particular variation of that practiced in the Arab world, perhaps because African rulers could not afford to completely dismiss the indigenous religious practices and beliefs that the majority of their people still clung onto and which very often elevated rulers to divine or semi-divine status. Even on the Swahili Coast, which adopted Islam with perhaps more success than anywhere else, many converts continued the practice of appeasing spirits who brought illness and other misfortunes. Ancestors continued to be worshipped, in some cities women enjoyed better rights than they did under strictly sharia law, and, in a very un-Islamic practice, cemeteries were filled with tombs where precious goods were buried with the dead.

Islam had profound effects on all aspects of daily life and society but these did vary over time and place. The coming of Islam saw a general decline in the status of certain groups in ancient African communities. One of the chief losers were the metalworkers who had always enjoyed a mystical reverence from ordinary people because of their skills in forging metal. The same applies to those who found and mined such precious metals as gold and iron. In contrast, an association with Islam sometimes brought a certain prestige, a point seen most clearly in the re-recording of community histories and foundation myths to include the arrival of a founder from the East. It is also true that in some cases oral traditions maintained their cultural integrity, and thus we are presented with a parallel history such as seen in the biographies of Sundiata Keita (ruled 1230-1255 AD), the founder of the Mali Empire, who in written history converted to Islam but in oral tradition was a great magician of the indigenous religion.

Men and women\'s roles sometimes changed, some African communities having previously given women a more equal status with men than was the case under Muslim laws. Some African societies were matrilineal, and these changed to a patrilineal system. More superficial changes included the changing of names to those favored by Muslims. Often such names were adapted to suit African languages, for example, Muhammad became Mamadu and Ali was Africanized to Aliyu. Clothing changed, too, with women, in particular, encouraged to dress more modestly and adolescents to cover their nudity. Islamic architecture spread with the religion with mosques being built wherever there were worshippers. However, just like the religion itself, there were minor local differences. Mosques on the Swahili Coast, for example, had neither the minarets or inner courtyard typical of mosques elsewhere in the Islamic world.

There were several technical innovations that came with Islam such as writing, numbers, mathematics, measurements and weights. Not only did Muslim scholars and missionaries visit and stay in African communities but also Muslim travelers and chroniclers like Ibn Battuta and Ibn Khaldin (1332-1406 AD) who made invaluable observations and records of African life in the medieval period. These writers, along with archaeology, have helped enormously in the reconstruction of ancient Africa following the European colonial period where every attempt was made to obliterate the history of the continent lest it conflict with the racist belief that Africa had long been waiting to be civilized. [Ancient History Encyclopedia].

The Gold Economy: West Africa was one of the world\'s greatest producers of gold in the Middle Ages. Trade in the metal went back to antiquity but when the camel caravans of the Sahara linked North Africa to the savannah interior, the trade really took off. A succession of great African empires rose off the back of the gold trade as salt, ivory, and slaves were just some of the commodities exchanged for the precious metal that eventually found its way into most of southern Europe\'s gold coinage. Gold attracted unwanted attention and competition, too, with the Portuguese the first to exploit West Africa\'s coastal resources from the 15th century AD, and in their wake followed others. The discovery of the Americas and the gold of the Aztecs and Incas only gave West Africa a temporary respite as European colonial powers then returned to the continent as their chief source of slaves to work on the plantations of the New World.

The trade of gold in West Africa goes back to antiquity with one of the earliest examples being the voyage of the Carthaginian explorer Hanno in the 5th century BC. The celebrated mariner sailed out of the Mediterranean and, turning south, stopped off at the mouth of the Senegal River before sailing on and perhaps even reaching as far the Bay of Guinea. Hanno was followed by other countrymen, and commercial relations were established with the locals. Thus, West African gold found its way from the trading post/island of Cerne (unidentified but on the Atlantic coast) northwards to the ancient Mediterranean cultures for the first time. The 5th-century BC Greek historian Herodotus describes in his Histories that gold was traded on the West African coast using a silent and cautious method of barter - perhaps understandable given the language barrier and mutual fear between unfamiliar peoples:

“The Carthaginians tell of a place in Libya outside the Pillars of Hercules [Straits of Gibraltar] inhabited by people to whom they bring their cargoes. The Carthaginians unload their wares and arrange them on the beach; then they reboard their boats and light a smoky fire. When the native inhabitants see the smoke, they come to the shore and, after setting out gold in exchange for the goods, they withdraw. The Carthaginians disembark and examine what the natives have left there, and if the gold appears to them a worthy price for their wares, they take it and depart; if not, they get back on their boats and sit down to wait while the natives approach again and set out more gold, until they satisfy the Carthaginians that the amount is sufficient.”

The Romans were also interested in what Africa\'s interior had to offer and they employed cross-Saharan traders to exchange olive oil, fine pottery and luxury goods for commodities such as gold, ivory, ebony and exotic animals for shows in the amphitheatres and circuses. Roman Tripolitania in modern-day Libya, became a particularly successful trading city on this basis. However, it would not be until the 8th century AD and the twin arrival of the North African Islam caliphates and the hardy camel that trans-Saharan trade really took off and with it the boom in the gold trade.

The Islamic North African empires of the medieval period had an insatiable demand for gold because it was needed not only for making precious manufactured goods (e.g. jewelry, vessels, embroidered clothing and illuminated manuscripts) but also to mint coinage to pay armies. Traditional Islamic teachings might have forofferden men to wear gold but a few coins in one\'s pocket was especially useful for soldiers of no fixed abode. The Islamic sensitivity to the metal is also evidenced by the fact that jewelry work was most often done by Jewish craftsmen once it reached the North African cities. In addition, gold was needed to pay the growing number of Spanish, Italian, and other European merchants who traded in the southern Mediterranean. Much of that gold then ended up as coinage in such places as Castille, Genoa, Florence, and Venice from the late 13th century AD. The Ghana Empire became famous for its gold, earning itself the nickname the \'land of gold.\'

The great problem for the North African states was that to obtain the gold of West Africa they had to first cross the Sahara Desert and then deal with the African rulers who monopolized the gold trade. Consequently, camel caravans controlled by Sanhaja Berbers and the Tuareg came into their own as a means to cross the dangerous and inhospitable Sahara and acquire the precious metal from Africa\'s interior and bring it back to such cities as Marrakesh, Fez, Tunis, and Cairo. This they did with great success and, at the trade\'s peak, two-thirds of the gold moving around the medieval Mediterranean came from West Africa.\'

One of the first sub-Saharan states in West Africa to gain attention in the wider medieval world was the Ghana Empire (6-13th century AD), located in modern-day southern Mauritania and Mali. The empire became famous for its gold, earning itself the nickname the \'land of gold.\' The metal came from goldfields in Ghiyaru, Galam, and Bure on the upper Niger River (modern Guinea), and via traders who brought it from the goldfields of Bambuk at the meeting of the Falem and Senegal Rivers. Gold was largely found in alluvial deposits where it was easily panned to find gold dust and grains or in veins in relatively shallow mines. Mine shafts were typically only a few meters deep and produced a mere 2.5 to 5 grammes of gold each so thousands of shafts were dug in a single gold-bearing area. Most gold was not refined - although its purity was high anyway - but was melted down to cast it into convenient bars for transportation.

The most common commodity that gold was used to purchase was salt, a mineral that was always in great demand in order to better preserve dried meat and to give added taste to food. The Savannah region south of the western Sahara desert (known as the Sudan region) and the forests of southern West Africa were poor in salt. Camel caravans brought great slabs of rock salt to the south across the Sahara from such natural deposits as found at Idjil, Awlil, and Taghaza, and took gold back in the other direction as well as other valuable goods like ivory and slaves. Certain towns grew rich on the gold-salt trade. In the 11th century AD, a 90-kilo block of salt, transported by river from Timbuktu to Djenne (aka Jenne) in the south could double its value and be worth around 450 grams of gold. By the time the salt was passed on down to the southern forests of lower West Africa, the mineral could be literally worth its weight in gold.

Although there is no evidence that, unlike salt and copper, the trade or passage of gold was taxed in the Kingdom of Ghana, the commodity was very carefully controlled by the Ghana kings. Any nugget which weighed between 25 grammes and half a kilo (1 oz to 1 lb) became the property of the king who kept a great stockpile in his palace complex. Rather than an example of sheer avarice, this strategy was likely employed in order not to flood the market and so maintain the value of gold dust. Sizeable chunks of the metal had an association with magic which was another reason for the king to keep them as he was regarded as the supreme magician of the indigenous African religion before Islam came along (and sometimes even after it). One Arab writer, Muhammad al-Idrisi (1100-1165 AD), noted that one king had amongst his collection a single block of gold weighing over 13.5 kilos (30 pounds).

This royal monopoly of nuggets meant that the vast majority of gold which exchanged hands between traders and ordinary people in the Ghana kingdom was in the form of gold dust. This golden powder was carefully measured out, typically using small scales and glass weights. Gold dust and sometimes wire were used as a currency in some states but only rarely, and there is no archaeological evidence that sub-Saharan states ever minted their own gold coinage. Rather, the most common purpose of gold was for barter for imported goods. The other use was for decoration and could be seen in all manner of objects, especially, of course, those used by royalty such as regalia, shields, swords, jewelry, clothing, and even dog chains and collars.

The Mali Empire (1240-1645 AD) gained access to new goldfields on the Black Volta (modern-day Burkina Faso) and in the Akan Forest (modern-day Ghana), and its kings became even wealthier than their regional predecessors in the Ghana Empire. Mali probably did not directly control the southern gold-bearing regions but, rather, extracted from them the precious metal as tribute. Mali\'s most famous ruler was Mansa Musa I (1312-1337 AD). Having converted to Islam, Mansa Musa duly went off on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 AD. When he stopped off at Cairo en route in July of that year, the king\'s wealth in gold caused an absolute sensation. In some accounts, Mansa Musa\'s caravan included 100 camels which carried 135 kilos (300 pounds) of gold dust while 500 slaves each brandished a 2.7 kilo (6 pounds) gold staff. After straight away giving 50,000 gold dinars to the sultan of Egypt merely as a gesture of goodwill between two great rulers, Mansa Musa would subsequently give away so much gold and his entourage spend so much of it shopping in the markets of the city that the value of the gold dinar in Cairo crashed by 20% (in relation to the silver dirham); it would take 12 years for the flooded gold market to recover.

Although Mansa Musa kept the exact source of his gold a closely-guarded secret, news spread far and wide that this exotic ruler was perhaps the richest man in the world. Even in Spain, a mapmaker was inspired to create Europe\'s first detailed map of West Africa about 1375 AD, and on it, Mansa Musa is depicted wearing a golden crown and holding a gold staff and nugget in each hand. The consequent stories of a city paved in gold somewhere in the heart of Africa, the fabled Timbuktu, would tantalize many an explorer and adventurer for the next four centuries. The Mali Empire\'s successor as the most powerful state in West Africa was the Songhai Empire (about 1460 - about 1591 AD). The Songhai, continuing the tried-and-tested wealth accumulation method of trading sub-Saharan commodities and extracting tribute from conquered tribes, established the largest and richest empire yet seen in West Africa. However, things took a turn for the worse in 1471 AD when a Portuguese fleet, sponsored by the Lisbon merchant Fernão Gomes, sailed around the Atlantic coast of Africa and established a trading presence near the gold fields of southern West Africa. In addition, other kingdoms arose to compete with the Songhai for a share of the gold trade, especially to the west the Bornu Empire (1396-1893 AD) near Lake Chad, Hausaland (about 1400 - about 1800 AD) between the Niger River and Lake Chad, and, in the south, the Kingdom of Benin (13-19th century AD) in modern-day Nigeria.

The Portuguese ships which now regularly sailed down the Atlantic coast of Africa offered West African forest peoples a middle-man-free alternative to the trans-Saharan caravan routes. The Portuguese were especially keen to obtain gold because they needed it to pay merchants in Asia who were not so keen on exchanging goods in kind. There was still, though, plenty of gold travelling northwards through the Songhai Empire and onto North Africa but the African monopoly of the trade was now at an end. In the 15th century AD, West Africa was producing 10% of the world\'s gold. On average, some 400-550 kilos a year were being handled by the Portuguese alone in the 1500s AD. Not surprisingly, European powers began to show an interest, such as England, France, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Fortifications were built, not to defend the Europeans from the native Africans but from each other. In short, it seemed that West Africa had exactly what everyone else most wanted: slaves and gold.

West African gold continued to be exploited after the medieval period as European powers competed for whatever they considered of value in the continent. The gold extracted from West Africa, though, was dwarfed by that extracted from the New World, the Inca civilization and Aztec civilization, in particular. European powers were also now far more interested in acquiring slaves than gold, many of them destined to work in the plantations of the Americas. West Africa was not finished with gold, though, and kept producing it using much the same simple methods as had always been employed. The modern state of Ghana, formerly known as the Gold Coast, gained independence from Britain in 1961 AD, and the introduction of new mining technology meant that it once more played a major role in the international gold markets. For a while, Ghana ranked 5th in the world in terms of annual gold production. Already in the mid-19th century AD, though, attention had turned elsewhere for new sources of the precious metal. Australia became a major source of gold from 1851 AD, and from 1898 AD South Africa became the world\'s biggest producer of gold, a position only relatively recently challenged and overtaken by China, Russia, the United States, Canada, and Peru [Ancient History Encyclopedia].

African Nok Culture: The Nok culture, named after the settlement of the same name, flourished in southern West Africa (modern Nigeria) during the Iron Age from the 5th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Famous for the distinctive terracotta sculptures of human heads and figures, Nok was the first known culture in West Africa to produce such art and perhaps the first sub-Saharan culture to perfect iron-smelting technology. Located east of the Niger River and north of the Benue River in what is today northern and central Nigeria, the Nok culture is named after the town where the first artefacts were discovered. These were mostly fragmentary sculptures, buried under some 8 meters (26 ft) of sand and earth, which were tossed up during local mining operations for tin in the first half of the 20th century AD. The Nok culture prospered thanks to iron-smelting technology which permitted the manufacture of iron tools. Nok culture provides the earliest example of iron-smelting technology in sub-Saharan Africa which may have come from Carthage to the north or, perhaps more likely given the formidable barrier of the Sahara desert, from Nubia in the east. It may even have been an indigenous invention but, unfortunately, there is very little evidence to support any of the three theories above the other two. Wherever the ideas came from, it permitted Nok to jump straight from the Stone Age to the Iron Age and skip the Bronze Age stage that is typical of developments elsewhere.

The remains of perhaps 13 iron-smelting furnaces were discovered at Taruga alone (55 km southeast of Abuja). Durable iron tools such as hoes, hand-axes and cleavers were put to good use to boost agricultural efficiency. Nok farmers were able to grow cereals like sorghum and such vegetables as pumpkins (which were represented in terracotta). Excavations at Taruga revealed the oldest known Nok culture settlement, inhabited between the 4th and 2nd century BC according to radiocarbon data off charcoal found within the iron furnaces. Despite the arrival of iron technology, stone tools were still used, particularly larger tools, a fact which suggests that metal was always a rare commodity. Nok housing consisted of wattle and daub huts, which do not survive well, but many were built on a foundation consisting of a ring of stones, and these do survive in situ. Archaeology continues in the 21st century AD in the region and is pushing back the time period of the Nok culture, perhaps as early as 900 BC.

The Nok culture spread through central Nigeria, perhaps covering an area as large as 78,000 square kilometers (30,000 square miles) or approximately the area of Portugal. There are, however, regional differences in both the types of tools and pottery made at various Nok sites. Finds of iron arrow- and spearheads would suggest, too, that life was not always peaceful amongst the Nok and with their rival tribes. The reason for the Nok Culture\'s decline around 200 AD is not known but is evidenced by a sharp drop in pottery production. The usual culprits may have been overexploitation of natural resources, a period of adverse climate change, civil wars, the arrival of rival kingdoms or a combination of all four. The Nok culture produced sculptures of human heads and figures of humans and animals in terracotta, the earliest such sculpture produced in sub-Saharan Africa. Near life-size terracotta heads were often part of a fuller figure but this portion has usually been lost. Indeed, most terracottas were damaged upon discovery and had been displaced by water action so that their original context is difficult to determine.

When a hollow terracotta figure is fired in an oven, the gases and water vapor which build up and expand within it can cause a figure to crack or even shatter completely. A solution is to make vent holes in the figure and Nok potters did this but with an artistic flare. The eyes, mouth, nostrils, and earholes were all given natural-looking apertures and so the overall aesthetic effect of the figure was not compromised. In contrast to the larger sculptures, smaller figurines are solid. Figures were carved to give features and linear decoration, seemingly when the clay had partially hardened but before firing. Many full figures are seated or standing on a base which represents an upside-down pot. A common posture is a seated figure with one arm resting on one raised knee (as in Auguste Rodin\'s celebrated \'The Thinker\' sculpture). A number of figures carry weapons, but most seem to represent participants in rituals as they sometimes wear particular clothing and almost always a great deal of beaded jewelry and pendants not likely to have been worn every day. Male figures typically have a short square beard and curious moustaches which only grow at the corners of the mouth. There are also a number of figures which are neither human nor purely animals but an imaginative mix of the two. For example, there are humans with a bird-like beak, tail, and legs, and the head of an elephant with very human eyes and forehead.

Nok pottery vessels included shallow bowls with flat bottoms which were decorated on the inside with deeply scored lines, although the scoring may have been to permit the bowl to function as a grater. Chemical analysis of the clay from all Nok pottery shows that it came from the same source (as yet unknown) and so suggests that the industry may have been centralized and under royal control. Nok art, and culture in general, may well have influenced later cultures in the Niger River forest areas, notably Igbo-Ukwu (at its zenith in the 9th century AD) and Ife (11-15th century AD). Certainly, the discovery of the fine artworks produced by the Nok culture provided a helpful precedent that convinced any lingering doubters that the works of those later cultures were indeed that of indigenous black Africans. As archaeology makes its slow and methodical additions to our knowledge and extends the time periods of key West African cultures, then perhaps the at-present tentative links between them will be more firmly established [Ancient History Encyclopedia].

.African Axum: The African kingdom of Axum (also Aksum), located on the northern edge of the highland zone of the Red Sea coast, just above the horn of Africa, was founded in the 1st century AD, flourished from the 3rd to 6th century AD, and then survived as a much smaller political entity into the 8th century AD. The territory Axum once controlled is today occupied by the states of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, and Somaliland. Prospering thanks to agriculture, cattle herding, and control over trade routes which saw gold and ivory exchanged for foreign luxury goods, the kingdom and its capital of Axum built lasting stone monuments and achieved a number of firsts. It was the first sub-Saharan African state to mint its own coinage and, around 350 AD, the first to officially adopt Christianity. Axum even created its own script, Ge\'ez, which is still in use in Ethiopia today. The kingdom went into decline from the 7th century AD due to increased competition from Muslim Arab traders and the rise of rival local peoples such as the Bedja. Surviving as a much smaller territory to the south, the remnants of the once great kingdom of Axum would eventually rise again and form the great kingdom of Abyssinia in the 13th century AD.

The name Axum, or Akshum as it is sometimes referred to, may derive from a combination of two words from local languages - the Agew word for water and the Ge\'ez word for official, shum. The water reference is probably due to the presence of large ancient rock cisterns in the area of the capital at Axum. The region had certainly been occupied by agrarian communities similar in culture to those in southern Arabia since the Stone Age, but the kingdom of Axum began to prosper from the 1st century AD thanks to its rich agricultural lands, dependable summer monsoon rains, and control of regional trade. This trade network included links with Egypt to the north and, to the east, along the East African coast and southern Arabia. Wheat, barley, millet, and teff (a high-yield grain) had been grown with success in the region at least as early as the 1st millennium BC while cattle herding dates back to the 2nd millennium BC, an endeavor aided by the vast grassland savannah of the Ethiopian plateau. Goats and sheep were also herded and an added advantage for everyone was the absence of the tropical parasitic diseases that have blighted other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Wealth acquired through trade and military might was added to this prosperous agricultural base and so, in the late 1st century AD, a single king replaced a confederation of chiefdoms and forged a united kingdom that would dominate the Ethiopian highlands for the next six centuries. The kingdom of Axum, one of the greatest in the world at that time, was born.

The kingdom of Axum really started to take off around 350 AD. Axum had already established some form of dominance over Yemen (then called Himyar) in southern Arabia as well as Somalia in the southeast and several smaller tribes to the southwest. Subjugated tribes, although left semi-autonomous, had to pay tribute, typically in the form of hundreds of heads of cattle (as indicated by Axumite inscriptions). This perhaps gave some slight justification to the Axum rulers now calling themselves by the rather grand title Negusa Negast or \'king of kings.\' Details of the Axum government and how this absolute monarch controlled conquered tribes over the centuries are lacking but the title \'king of kings\' would suggest conquered rulers were permitted to continue to reign over their own peoples. In the mid-4th century AD, Nubia (formerly known as Kush and located in modern Sudan), with its capital at Meroe, attacked Axum from the north (or vice-versa), perhaps because of a dispute over control of the region\'s ivory trade. The Axum king Ezana I (ruled about 303-350 AD) responded with a large force, sacking Meroe. Once mighty Nubia, already in serious decline and weakened by overpopulation, overgrazing and deforestation, was soon toppled and broke up into three separate states: Faras, Dongola, and Soba. This collapse left the way clear for Axum to dominate the region.

Another period of great Axum expansion came during the reign of Kaleb I in the first quarter of the 6th century AD. The kingdom came to occupy a territory about 300 kilometers in length and 160 kilometers across; not so large perhaps, but its control of trade goods was the key, not geography. Rulers were keen, too, to indulge in a spot of imperialism across the Red Sea in Yemen in an effort to completely control the many trading vessels that sailed down the Straits of Bab-al-Mandeb, one of the busiest sea stretches in the ancient world. Raids had been made in Yemen in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, but it was the 6th century AD which saw a major escalation in Axum ambitions. The king of Yemen, Yusuf As\'ar Yathar, had been persecuting Christians since 523 AD, and Kaleb, who himself then ruled over a Christian state, responded by sending a force to Yemen in about 525 AD. This invasion was supported by the Byzantine Empire with whom Axum had long-established diplomatic ties (whether the support was merely diplomatic or material is not agreed upon by scholars). Victorious, the Axum king was able to leave a substantial garrison and install a viceroy which ruled the region until the Sassanids arrived in 570 AD.

The city of Axum (sometimes called Axumis) is located at an altitude of over 2,000 meters (6800 ft) in the north of the Ethiopian highlands (in the modern province of Tigray), close to the River Tekeze, a tributary of the Nile. The city, occupied from the 1st century AD, was both the capital and a ceremonial center which included many stone monuments. Some such monuments are very similar to Egyptian obelisks, although curiously, the granite stone is sometimes worked to resemble architectural features of dry-stone and timber Axumite buildings. Many of these stelae are around 24 meters (78 ft) in height, although one fallen and now broken example is 33 meters (108 feet) in total length and 520 tons in weight, making it the largest monolith ever to have been transported anywhere in antiquity. The stelae were likely transported on log rollers from a quarry 4.8 km (3 miles) away. Almost all were used as tomb markers and many have a carved stone throne next to them, often covered in inscriptions. Other remains of stone structures include three palace-like buildings which once had towers - each with stone pillared basements, royal tombs with massive walls creating separate chambers, water cisterns, irrigation channels, and two- or three-story buildings used as residences by the Axum elite. Most large structures were built on a stepped granite base composed of dressed blocks, with access provided by monumental staircases, usually consisting of seven steps. Stone lion-head gargoyles often provided roof drainage.

Stone structures used clay instead of mortar, with a decorative effect achieved by alternating projecting and recessed blocks. Wood was used between stone layers for horizontal support in walls, for doorways, window frames, floors, roofs, and in ceiling corners to give extra structural support. The decoration on many of buildings at Axum and the motifs used in Axumite art in general such as the astral symbols of disc and crescent are evidence of influence from South Arabian cultures across the Red Sea (although the influence may have been in the opposite direction). The capital also had dedicated areas for craft workshops and, from the late 4th century AD, many churches. Gold (acquired from the southern territories under the kingdom\'s control or from war booty) and ivory (from Africa\'s interior) were Axum\'s main exports - the Byzantines, in particular, could not get enough of both - but other goods included salt, slaves, tortoiseshell, incense (frankincense and myrrh), rhino horns, obsidian and emeralds (from Nubia). These goods went to the kingdom\'s seaport of Adulis (modern Zula and actually 4 km from the sea), carried to the coast by camel caravans. There they were exchanged for goods brought by Arab merchants such as Egyptian and Indian textiles, swords and other weapons, iron, glass beads, bronze lamps, and glassware. The presence of Mediterranean amphorae at Axum sites indicates that such goods as wine and olive oil were also imported. That Axum trade was booming is evidenced by the finding of the kingdom\'s coinage at such far-flung places as the eastern Mediterranean, India, and Sri Lanka.

In the mid-4th century AD, the king of Axum, Ezana I, officially adopted Christianity. Prior to that, the people of Axum had practiced an indigenous polytheistic religion which was prevalent on both sides of the Red Sea with some local additions such as Mahram, god of war, upheaval, and monarchy, who was the most important Axumite god. Other notable gods included the moon deity Hawbas, Astar, the representation of the planet Venus, and the chthonic gods Beher and Meder. Such gods, as well as ancestors, had sacrifices made in their honor, especially cattle - either living animals or votive representations of them. Traders and Egyptian missionaries had brought Christianity to the region during the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD, and the official acceptance by Aksum may have occurred because the kingdom had important trade connections to the North African provinces of the Roman Empire, which itself had adopted Christianity a couple of decades earlier. Indeed, there were many trade and diplomatic connections directly between Constantinople and Axum, and it is probable that this passage of individuals to and fro also introduced Christianity into Ethiopia. It is important to note, though, that the more ancient indigenous religious beliefs likely carried on for some time, as indicated by the careful wording of rulers\' inscriptions so as not to alienate that part of the population which did not accept Christianity.

According to traditional accounts, it was Frumentius, a 4th-century AD shipwrecked traveler from Tyre, who introduced Christianity to the kingdom. Frumentius gained employment as a teacher to the royal children, and then he became treasurer and advisor to the king, probably Ella Amida. When Ella Amida was succeeded by his son Ezana I, whom Frumentius had even greater sway over given that he had been his childhood tutor, the king was persuaded to adopt Christianity. Frumentius next travelled to Alexandria to receive an official title from the Patriarch there in order to aid his missionary work, then he returned to Axum and became the first bishop of the kingdom. The dates of exactly when all this happened are wildly different depending on one\'s ancient source and range from 315 to 360 AD, with the latter end of that range being the more likely according to modern scholars. Frumentius was later made a saint for his efforts in spreading the Gospel in East Africa.

The form of Christianity at Aksum was similar to that adopted in Coptic Egypt, indeed, the Patriarch of Alexandria remained a strong figurehead in the Ethiopian Church even when Islam arrived in the region from the 7th century AD. Churches were built, monasteries founded, and translations made of the Bible. The most important church was at Axum, the Church of Maryam Tsion, which, according to later Ethiopian medieval texts, housed the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark is supposed to be still there, but as nobody is ever allowed to see it, confirmation of its existence is difficult to achieve. The most important monastery in the Axum kingdom was at Debre Damo, founded by the 5th-century AD Byzantine ascetic Saint Aregawi, one of the celebrated Nine Saints who worked to spread Christianity in the region by establishing monasteries. From the 5th century AD the rural population was converted, although, even in cities, some temples to the old pagan gods would remain open well into the 6th century AD. The success of these endeavors meant that Christianity would continue to be practiced in Ethiopia right into the 21st century AD.

The area which Axum would later occupy used an Arabian type script from the 5th century BC called Sabaean (a Semitic language then used in Southern Arabia). Greek was also used in some inscriptions. The kingdom of Axum had its own writing system, the earliest examples of which are found on sheets of schist rock slabs which date to the 2nd century AD. This script, called Ge\'ez or Ethiopic, resembles Sabaean but had gradually evolved into a quite distinct script which included characters for vowels and consonants and which was read from left to right. The Ge\'ez script is still used today in modern Ethiopia. Another example of Axum\'s tendency to profitably mix ideas from different cultures can be seen in the kingdom\'s coinage, the first sub-Saharan kingdom to have its own mint. The gold and silver coins of Axum, which appeared from the 3rd century AD onwards, have Greek inscriptions, Sabaean religious symbols, and they were minted adhering to Roman standard weights. The most common material of the thousands of Axum coins discovered is bronze. Coins and their legends are often our only information on Axum\'s various kings, 20 in total. A portrait of the king is usually accompanied by two ears of corn and, from the reign of Ezana I, a Christian cross. Legends include the name of the king, his title and an uplifting phrase, for example, \'Peace to the People\' and \'Health and Happiness to the People.\'

In the arts, Axum potters produced simple red and black terracotta wares but without using a wheel. Wares are usually matt in finish, and some are coated with a red slip. Forms are simple cups, bowls, and spouted jugs. Decoration of geometric designs was achieved using incisions, painting, stamps, and added three-dimensional pieces. By far the most common decorative motif is the Christian cross. There seems not to have been either the inclination or know-how to produce the finer wares which Axum imported from Mediterranean cultures. No large-scale statues have been discovered from the kingdom but there are stone bases. One example has indentations for feet carved into it with each foot space measuring 90 cm (35 inches) which would make the standing figure three-times life-size. An inscription on the base indicates that there once stood a large metal figure on it, probably of a divinity. The same inscription mentions other statues of gold and bronze. The stone thrones found near stelae may also have had seated metal statues on them. Small scale figurines abound and these depict nude females and animals. Unfortunately, the impressive stone chamber tombs of the kingdom were all looted in antiquity and only broken fragments of precious materials and pieces of storage chests and boxes indicate what has been lost to posterity.

The kingdom of Axum went in decline from the late 6th century AD, perhaps due to overuse of agricultural land or the incursion of western Bedja herders who, forming themselves into small kingdoms, grabbed parts of Aksum territory for grazing their cattle and who persistently attacked Axum\'s camel caravans. In addition, the policy of Axum\'s kings to allow conquered tribal chiefs a good deal of autonomy often backfired and permitted some of them to have the means to launch rebellions. Ultimately, Axum would pay dearly for its lack of any real state administrative apparatus. Finally, there was from the early 7th century AD stiff competition for the Red Sea trade networks from Arab Muslims. The heartland of the Axum state shifted 300 km (186 miles) southwards to the cities of Lalibela and Gondar. As a consequence of the decline, by the late 8th century AD the old Axum Empire had ceased to exist. The city of Axum fared better than its namesake kingdom and never lost its religious significance. The territory of the kingdom of Axum would eventually develop into the medieval kingdom of Abyssinia with the founding of the Solomonid dynasty about 1270 AD, whose kings claimed direct descent from the Biblical King Solomon and Queen of Sheba.

The Ghana Empire: The Ghana Empire (6th to 13th century AD) was the first major political power in West Africa to create an empire based on military might and the wealth gained from regional trade. Not geographically connected to modern-day Ghana but located to the northwest, the empire was in serious decline by the end of the 12th century AD. Beset by civil wars, rebellions of subjugated chiefdoms, and poor harvests, the empire began to disintegrate with a large part of its territory taken over by the kingdom of Sosso (aka Susu). When the Sosso king Sumanguru (aka Sumaoro Kante, ruled from about 1200 AD), imposed trade restrictions on the Mali region, the native Malinke (Mandingo) tribe rose in rebellion.

Sundiata Keita (aka Sunjaata or Sundjata, ruled 1230-1255 AD) was a Malinke prince, whose name means \'lion prince\', and he waged war against the kingdom of Sosso from the 1230s AD. Sundiata formed a powerful alliance of other disgruntled chiefs tired of Sumanguru\'s harsh rule and defeated the Sosso in a decisive battle at Krina (aka Kirina) in 1235 AD. In 1240 AD Sundiata captured the old Ghana capital. Forming a centralized government of tribal leaders and a number of influential Arab merchants, this assembly (gbara) declared Sundiata the supreme monarch and gave him such honorary titles as Mari Diata (Lord Lion). The name Sundiata gave to his empire, Africa\'s largest up to that point, was Mali, meaning \'the place where the king lives\'. It was also decreed that all future kings would be selected from the Keita clan, although the title was not necessarily given to the eldest son of a ruler, which sometimes led to fierce disputes among candidates.

The Mansa, or king, would be assisted by an assembly of elders and local chiefs throughout the Mali Empire\'s history, with audiences held in the royal palace or under a large tree. The king was also the supreme source of justice, but he did make use of legal advisors. In addition, the king was helped by a number of key ministers such as the chief of the army and master of the granaries (later treasury), as well as other officials like the master of ceremonies and leader of the royal orchestra. Nevertheless, the Mansa acted as a supreme monarch and monopolized key trade goods, for example, only he was permitted to possess gold nuggets, traders had to make do with gold dust. The king had certain mystical qualities attributed to him, and all slaves were exclusively loyal to him. No person had the right to be in the king\'s presence when he ate, for example, and all visitors before him had to be barefoot and bow down and pour dust over their heads. Such was this cult of leadership and the extreme centralization of government in a single figure that the fortunes of the empire rose and fell depending on the talents or lack of them possessed by a particular king.

These problems of governance were yet to come, though, and Sundiata would continue to expand his territory to include the old kingdoms of Ghana, Walata, Tadmekka, and Songhai. Niani, now no longer in existence but probably located on a plain near the all-year-round navigable Sankarani River, was selected as the empire\'s capital. It was protected by mountains and was close to the two key sources of trade goods: forests and waterways. Tribute was acquired from conquered chiefdoms, although many local chiefs were permitted to continue to rule their own people but with a Mali-appointed governor to assist them, often backed by a garrison. Additional guarantees of loyalty included taking royal hostages and keeping them at the capital. This federation prospered, developing over the next century into one of Africa\'s richest ever empires whose wealth would astound both Europe and Arabia. Further, and perhaps more important for the ordinary people of Mali, foreign visitors noted the high degree of justice they saw, the safety with which one could travel from place to place, and the abundance of food in all villages.

The Kingdom of Benin: The Kingdom of Benin, located in the southern forests of West Africa (modern Nigeria) and formed by the Edo people, flourished from the 13th to 19th century AD. The capital, also called Benin, was the hub of a trade network exclusively controlled by the king or oba and which included relations with Portuguese traders who sought gold and slaves. Benin went into decline during the 18th century AD as the kingdom was racked by civil wars, and it was ultimately conquered by the British in 1897 AD. The region of southern West Africa was introduced to (or developed itself) iron-working technology from at least the 9th century AD. With better tools to use in agriculture, crop yields improved. Peoples of the rain- and dry forest belt which runs across the southern part of West Africa made clearings for their villages and successfully grew crops such as yams, bananas, and oil palm kernels. The kingdom prospered thanks to regional trade with Benin seemingly acting as a middle-man trader with other kingdoms. The Kingdom of Ife, located in today\'s Nigeria like the Kingdom of Benin, flourished between the 11th and 15th century AD. The kingdom produced many fine cast bronzes, especially expressive sculptures of human heads. Ife had perhaps been influenced by the earlier Nok Culture (5th century BC to 2nd century AD) and Igbo-Ukwu (at its zenith in the 9th century AD).

In Benin oral traditions, it was the king of Ife who sent a master craftsman southwards to Benin in the late 13th century AD to spread his sculptural skills, and this may reflect the historical movement of iron-working Yoruba peoples in the territory of the Edo in Benin. The Edo tradition also states that it was they who invited Prince Oranmiyan of Ife to rule them and it is his son, Eweka, who became the first king of Benin. As the art historian, P. Garlake states, \"The myths and traditions of the city of Benin point to Ife as the origin of kingship and brass casting\" (139). Points of similarity between the art of the two cultures include the use of a leopard in connection with death and snakes, such as those which entwine the gables of the Benin palace and a relief from Ife. Archaeology, however, has yet to establish any firm connection between these states which successively dominated the southern portion of West Africa above the Bight of Benin.

The Kingdom of Benin was located near the southern coast of West Africa in a region which is today southern Nigeria (the modern state of Benin is further along the coast to the west and named after the Bight of Benin). The territory is a mix of rainforest, dry forest, and mangrove swamp. Formed in the 13th century AD as a state proper, the Kingdom of Benin was populated by the Kwa-speaking Edo people and covered at its peak an area of some 400 kilometers (250 miles) in length and 200 kilometers in width. The heartland was a circle around the capital, also called Benin, extending some 60 kilometers in all directions and was ruled directly by the king. Next came an outer band of territory governed by royal princes and finally a third ring of tribes which offered tribute to but were not directly ruled by the king of Benin.

The kingdom prospered thanks to regional trade with Benin seemingly acting as a middle-trader between other kingdoms, passing on goods which it did not produce itself such as cotton and semi-precious stone beads. Other goods exchanged between West African peoples included fish, salt, yams, and cattle, to name a few. Such was the well-established nature of these trade relations, there is evidence of native currencies being used which took the form of manillas (heavy horseshoe-shaped bracelets), wiring and rods all made from metals like copper, brass, and bronze. There is also evidence that cowrie shells - which came via Persia and the Maldives - were used as a currency in Benin before direct European contact, a fact which points to trade with northern African savannah kingdoms who would have acquired them via land trade routes. Benin traded with the Portuguese, who established a 30-year presence at Ughoton from 1487 AD.

From around 1450 AD Portuguese ships were sailing down the Atlantic coast of Africa and offering an alternative to the trans-Saharan caravan routes and those trade networks between Africa\'s interior kingdoms. From 1471 AD, these ships were accessing the aptly-named Gold Coast in the south of West Africa in search of the gold that had provided such wealth for the Mali Empire (1240-1645 AD) and Songhai Empire (about 1460 - about 1591 AD). Suddenly, the southern peoples of West Africa, who had been at the very end of the trade chain which started in Europe and then went through North Africa, the Sahara, and the West African savannah, now found themselves at the opposite end of a booming maritime trade as ships landed directly from Europe. Benin was not a coastal state but it did maintain contacts there via the port of Ughoton on the Benin River.

During the 15th and 16th centuries AD, Benin traded with the Portuguese, who established a 30-year presence at Ughoton from 1487 AD. The Europeans were interested in beads, cotton cloth, ivory, and slaves, which they could then trade on to other West African peoples in exchange for what they prized most of all: gold and pepper (the only two goods in demand in Europe). West African tribes sought, too, the fine cotton cloth of India, glass beads, and cowrie shells which the Portuguese brought to Africa. Benin must also have had an insatiable demand for copper and leaded bronze, needed to make the brass for their famous sculptures. The king of Benin imposed strict control on his kingdom\'s trade, creating a royal monopoly. Indeed, the king clearly had a strong bargaining position with the Europeans because he prohibited the sale of male slaves after 1516 AD because he needed them for his own army.

In 1514 AD the king of Benin initiated diplomatic relations with the Portuguese government by sending an embassy to Europe, seemingly with the motive of negotiating a shipment of firearms to be sent to his kingdom. The Portuguese were not inclined to arm a potential enemy and instead sent a number of Christian missionaries to try, as had been attempted elsewhere in Africa, to convert the ruler and thus his people to Christianity. The king remained loyal to his traditional beliefs, and although some churches were built and a few Africans did convert, the project to spread Christianity was largely abandoned for what it was, a flimsy veil of decency to hide the Portuguese policy of stripping the land of all valuables as quickly and cheaply as possible. Neither were there any attempts made to install any kind of administrative apparatus, an ambition which was, in any case, severely hampered by the high mortality rates of Europeans once they encountered local diseases. It would only be from the 19th century AD that European missionaries really started to attack indigenous beliefs in West Africa.

The kings of Benin had the title of oba and were considered to have a divine right to rule. The king not only controlled all trade with outsiders but also personally owned the vast majority of high-value goods in the kingdom such as leopard skins, pepper, coral, and ivory. Many rulers are commemorated in Benin art. Ivory masks, intended to be worn at the hip of rulers, show kings with crowns and necklaces of human heads, perhaps Europeans, and signifying either the oba\'s monopoly over trade or his dominance over foreigners. Kings often feature in the brass plaques that adorned the palace of Benin where they appear as warrior leaders. They can be identified by symbols of their rank such as leopard-spot scarification marks and leopard-tooth necklaces. The leopard was an appropriate symbol for the oba since the animal was considered the \'King of the Bush\' and only the king was permitted to kill one, typically done in an annual sacrifice by the king for his own honor. Other royal symbols seen in depictions of Benin kings are a helmet with coral embellishments and mask ornaments worn around their waists, which are white, a color symbolic of both purity and the king\'s counterpart in rule, Olokun, the god of the sea and source of wealth and fertility. Just like gods and the spirits of ancestors, the kings received offerings and sacrifices, including human ones, after their death.

Perhaps Benin\'s greatest king was Ewuare the Great (ruled 1440-1473 AD) who was regarded not only as a great warrior but also a powerful magician. He is credited with overseeing a period of particular prosperity and expanding the kingdom to its greatest area but is also charged with murdering his brother and establishing the role of oba as an absolute monarch. Ewuare formed the system of government which would persist for the rest of the duration of the Kingdom of Benin. The king was advised by a group of titled and hereditary chiefs and another group of chiefs appointed by the king to govern specific towns. In addition, Ewuare created the convention that a king\'s eldest son would inherit the throne from his father. The English naval officer Thomas Windham visited Benin in 1553 AD, and his account of the court of the Benin king is as follows: “…the king sat in a huge hall [with nobles] cowering…upon their buttocks with their elbows upon their knees and their hands before their faces, not looking up until the king command them…”

The city of Benin, the capital of the kingdom, is located some 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the coast and to the west of the Niger River. Excavations at the city have revealed that it was once surrounded by high earthworks but, as there are many gaps, it is not thought that these were for a defensive purpose. The walls may have served to demarcate different kin groups within the capital, all loyal to the king but each having their own outlying farmland. The city would have been further divided into districts for craftworkers who belonged to guilds. The king, his court and the palace were both the political and spiritual heart of the kingdom of Benin. The palace had many courtyards and several galleries with wooden pillars to support the roof. Attached to these pillars were the brass plaques which are considered one of the high-points of West African art from any period.

The sculptures produced in Benin using brass (although often termed \'bronzes\') have become world famous for their execution and artistry. Production boomed from the end of the 15th century AD with the arrival of the Portuguese who brought great quantities of brass for trade. The lost-wax technique was used from this period (as opposed to smithing prior to the 16th century AD) to produce sculptures of all kinds, but one particular specialty was plaques. Rectangular and around 45 centimeters in height, these panels show figures in high relief, very often of warriors and rulers. Originally attached to wooden pillars in the royal palace of Benin, many of the plaques commemorate historical conflicts, show scenes of life at court and Benin religious rituals.

Besides plaques, Benin artists produced life-size brass sculptures of heads, small but full human and animal figures, and ceremonial bells. Ivory was another medium that Benin craftworkers favored, carving it into the hip masks mentioned above and also extremely ornate and intricate boxes, combs and armlets. As already mentioned, masks were carved from ivory to be worn around the waist of kings, and a magnificent pair survive, one now in the British Museum London and the other in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. Both masks may depict Idia, the mother of King Esigie who ruled in the 16th century AD. It is likely, too, that many Benin sculptors worked with wood, but this material hardly ever survives very long in Africa due to the ravages of climate and insects. The artists of Benin were not averse to producing works specifically for the Portuguese market either, carving such items as ivory salt cellars with European horse riders or casting brass soldiers bearing muskets, all with a uniquely African twist.

Decline & Later HistoryOther European nations besides the Portuguese became interested in West Africa by the late 16th century AD, including the British, French, and Dutch. Britain, determined to loosen the Benin kings\' grip on trade, conquered the kingdom in 1897 AD, which had already been severely weakened by a long series of dynastic disputes and civil wars. However, the kings were not displaced entirely and descendants of Benin\'s royal dynasty still hold the title of oba today as they perform an advisory function to the government of Nigeria. The name Benin lives on, too, as it was revived by the French colony of Dahomey when it declared independence in 1975 AD and became the Republic of Benin [Ancient History Encyclopedia].

The Mali Empire: The Mali Empire (1240-1645 AD) of West Africa was founded by Sundiata Keita (ruled 1230-1255 AD) following his victory over the kingdom of Sosso (about 1180-1235 AD). Sundiata\'s centralized government, diplomacy and well-trained army permitted a massive military expansion which would pave the way for a flourishing of the Mali Empire, making it the largest yet seen in Africa. The reign of Mansa Musa I (1312-1337 AD) saw the empire reach new heights in terms of territory controlled, cultural florescence, and the staggering wealth brought through Mali\'s control of regional trade routes. Acting as a middle-trader between North Africa via the Sahara Desert and the Niger River to the south, Mali exploited the traffic in gold, salt, copper, ivory, and slaves that crisscrossed West Africa. Muslim merchants were attracted to all this commercial activity, and they converted Mali rulers who in turn spread Islam via such noted centers of learning as Timbuktu. In contrast to cities like Niani (the capital), Djenne, and Gao, most of the rural Mali population remained farmers who clung to their traditional animist beliefs. The Mali Empire collapsed in the 1460s AD following civil wars, the opening up of trade routes elsewhere, and the rise of the neighboring Songhai Empire, but it did continue to control a small part of the western empire into the 17th century AD.

The Sudan region of West Africa where the Mali Empire would develop had been inhabited since the Neolithic period as evidenced by Iron Age tumuli, megaliths, and remains of abandoned villages. The Niger River regularly flooded parts of this dry grassland and savannah, which provided fertile land for agriculture beginning at least 3,500 years ago, an endeavor greatly helped by the region\'s adequate annual rainfall. Cereals such as red-skinned African rice and millet were grown with success, as were pulses, tuber and root crops, oil and fiber plants, and fruits. Fishing and cattle herding were other important sources of food, while local deposits of copper were exploited and used for trade. Similarly, gold was probably locally mined or panned and then traded, but concrete evidence from this period is lacking. When the Sosso king Sumanguru imposed trade restrictions on the Mali region, the native Malinke tribe rose in rebellion.

Like its political predecessors, the Mali Empire prospered thanks to trade and its prime location, situated between the rain forests of southern West Africa and the powerful Muslim caliphates of North Africa. The Niger River provided ready access to Africa\'s interior and Atlantic coast, while the Berber-controlled camel caravans that crossed the Sahara desert ensured valuable commodities came from the north. The Mali rulers had a triple income: they taxed the passage of trade goods, bought goods and sold them on at much higher prices, and had access to their own valuable natural resources. Significantly, the Mali Empire controlled the rich gold-bearing regions of Galam, Bambuk, and Bure. One of the main trade exchanges was gold dust for salt from the Sahara. Gold was in particular demand from European powers like Castille in Spain and Venice and Genoa in Italy, where coinage was now being minted in the precious metal.

Timbuktu, founded about 1100 AD by the nomadic Tuaregs, was a semi-independent trade port which had the double advantage of being on the Niger River bend and the starting point for the trans-Saharan caravans. The city would be monopolized and then taken over by the Mali kings who made it into one of the most important and most cosmopolitan trade centers in Africa. Through Timbuktu there passed such lucrative goods as ivory, textiles, horses (important for military use), glassware, weapons, sugar, kola nuts (a mild stimulant), cereals (e.g. sorghum and millet), spices, stone beads, craft products, and slaves. Goods were bartered for or paid using an agreed upon commodity such as copper or gold ingots, set quantities of salt or ivory, or even cowry shells (which came from Persia).

After a string of seemingly lackluster rulers, the Mali Empire enjoyed its second golden era during the reign of Mansa Musa I in the first half of the 13th century AD. With an army numbering around 100,000 men, including an armored cavalry corps of 10,000 horses, and with the talented general Saran Mandian, Mansa Musa was able to maintain and extend Mali\'s empire, doubling its territory. He controlled lands up to the Gambia and lower Senegal in the west; in the north, tribes were subdued along the whole length of the Western Sahara border region; in the east, control spread up to Gao on the Niger River and, to the south, the Bure region and the forests of what became known as the Gold Coast came under Mali oversight. The Mali Empire thus came to include many different religious, ethnic, and linguistic groups.

To govern these diverse peoples, Mansa Musa divided his empire into provinces with each one ruled by a governor (farba) appointed personally by him and responsible for local taxes, justice, and settling tribal disputes. The administration was further improved with greater records kept and sent to the centralized government offices at Niani. With more tribute from more conquered chiefs, more trade routes under Mali control, and even more natural resources to exploit, Mansa Musa and the Mali elite became immensely rich. When the Mali king visited Cairo in 1324 AD, he spent or simply gave away so much gold that the price of bullion crashed by 20%. Such riches set off a never-ending round of rumours that Mali was a kingdom paved with gold. In Spain about 1375 AD, a mapmaker was inspired to create Europe\'s first detailed map of West Africa, part of the Catalan Atlas. The map has Mansa Musa wearing an impressive gold crown and triumphantly brandishing a huge lump of gold in his hand. European explorers would spend the next five centuries trying to locate the source of this gold and the fabled trading city of Timbuktu.

Islam spread through parts of West Africa via the Arab merchants who traded there. Noted Muslim travelers and chroniclers like Ibn Battuta (1304 - about 1369 AD) and Ibn Khaldin (1332-1406 AD) recorded that even Mali\'s first ruler Sundiata converted to Islam. However, the Malinke oral tradition, which was kept up over the generations by specialized bards (griots), presents a different story. Although recognizing Islam was present in Mali long before Sundiata\'s reign, the oral tradition maintains that the first ruler of the Mali Empire did not reject the indigenous animist religion. We do know that Sundiata\'s son, Mansa Uli (aka Mansa Wali or Yerelenku), went on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the 1260s or 1270s AD, and this would be a continuing trend amongst many of Mali\'s rulers. Islam in West Africa really took off, though, from the reign of Mansa Musa I. He famously went to Mecca and, impressed with what he saw on his travels, Mansa Musa brought back home Muslim architects, scholars, and books. Mosques were built such as Timbuktu\'s \'Great mosque\' (aka Djinguereber or Jingereber), and Koranic schools and universities were established which quickly gained an international reputation. Studies were actually much wider than religion and included history, geography, astronomy, and medicine. Great libraries were built up with tens of thousands of books and manuscripts, many of which survive today.

As more people were converted, so more Muslim clerics were attracted from abroad and the religion was spread further across West Africa. Many native converts studied in such places as Fez, Morocco, and became great scholars, missionaries, and even saints, and so Islam came to be seen no longer as a foreign religion but a black African one. Despite the spread of Islam, it is also true that ancient indigenous animist beliefs continued to be practiced, especially in rural communities, as noted by travelers like Ibn Battuta who visited Mali about 1352 AD. In addition, Islamic studies were conducted in Arabic not native languages, and this further impeded its popularity outside the educated clerical class of towns and cities. Even the Islam that did take hold in Mali was a particular variation of that practiced in the Arab world, perhaps because Mali rulers could not afford to completely dismiss the indigenous religious practices and beliefs that the majority of their people clung on to.

The buildings of the Mali Empire, some of which like the Sankore mosque in Timbuktu still stand, are one of the most recognizable features of the region and have become international symbols of Africa\'s rich pre-colonial history. Mali architects had a distinct disadvantage because of the rarity of stone in the region, and for this reason, buildings were typically constructed using beaten earth (banco) reinforced with wood which often sticks out in beams from the exterior surfaces. Despite the limited materials, the mosques, in particular, are still imposing multi-storied structures with towers, huge wooden doors, and tiered minarets. Other large buildings included warehouses (fondacs) which were used to store goods before they were transported elsewhere and which had up to 40 apartments for merchants to live in. Other examples of the Mali baked-mud buildings which impress today, although many are early 20th-century AD reconstructions, include the huge mosques at Mopti and Djenne.

On a smaller scale, excavations at Niani have revealed the remains of houses and their stone foundations, confirming later sources that the richer members of society built stone houses. Arab chroniclers describe another type of domestic building, which was constructed using beaten earth bricks and with ceilings made of wooden beams and reeds, the whole formed into a conical roof. Flooring was made using earth mixed with sand. The Malinke had a rich tradition of recounting legends and community histories orally by specialized story-tellers know as griots. These stories, passed down from generation to generation (and continuing today), were often accompanied by music. During the Mali Empire, there were even songs reserved for certain people who alone had the right to have them sung in their honor, this was especially so for renowned warriors and hunters. Music was also an important part of religious festivals when masked dancers performed.

Pottery and sculpture were produced, as they had been at noted centers like Djenne since the 9th century AD. Sculptures are generally up to 50 cm tall and made of solid pottery but sometimes with a reinforcing iron rod interior. Wood and brass were other popular materials for sculpture and, to a lesser degree, stone. Decoration is typically incised, painted, or achieved by adding three-dimensional pieces. Subjects include human figures, especially bearded warriors riding a horse but also many kneeling or crouching figures with upturned faces. Figures are often realistic portrayals of ordinary people, sometimes showing symptoms of tropical diseases. Although it is rare for artworks of this period to come with a certain provenance obtained from professionally excavated sites, the sculptures are so numerous that it seems likely many were used as everyday decorative objects as well as for ritual or burial purposes.

The Mali Empire was in decline by the 15th century AD. The ill-defined rules for royal succession often led to civil wars as brothers and uncles fought each other for the throne. Then, as trade routes opened up elsewhere, several rival kingdoms developed to the west, notably the Songhai. European ships, especially those belonging to the Portuguese, were now regularly sailing down the west coast of Africa and so the Saharan caravans faced stiff competition as the most efficient means to transport goods from West Africa to the Mediterranean. There were attacks on Mali by the Tuareg in 1433 AD and by the Mossi people, who at that time controlled the lands south of the Niger River. Around 1468 AD, King Sunni Ali of the Songhai Empire (ruled 1464-1492 AD) conquered the rump of the Mali Empire which was now reduced to controlling a small western pocket of its once great territory. What remained of the Mali Empire would be absorbed into the Moroccan Empire in the mid-17th century AD [Ancient History Encyclopedia].

African Wolof Empire: The Wolof (aka Jolof or Djolof) Empire was a state on the coast of West Africa, located between the Senegal and Gambia rivers, which thrived from the mid-14th to mid-16th century AD. The empire prospered on trade thanks to the two rivers providing access to the resources of the African interior and coastal traffic, commerce which included gold, hides, ivory, and slaves, and which was often carried out with European merchants, notably the Portuguese and then the French. Following the break-up of the Wolof Empire in the 16th century AD, a smaller state persisted, the Wolof Kingdom, into the 19th century AD. The Wolof language is still widely spoken today in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania. The Wolof as a people inhabited, from the 1st millennium BC, the area between the Senegal River in the north and the Gambia River in the south. This West African region is often called Senegambia and covers what is today Senegal, Gambia, and southern Mauritania. Language and pottery both suggest that the ancestors of the Wolof had originally migrated here from central or eastern Africa. They fished, grew wet rice, and herded cattle, sheep, and goats (and later, pigs). They used iron for tools, pottery, and jewelry. The people of this area of West Africa also set up megalithic monuments and burial markers. Circles were formed some 8 meters (26 ft.) in diameter using stones up to 4 meters in height.

The Wolof eventually became the most powerful tribe south of the Senegal River. This territory had once been under the nominal control of the Mali Empire (1240-1465 AD) after a successful campaign of expansion by Tiramaghan, a general of Sundiata Keita (ruled 1230-1255 AD), the Mali king. The relationship between the two states is unclear, but the Wolof seem to have at least acknowledged the Mali kings as the main West African power. Wolof\'s independence can be seen in the succession of their first king or burba, the semi-legendary Ndiadiane N\'diaye, traditionally placed in the 13th century AD but more likely to have been in the second half of the 14th century AD. In any case, civil wars, attacks from tribes such as the Mossi people and the shift of lucrative trade routes, meant that the Mali kings slowly lost their grip on the outer regions of their empire. Around 1468 AD, King Sunni Ali (ruled 1464-1492 AD) of the Songhai Empire (about 1460 - about 1591 AD) then conquered the rump of the ailing Mali Empire.

The Songhai were only present south of the Gambia River, and this permitted the Wolof in the north to exploit one of the few vacant areas the Songhai Empire did not control in West Africa (either through direct occupation or the enforcement of tribute). By the end of the 15th century AD, the Wolof Empire consisted of the three Wolof-speaking kingdoms of Cayor (Kajoor), Walo (Waalo) and Baol (Bawol), and states populated by speakers of Serer such as Sine and Salum. Eventually, the Wolof kings expanded into the Malinke territory north of the Gambia River which included the states of Nyumi, Badibu, Nyani, and Wuli. Consequently, the Wolof kings came to rule the whole of Senegambia, although this state may better be described as a confederacy of tribute-paying kingdoms rather than an empire proper (as it is often called).

The Wolof Empire was a major participant in the slave trade, exporting as much as one-third of all African slaves prior to 1600 AD. This trade declined in the 17th century AD as Senegambia became a thoroughfare of slaves from the interior of central Africa rather than a source of them. Thanks to the mighty Senegal River, which extends hundreds of kilometers into Africa\'s interior, the Wolof were in a position to trade all manner of goods besides slaves, and these included hides, cotton textiles, gum, ivory, kola nuts, salt, horses, indigo, and beeswax. The Wolof also had their own manufacturers to transform raw materials into even more valuable goods. Wolof goldsmiths and filigree workers enjoyed an especially high reputation across West Africa. The major commodity traded through Wolof territory was, though, none of the above; it was gold. The precious metal, so beloved by the Europeans who were beginning to take a serious interest in Africa south of the Sahara, come from the inland Bambuk goldfields and eventually found its way to the coast. The Portuguese began trading up and down the coast of West Africa in the mid-15th century AD. The adventurer Diogo Gomes established trade relations with the Wolof in 1455 AD, and trade blossomed between the two powers. Gifts were exchanged between the king of Portugal, John II (ruled 1481-1495 AD) and the Wolof, and Christian missionaries were received.

The trade with the Portuguese become so lucrative through the 1480s AD that the Wolof king, Burba Birao, even shifted his capital nearer to the coast. However, not everyone was happy with the welcoming of missionaries, and traditionalist princes led a revolt which toppled Burba Birao in 1489 AD. Birao\'s brother, Prince Bemoi, was forced to flee the country, but he was given a splendid welcome in Lisbon where he was even baptised. By 1490 AD, the Portuguese were ambitious to control directly trade goods, and particularly gold, from their source in Africa\'s interior. They sent a military expedition against the Wolof king and backed Prince Bemoi to take the throne. The expedition, despite involving 20 caravel ships, proved a failure because of disease and a serious disagreement between the pretender and his European backers, which led to the former\'s death. Thereafter, the Portuguese remained within their fortified trading posts along the coast as trade continued through the 16th century AD.

Portuguese contact at least gives us some information on the Wolof state. We know that the king was elected by a council of elders from candidates who belonged to a certain ancestry, most likely the actual founder of the Wolof state. Some members of this council were rulers of the individual states within the Wolof confederacy. Wolof society was hierarchical with several distinct classes. The royal family was at the top, then non-royal nobles (often the children of secondary wives and concubines of royalty), and free men. The latter category was further divided into castes depending on a man\'s occupation such as blacksmiths, jewelers, tailors, griots (epic storytellers), and musicians. At the bottom of society were slaves taken during wars and raids in neighboring territories, and who were themselves divided into strata with skilled slaves at the top and unskilled agricultural laborers at the bottom. There was also a class of military slaves, the ceddo, which the elite used to enforce the payment of tribute and police other slaves. The religion of the elite, at least nominally, was Islam due to its spread by Berber traders, clerics and missionaries. In contrast, most of the ordinary population remained close to their traditional animist beliefs.

In the last quarter of the 16th century AD another major power arrived in the region: France. The French traders brought with them such highly desirable items as textiles from northern France, spirits, metal goods, pepper, palm oil, and firearms. The Portuguese soon lost their trade advantage, especially as the export of the much-in-demand firearms to Africa was prohibited by the Portuguese crown. Consequently, the French gained control of such towns as Gorée, Portudal, Joal, and Rufisiique, all in Wolof territory. The European\'s presence was such that populations in the urban areas along the Atlantic coast eventually became mixed African and French, as seen at, for example, the port of Saint Louis. By the end of the 16th century AD, the English and the Dutch were also a significant trading presence in the region as the gold and slaves of Africa proved just as irresistible to them as the French and Portuguese.

Trade might have been booming but the Wolof Empire itself began to disintegrate as early as the mid-16th century AD, breaking up into a number of successor states which included what is today referred to as the Wolof kingdom. This initial break-up was likely caused by the coastal towns growing so rich on trade that they sought to break away from the central Wolof monarchy. Indeed, these provinces were the first to claim their independence. The Wolof were also weakened by the rise of the militaristic Fulani, first led by Koli Tengella (about 1512-1537 AD), who set up his state in Futa Toro, a territory around the middle section of the Senegal River. The group of now disparate states in Senegambia, split between speakers of Wolof and Serer, was composed of Waalo, Cayor, Bawol, Siin, Saalum and the Wolof kingdom (unfortunately for it, the only one without access to the coast). Despite the political upheaval, though, the Senegal River remained what it always had been: a vital thoroughfare into and out of Africa\'s interior. The small kingdoms saw their rulers establish lucrative monopolies on the trade of such high-value goods as slaves and firearms. Indeed, the region was siphoning off so much trade previously controlled by the North African states and their middlemen the Saharan Berbers that the latter\'s marabout or religious leader, Nasir al-Din (ruled 1644-1674 AD) launched a holy war in 1673 AD.

As the UNESCO General History of Africa Vol. V summarizes: “The proclamation of war…was motivated by both economic and religious considerations, to reconquer the trade in grain and slaves and to convert the peoples and purify the practice of Islam…From being the religion of a minority caste of merchants and courtiers in the royal courts, it was becoming a popular resistance movement against the arbitrary power of the ruling autocracies and against the noxious effects of the Atlantic trade.” Consequently, with the support of the people and those already converted to Islam, the war resulted in the sweeping away of the ruling elite in many of the successor kingdoms of the Wolof Empire. The new regimes became Muslim theocracies but they did not last long. With the death of Nasir al-Din in 1674 AD, numerous defeats, and the French intervening in support of the kingdoms, the Berbers were pushed back and the holy war fizzled out. The successor kingdoms, far from taking this as a timely reminder of their weakness as small competing states, continued to bicker and fight amongst themselves. Popular movements rallied around the idea to spread Islam, and the kingdoms, beset by other problems such as a series of famines, disintegrated as political entities by the beginning of the 18th century AD.

The Wolof people were still actively involved in the coastal trading in the mid-18th century AD but the region became increasingly dominated by the French from the early 19th century AD as they and other European powers now took direct control through military conquest of the parts of Africa that interested them. The Wolof language, however, far outlasted the empire or kingdom and is today the official language in Senegal (along with French) and is widely spoken in several other West African states [Ancient History Encyclopedia].

Great Zimbabwe: Between 850 BC and 1600 AD, great civilizations thrived in Africa, yet few non-Africans have learned about them. While some may be familiar with the achievements of ancient Egypt, most of our knowledge of African history is tainted by the legacy of colonialism, racism and prejudice. As Europeans engaged in the scramble for Africa between the 17th and 19th centuries AD, they established systems that disrupted the oral traditions that preserved Africa\'s history, and they created their own narratives that justified their occupation of Africa\'s lands and their enslavement of its people. To reinforce these narratives, some European historians and archaeologists ignored or manipulated the evidence of great African civilizations all around them. Their goal was to uncover proof of a lost white tribe whose time in Africa pre-dated the existence of black Africans, thus, establishing their rightful claim to the territories they were colonizing. The legacy of these endeavors is a series of stereotypes and misunderstandings about the continent and its people, including the erroneous belief that Africans have no history.

While great strides have been made to uncover the true history of Africa, the impact of colonial prejudice still lingers. Some of the clearest illustrations of this impact can be found when we examine the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, and the historians, archaeologists, explorers and colonialists who tried to deny its true history. Today, the ruins of Great Zimbabwe are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an important symbol of the history of the modern nation of Zimbabwe. Located on a high plateau between the Limpopo River in the south and the Zambezi River in the north, the stone ruins include a palace, a cone-shaped tower and several circular enclosures. The original builders, the ancestors of the Shona people, carved the stone bricks so expertly that they did not need to use mortar. The ruins are largely intact, and they have been isolated from the modern-day threats of pollution and urbanization. The location still has spiritual significance for the Shona, and some of the ruins still play a role in religious ceremonies.

It is believed that Great Zimbabwe was originally the capital of a powerful and prosperous kingdom. The structures that make up the ruins were likely built between the 11th and 15th century AD by the Shona, a Bantu-speaking tribe that originally migrated to southern Africa in the 2nd century AD. Through the Swahili trading ports on Africa\'s east coast, Great Zimbabwe obtained goods from all over the world. The kings of Great Zimbabwe controlled thousands of kilometers of territory, but they did not conquer their lands with a massive army. The king of Great Zimbabwe received his authority to govern from his special connection to the spirits of deceased rulers, who offered him guidance. This mystical link to the ancestors allowed him to exert spiritual control over the rulers of smaller settlements in the area. The king was also responsible for providing food for his people. He owned thousands of cattle and likely oversaw the storage and distribution of surplus grain. Some scholars believe that Great Zimbabwe\'s famed conical tower was a symbolic grain storage bin, and, thus, a reminder of the king\'s role in the survival of the entire community.

During the dry season, Great Zimbabwe\'s farmers became gold miners, and this gold contributed greatly to the prosperity of the empire. Along with ivory, it was one of Great Zimbabwe\'s major trade items. Through the Swahili trading ports on Africa\'s east coast, Great Zimbabwe obtained goods from all over the world. A great deal of evidence found at the site helps to prove Great Zimbabwe\'s connection to this global trade network. Archaeologists have uncovered a 14th century AD Arab coin, some 13th century AD Persian pottery and both porcelain and glass beads from China\'s Ming Dynasty. Unfortunately, during the colonial period, much of the evidence of Great Zimbabwe\'s successful trade networks was manipulated to support theories that a Caucasian civilization had built the site. The presence of Arab coins and Persian pottery was used to attribute the site to Arab builders, not native Africans. Further twisting the true history of the site, the earliest written records about Great Zimbabwe were written in the 16th century AD, long after the site was abandoned, and most of these documents were written by Europeans who had little interest in accurately preserving the history of African civilization.

Karl Mauch (first name sometimes spelled Carl) was a German explorer and geologist who was searching for gold and precious stones when he first encountered the ruins in 1871 AD. Mauch\'s prejudices influenced his theories about the ruins. He did not believe it was possible for native Africans to build such sophisticated structures. In his journals, he claimed that the local Africans he had spoken to had only lived in the area for about 40 years, and that they were all quite “convinced that white people once inhabited the region”. These journals are also filled with drawings of artifacts that he found at the site. An examination of these drawings shows that the objects are African in origin, yet Mauch never acknowledged this fact. Instead, he made every effort to link the ruins to characters from the Bible. He believed he had found the city of Ophir, a wealthy trading post or port city mentioned in the Bible, and he believed the ruins had once been the palace of the city\'s legendary ruler, the Queen of Sheba. According to the Biblical narrative, the Queen of Sheba came from a land of great wealth, and when she visited King Solomon in Jerusalem, she brought him valuable gifts, including gold, spices and precious gemstones.

Mauch had little evidence to support this theory. While exploring the site, he discovered some cedar beams that he assumed were from Lebanon. He concluded that only Phoenician traders could have supplied this material, which had also been used to construct Solomon\'s palaces. He then theorized that the Queen of Sheba had raised the stone structures in an imitation of Solomon\'s palace in Jerusalem. While there was little physical evidence or documentation to support Mauch\'s theory, his speculations were supported by white colonialists who were busy claiming lands in the area for the British Empire. They accepted the false narrative because it provided a link between European civilization and the territories that they were appropriating. By 1891 AD, the ruins of Great Zimbabwe were part of the territory administered by the British South Africa Company, later to become Southern Rhodesia and then Rhodesia, named for its founder Cecil Rhodes. At this time, Theodore Bent, an archaeologist, was placed in charge of the site. Leading an expedition of the Royal Geographic Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Bent came across some stone bird carvings that he felt were similar to artifacts he had seen when studying Near Eastern and Mediterranean civilizations. This inadequate evidence led Bent to conclude that the site had been built by Phoenicians, and that Africans had only moved in once the Phoenicians had abandoned the place.

This theory was one of many that the British colonialists accepted and promoted in order to justify white claims to African lands. Later theories would see the site attributed to ancient Egyptians, shipwrecked Vikings and even the mythological inhabitants of Atlantis. In 1902 AD, Rhodes hired archaeologist and journalist Richard Hall to examine and preserve the site. Hall soon published a book, “The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia”, that discussed his findings. In the book, Hall asserted that Great Zimbabwe had been constructed by “more civilized races”. Hall then began a period of “restoration” that removed layers of sediment up to two meters deep throughout the site with the goal of removing “the filth and decadence of [African] occupation”. In the process, he destroyed much of the archaeological record that could have conclusively proven the African origins of the site. Many of those allowed to investigate the site during the early 20th century AD were little more than treasure hunters who destroyed valuable evidence in their pursuit of gold artifacts and other luxuries. Their actions would make properly dating and studying the site more difficult for later historians and archaeologists. One of those who struggled to uncover the truth due to this legacy of destruction was Gertrude Caton-Thompson, a pioneer in modern archaeology who studied the site on behalf of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Caton-Thompson believed that earlier theories about the site were ludicrous. She intended to be far more careful and deliberate in her examination of the ruins. She used stratigraphy, one of the primary techniques of modern archaeology, to more accurately date her findings, but she had difficulty at Great Zimbabwe because so much evidence had been destroyed by her predecessors. She decided to use a plane to find unpillaged ruins and managed to locate a new set of walled enclosures that allowed her to date the site and to tear down the erroneous theories of Mauch, Bent and Hall. The evidence she uncovered indicated that the site was far younger than previously believed, so it was not possible to link it to ancient Biblical figures or civilizations. In her book, Zimbabwe Culture, she concluded that the site was built during the medieval period by a native African civilization of “originality and amazing industry”. She also argued that any artifacts that could be linked to non-African civilizations were evidence of trading relationships and not proof that a Near Eastern or Arab civilization constructed the site.

Despite her efforts to attribute the site to its true builders, Caton-Thompson\'s theories were also clearly influenced by racism. One piece of evidence that she used to support her findings was the circular structure of the ruins. She believed this proved the African origin of the site because the local people also used circular designs in constructing their homes and villages. Then, letting her prejudice show, she added that if a more advanced civilization had built the site, they would have built walls and buildings using straight lines and right angles. In 1958 AD, archaeologist Keith Robinson began using radiocarbon dating to date some wooden poles that he found during an excavation at Great Zimbabwe. His tests determined that the wood came from a tree cut down between 915 and 1215 AD, confirming Caton-Thompson\'s theory that the site was built in medieval times. Later scholars cross-checked Robinson\'s finds with other radiocarbon samples taken from the site and concluded that most of the buildings were constructed at the height of the Great Zimbabwe civilization between 1300 and 1450 AD.

While Robinson and Caton-Thompson\'s findings should have put an end to earlier theories that Great Zimbabwe was built by a lost white civilization, myths about its history persisted, motivated by racial bias and the continued desire to justify European colonization. In 1965 AD, Southern Rhodesia broke free of British rule under the leadership of Ian Smith, a white colonist who declared himself prime minister of the new nation. During this time, Smith continued to produce false narratives about the history of Great Zimbabwe. Tourist guides, for example, showed black Africans bowing submissively to the white visionaries who were credited with building the site\'s circular walls and grand palace. In 1980 AD, native Zimbabweans overthrew Smith\'s government and gained their independence. They adopted the name Zimbabwe to connect themselves to their earlier history. The famous stone birds that Theodore Bent once used as “evidence” of the site\'s supposed Phoenician origins are now the national emblem of Zimbabwe, appearing on their flag, coats of arms and currency. The site is now widely believed to be the work of the ancestors of the Shona people, but the legacy of false history lives on.

Even on UNESCO\'s website explaining Great Zimbabwe\'s importance as a World Heritage Site the ruins are described as “the capital of the Queen of Sheba, according to an age-old legend.” Perhaps offering some hope that the true history of Great Zimbabwe will one day be the only history we learn about, UNESCO does go on to discuss the true origins of the site and its importance as a “unique testimony to the Bantu civilization of the Shona between the 11th and 15th centuries.” The impact of prejudice on the history of Great Zimbabwe is a clear example of how colonialism has tainted the study of African history. The proper study of Africa\'s civilizations and their history that gives full credit to native Africans for their achievements is an essential part of the decolonization process, and we all must make a greater effort to separate the truth from the biases that shaped a false narrative of African history for far too long [Ancient History Encyclopedia].

SHIPPING & RETURNS/REFUNDS: We always ship books domestically (within the USA) via USPS INSURED media mail (“book rate”). Most international orders cost an additional $25.49 to $65.99 for an insured shipment in a heavily padded mailer. There is also a discount program which can cut postage costs by 50% to 75% if you’re buying about half-a-dozen books or more (5 kilos+). Our postage charges are as reasonable as USPS rates allow. Please be aware that postal rates are routinely hiked three times each year by the USPS, and have increased exponentially over the past decade. We set shipping rates as low as possible. However charges steep commissions on shipping charges. And we have no control over the draconian rate increases the USPS levies multiple times every year (FOUR TIMES in the past 12 months as of April of 2026). ADDITIONAL PURCHASES do receive a VERY LARGE discount, typically about $5 per book (for each additional book after the first) so as to reward you for the economies of combined shipping/insurance costs.

Your purchase will ordinarily be shipped within 48 hours of payment. We package as well as anyone in the business, with lots of protective padding and containers. All of our shipments are fully insured against loss, and our shipping rates include the cost of this coverage (through stamps.com, Shipsaver.com, the USPS, UPS, or Fed-Ex). Please note for international shipments that /DHL shipping is typically less expensive than what the US Postal Service charges. But please be aware that DHL shipments generally offer very limited tracking, and inasmuch as shipments go to first, then are consolidated, they tend to be pretty slow.

International tracking is provided free by the USPS for almost all countries. We do offer U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail, Registered Mail, and Express Mail for both international and domestic shipments, as well United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (Fed-Ex). Please ask for a rate quotation. Please note for international purchasers we will do everything we can to minimize your liability for VAT and/or duties. But we cannot assume any responsibility or liability for whatever taxes or duties may be levied on your purchase by the country of your residence. If you don’t like the tax and duty schemes your government imposes, please complain to them. We have no ability to influence or moderate your country’s tax/duty schemes.

If upon receipt of the item you are disappointed for any reason whatever, I offer a no questions asked 30-day return policy. Send it back, I will give you a complete refund of the purchase price; 1) less our original shipping/insurance costs, 2) less any non-refundable fees imposed by . Please note that though they generally do, may not always refund payment processing fees on returns beyond a 30-day purchase window. So except for shipping costs and any payment processing fees not refunded by , we will refund all proceeds from the sale of a return item. Obviously we have no ability to influence, modify or waive policies.

ABOUT US: Prior to our retirement we used to travel to Eastern Europe and Central Asia several times a year seeking antique gemstones and jewelry from the globe’s most prolific gemstone producing and cutting centers. Most of the items we offer came from acquisitions we made in Eastern Europe, India, and from the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean/Near East) during these years from various institutions and dealers. Much of what we generate on Etsy, Amazon and goes to support worthy institutions in Europe and Asia connected with Anthropology and Archaeology. Though we have a collection of ancient coins numbering in the tens of thousands, our primary interests are ancient/antique jewelry and gemstones, a reflection of our academic backgrounds.

Though perhaps difficult to find in the USA, in Eastern Europe and Central Asia antique gemstones are commonly dismounted from old, broken settings – the gold reused – the gemstones recut and reset. Before these gorgeous antique gemstones are recut, we try to acquire the best of them in their original, antique, hand-finished state – most of them originally crafted a century or more ago. We believe that the work created by these long-gone master artisans is worth protecting and preserving rather than destroying this heritage of antique gemstones by recutting the original work out of existence. That by preserving their work, in a sense, we are preserving their lives and the legacy they left for modern times. Far better to appreciate their craft than to destroy it with modern cutting.

Not everyone agrees – fully 95% or more of the antique gemstones which come into these marketplaces are recut, and the heritage of the past lost. But if you agree with us that the past is worth protecting, and that past lives and the produce of those lives still matters today, consider buying an antique, hand cut, natural gemstone rather than one of the mass-produced machine cut (often synthetic or “lab produced”) gemstones which dominate the market today. We can set most any antique gemstone you purchase from us in your choice of styles and metals ranging from rings to pendants to earrings and bracelets; in sterling silver, 14kt solid gold, and 14kt gold fill. When you purchase from us, you can count on quick shipping and careful, secure packaging. We would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from us. There is a $3 fee for mailing under separate cover. I will always respond to every inquiry whether via email or message, so please feel free to write.