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An empire of cloth: the textile industry of the Sokoto empire ca. 1808\-1903\. in An empire of cloth: the textile industry of the Sokoto empire ca. 1808\-1903\. )The Hausaland region of northern Nigeria was home to one of the largest textile industries in pre\-colonial Africa, whose scale and scope were unparalleled throughout most of the continent. As one German explorer who visited the region in 1854 noted, there was ‘something grand’ about this textile industry whose signature robes could be found as far as Tripoli, Alexandria, Mauritania, and the Atlantic coast. Centers of textile production like Kano were home to thousands of tailors and dyers producing an estimated 100,000 dyed\-robes a year in 1854, and more than two million rolls of cloth per year by 1911\. Much of the industry’s growth was associated with the establishment of the empire of Sokoto in the 19th century, which created West Africa’s largest state after the fall of Songhai, and expanded pre\-existing patterns of trade and production that facilitated the emergence of one of the few examples of proto\-industrialization on the continent. This article explores the textile industry of the Sokoto empire during the 19th century, focusing on the production and trade of cotton textiles across the Hauslands and beyond. Map of the Sokoto Caliphate and neighboring states. ca. 1850, by P. Lovejoy. --- Support African History Extra by becoming a member of our Patreon community, subscribe here to read more on African history and to keep this blog free for all: --- A brief background on the history and political economy of the empire of Sokoto. In the early decades of the 19th century, a political\-religious movement led by Sheikh Usman dan Fodio across the Hausaland region subsumed many of the old Hausa states into the Sokoto Caliphate, creating west Africa’s largest empire after the fall of Songhay. Headed by a ‘Sultan’ or ‘Caliph’ who resided in the capital, also named Sokoto, the empire was made up of several emirates, which were quasi\-vassal political units built on top of pre\-existing Hausa institutions, such as the emirates of Kano, Katsina, Zaria, and Adamawa. The vast size of the Caliphate erased pre\-existing political barriers, which created a large internal market and influenced major demographic changes that facilitated the expansion of the region's economy. The rapid growth of textile manufacturing in the empire emerged within this context, bringing together various textile traditions in an efficient distribution network that included a greater share of the ordinary population than was possible in the preceding period. The material basis of Sokoto's economy was provided by the political and ideological control of land through a state dominated by an officeholding class. In a society where the majority of producers maintained possession of land and experienced a low level of economic subsumption, surpluses were primarily accrued through rents. That is ‘a politically based exaction for the right to cultivate… whose level will depend upon the coercive means available through the State’. This resulted in the creation of a ‘mixed economy’ where the State played a central role in economic production and regulating institutions, albeit only as one among many different economic agents. The economic policies adopted by Usman's successors served to consolidate the territories acquired during the movement as well as to restore and integrate their economies. Most of these policies were undertaken by Muhammad Bello who is credited with establishing ribats (garrison towns) in peripheral regions, eg between Kano and Adamawa, that were settled by skilled artisans and merchants who developed local economies, and urbanized the hinterlands. Bello's writings to his emirs include instructions to "foster the artisans, and be concerned with tradesmen who are indispensable to the people, such as farmers and smiths, tailors and dyers, physicians and grocers, butchers and carpenters and all sorts of traders who contribute to \ The urbanisation of rural areas, as well as the improved accessibility, allowed for greater administrative control through the appointment of officials (jakadu) who controled trade and collected taxes (on dye pits, hoes used in farming, and trade cloth). This influenced the activities of long\-distance traders, farmers, and craftsmen, by reinvigorating pre\-existing patterns of trade and population movements that had been initiated by the . The manufacture and trade of textiles in Hausaland predated the industry's expansion in the 19th century. The earliest written accounts describing the Hausaland region in the 14th century mention the presence of , who settled in its cities and wore sewn garments. These Wangara merchants also appear in earlier accounts from the 12th century, when they are described as wearing chemises and mantles. They were thus likely involved in the development of the Hausa textile and leather industry, which would receive further impetus from the westward shift of the Bornu empire in the 15th century, which also possessed a thriving textile industry and used cloth strips as currency. By the 16th century, local textile industries had emerged across Hausaland, especially in the cities of Kano, Zamfara, and Gobir. According to Leo Africanus' account, grain and cotton were cultivated in large quantities in the Kano countryside and Kano's cloth was bought by Tuareg traders from then north. Other contemporary accounts mention the arrival of Kanuri artisans from Bornu, the trade in dyed cloth from Kano, as well as the import of foreign cloth from the Maghreb. After the 17th century, the white gown (riga fari) became popular among the ordinary population, while the elites wore the large gown (babbar riga), which in later periods would be adopted by the former. This pre\-existing textile industry and trade continued to expand over the centuries and would grow exponentially during the 19th century. --- Cotton cultivation in the Sokoto empire. Most of the cloth produced in Hausaland was made from cotton and silk, which was cultivated locally by farmers together with their staple crops. Cotton cultivation, which had been undertaken in the region for centuries, is however, highly sensitive to rainfall, requires significant land and labour, and is subject to price fluctuations caused by taxation and market speculation, all of which could result in hefty economic losses for a farmer if not carefully managed. Initially, the emirates of Zaria and Zamfara specialized in growing cotton while those of Sokoto and Kano specialized in manufacturing textiles. This would gradually change by the late 19th century, as textile manufacturing expanded rapidly across most emirates and the demand for raw cotton was so high that considerable quantities of yarn were even imported from Tripoli. The comparative advantage of Zaria and Zamfara in cotton growing was enabled by its middle\-density population, its clayey soil rich in nitrates, and the relative abundance of land for swidden agriculture. Besides the pre\-existing population of farmers who grew their own cotton on a small scale, large agricultural estates were also established by wealthy elites and were populated with clients and slaves, the latter of whom were war captives or purchased from the peripheral regions. The explorer Hugh Clapperton, who visited Sokoto in 1826 and provides some of the most detailed descriptions of its society, including on slavery, writes: “The domestic slaves are generally well treated. The males who have arrived at the age of eighteen or nineteen are given a wife, and sent to live at their villages and farms in the country, where they build a hut, and until the harvest are fed by their owners. The hours of labour, for his master, are from daylight till mid\-day; the remainder of the day is employed on his own. At the time of harvest, when they cut and tie up the grain, each slave gets a bundle of the different sorts of grain for himself. The grain on his own ground is entirely left for his own use, and he may dispose of it as he thinks proper. At the vacant seasons of the year he must attend to the calls of his master, whether to accompany him on a journey, or go to war, if so ordered.” This was repeated later by Heinrich Barth who visited Sokoto from 1851\-1854, noting that “The quiet course of domestic slavery has very little to offend the mind of the traveller ; the slave is generally well treated , is not over worked , and is very often considered as a member of the family” but he differs slightly from Clapperton with regards to marriages among ‘slaves’, suggesting that they weren’t encouraged to marry, which he surmises was the cause of the institutions’ continuation. Scholarly debates on the nature of slavery in Sokoto, as in most discussions of ‘internal slavery’ in Africa, reveal the limitations of relying on conceptual frameworks derived from the historiography of slavery in the Americas (this includes Clapperton and Barth’s quotes above, who refer to ‘slaves’ on agricultural estates as ‘domestic slaves’). For the sake of brevity, it is instructive to use a comparative approach here to illustrate the differences between the ‘slaves’ in west Africa versus those in the Americas; the most important difference is the lack of a binary of ‘slaves’ and ‘free’ persons, as all social groups occupied a continuum of social relations from elites and kin\-group members, to clients and pawns, to dependants and captives. Aside from the royals/ruling elites, none of these groups occupied a rigid hierarchy but instead derived their status from their relationship with other kin\-groups or patrons, hence why slaves could be found on all levels of society from governors and scribes, to soldiers and merchants, to household concubines and plantation workers. Most ‘slaves’ in Sokoto could work on their own account through the murgu system thus accumulating wealth to establish their own families, gain their own dependants,and in some cases, earn their freedom. Still, their labor, social mobility, and rate of assimilation were negotiated by the needs of political authorities, making slavery in Sokoto a political institution as much as it was a social institution. This created highly heterogenous systems of slavery, with some powerful ‘slave\-officials’ exercising authority over ‘free’ persons and ‘slaves,’ with some client farmers and ‘slaves’ working on the same estates owned by state officials, aristocrats or wealthy merchants, some of whom could also be ‘slaves’. Despite the complexities of ‘slavery’ in Sokoto, the significance of slave use in its textile industry and the economy was inflated in earlier scholarship according to more recent examination. The empire of Sokoto was a pre\-industrial society, largely agrarian and rural. The bulk of economic production was undertaken by individual households on a subsistence basis, with the surplus produce (grain, crafts, labour, etc) being traded for other items in temporary markets, or remitted as tribute/tax to authorities whose capacity for coercion was significantly less than that of modern states, and whose economy was ultimately less influenced by demand from international trade. It’s for this reason that while 'slaves' would have been involved in the cultivation process alongside 'free' workers who constituted the bulk of the empire’s population, ‘slaves’ were less involved in the textile manufacturing process itself which required specialized skills, and was considered respectable for ‘freeborn’ persons including the scholarly elite. The political economic and ideological tendency in the empire was mainly toward the production of peasants who could be taxed, as well as in their participation in the regional economy where more rents could be extracted. Additionally, the textile industry also relied on the mobility of 'free' labour, including not just ordinary subjects, but also skilled craftsmen and traders from among the Tuareg, Kanuri, Fulani, Nupe, and Gobir. These were involved in all stages of cloth production from spinning to dyeing, they became acculturated into the predominantly Hausa society and settled in the major textile centers. --- The textile production process. The manufacture of textiles was not just the prerogative of a few specialized artisans but involved the bulk of the population in both urban and rural areas. While clothing was a symbol of religious and social identity, its manufacture and exchange in Hausaland was the expression of a culture that tended to integrate different strata of the population regardless of social identity. The empire's textile industry underwent significant changes over the course of the 19th century, especially in major centers like Kano where specialization increased as different cities and towns took over specific parts of the production processes, resulting in significant economies of scale. Increased demand and competition led to a rapid improvement in standards of workmanship and the quality of cloth produced. This in turn, created an internal market for highly skilled labour whose training period could last as long as 6 years. Textile workers differed in the kinds and levels of skills attained, the types of products they made, and the stage in the process: the garments changed hands at different stages in the process of spinning, weaving, sewing, beating and dyeing. The empire's diverse textile industry combined two pre\-existing production systems; one north of the Niger\-Benue region where most spinners were women, while men did the weaving, dyeing, and embroidering; and one south of the Niger\-Benue region where both women and men were involved in all processes. Spinning was the slowest and most laborious activity in the process, it was done in domestic settings often by women who were supplied with local cotton and silk as well as imported yarn from the Maghreb. On the other hand, weaving was undertaken by the greater part of the population as a secondary occupation when farming activities were suspended. Weavers, both men, and women, used a transportable horizontal double\-heddle loom as well as a vertical loom to produce narrow strips of cloth which were later sewn together. The two main subgroups of looms used in Hausaland were defined by two ranges of standard cloth width, indicating two types of production in the export sector: cloth consisting of very narrow strips (1\.25–6 cm) was transported in the salt and natron trade to Bornu and Air, whereas wider strips (8–12 cm) were prominent in trade to the western Sudan region. The latter type of loom was likely associated with the rise of the kola trade to Gonja in the late 18th century, but would have existed in the Gonja region centuries earlier. In cities like Kano, local weavers were at times joined by skilled immigrants from the Bornu empire and the Nupe region, with many diverse groups contributing to the production of luxury and ordinary cloth as the garments changed hands multiple times. Craftsmen often had no special workshops but instead worked in or near the markets according to local demand, although specialist quarters like the Soron D’Inki ward of Kano were developed by skilled tailors and dyers. The co\-current expansion of domestic and external demand for dyed textiles stimulated the production of dyed textiles and the construction of dyeing pits. From 1815, outside the city boundaries of Sokoto, around 285 dyeing pits were built, while Kano in 1855 had more than 2,000 dyeing pits, which would increase to between 15,000 to 20,000 by the end of the 19th century with a corresponding number of dyers. Cloth\-dyeing in Kano was a centuries\-old practice that pre\-existed the establishment of Sokoto. Dyers used huge fired\-clay pots (Kwatanniya), that were waterproofed by burying them in beds of dyebath residue (katsi) and then lining them with laso cement (made from burned indo\-dye residue mixed with viscous vegetable matter). By the 19th century, dyers in Kano, Sokoto, Katsina, and Zaria created much larger dyeing vats of laso cement, which reduced the unit cost of finished cloth. Dyers used locally cultivated indigo dye (Indigofera) and utilized specific methods to prepare the indigo dye vat. Like all parts of the textile manufacturing process, cloth dyeing was influenced by the activities of traders who took cloth strips from one textile center to another for stitching, dyeing, and embroidering. In the case of Kano, the town of Kura, about 20 miles to its south, was one of the city's major dyeing centers by the time of Barth's visit in 1851\. In 1909, an estimated 2,000 dyers resided in the town out of a population of 8,000, and it was renowned for producing some of the finest and most expensive indigo\-dyed cloths in Kano. Skillfully tailored and embroidered garments were the most expensive textile products made in the empire, and they were worn and distributed as gifts by the elite. Tailors and embroiderers used small needles to work specialized cloth that was designed particularly for the tailoring process. They were embellished with geometric designs and motifs drawn from a Muslim visual vocabulary that was international in scope and comprehensible to individuals in different strata of society. Cities like Sokoto initially specialized in producing white cloth (riga fari) because it was the religious center of Dan Fodio's movement with strict attitudes against the embellishment of clothes. But in other cities such as Kano, and in most emirates during the later periods, more embellished garments such as the rigan giwan, a robe embroidered with eight\-knife imagery, became very important among the elites and wealthy. --- --- The textile trade in the 19th century Hausalands: proto\-industries, merchants, and the state. The expansion of domestic demand and the emergence of new markets opened new avenues for the accumulation of wealth, especially among traders and artisans from the larger cities who moved to more peripheral regions to compensate for the increasing taxes, or to benefit from colluding with established authorities. During the 19th century, Kano’s textile industry reached extraordinary production levels. In 1851 the city of sixty\-thousand produced an estimated 300 million cowries worth of textiles ( which was £30,000 then or £5,2m today), with atleast 60 million cowries worth of textiles being exported to Timbuktu. At a time when Barth noted that a family in Kano could live off 50\-60,000 cowries a year "with ease, including every expense, even that of their clothing", he also mentions that one of the more popular dyed robes cost 2,500\-3,000 cowries. He notes that Kano cloth was sold “as far as Murzuk, Ghat, and even Tripoli; to the west, not only to Timbucktu, but in some degree even as far as the shores of the Atlantic, the very inhabitants of Arguin (in Mauritania) dressing in the cloth woven and dyed in Kano”. Kano’s popularity as a market was due to a series of commercial incentives and the greater regulation of market transactions. As reported by Clapperton, the Kano market was regulated with great fairness; if a garment purchased in Kano was discovered to be of inferior quality it was sent back, and the seller was obliged to refund the purchase money. The demand for Kano textiles throughout this vast region persisted after Barth’s visit. Writing in 1896, Charles Henry Robinson, who visited the city of Kano and estimated that its population had grown to about 100,000, mentions that, “it would be well within the mark to say that Kano clothes more than half the population of the central Sudan, and any European traveler who will take the trouble to ask for it, will find no difficulty in purchasing Kano\-made cloth at towns on the coast as widely separated from one another as Alexandria, Tripoli, Tunis or Lagos.” Similar contemporary accounts stress that consumers made fine distinctions between cloths on the basis of quality which contributed to the tremendous range in price for what appeared to be similar textiles. Local and imported textiles became one of the main items used as a store of wealth in the empire’s public treasury at the city of Sokoto and constituted a considerable part of the annual tribute pouring in from the other emirates to the capital. Kano, for example, sent to Sokoto a tribute of 15,000 garments per year in the second half of the 19th century. Many rich merchants (attajiraj) settled across the empire’s main cities and exported textiles to distant areas where they at times extended credit to smaller traders. Merchant managers were able to achieve economies of scale by storing undyed cloth in bulk and by establishing large indigo dyeing centers, some showing features of a factory system, with itinerant cloth dyers hired to work for wages. The capital for these enterprises came from the high\-profit margins of long\-distance trade, with large land and labor holdings acquired through political and military service. The traders in the finished products and the landlords (fatoma) frequently accommodated visiting buyers and arranged sales. In the second half of the 19th century, these rich merchants began to acquire greater influence in Kano business circles. The power of these merchants was such that when the price of textiles fell, the merchants were able to buy most of them and wait for prices to rise again. Some of the wealthiest merchants created complex manufacturing enterprises dealing with the import and export trade across long distances by controlling a significant proportion of the production process. They acquired large agricultural estates, expanded labour (which included kinsmen, 'free' workers, and clients as well as 'slaves'), and established agents in distant markets abroad. One such trader in the 1850s was Tulu Babba, whose Kano\-based enterprise operated across four emirates. It consisted of; a family estate and 15 private estates worked by kinsmen, clients, and ‘slaves’; several contracted dyers and master tailors in Kano; and a factor agent in Gonja. Medium\-sized enterprises run by wealthy women merchants also utilized the same form or organization, with family estates where the entire household was involved in the manufacturing process, and their labour was supplemented by client relationships formed with 'female\-husbands' whose households were also involved in the spinning and weaving processes. Other merchants oversaw more modest operations that were nevertheless as significant to the textile economy as the larger enterprises, while also involving many other commodities according to circumstance. One such trader was Madugu Mohamman Mai Gashin Baƙi, a carravan leader who was born in Kano in the late 1820s, and undertook his first trip to Ledde in the Nupe kingdom when he was 16, where they “sold horses to the king in exchange for Nupe cloth”, and returned to Kano after six months. The caravan then traveled to Adamawa region, where they purchased ivory on a second trip, while on a third trip, he went to the Bauchi area and then on to Kuka (the capital of Adamawa at that time), where he bought galena (a mineral used for eye makeup), which he took back to Kuka. He then returned to Bauchi with five large oxen that he had purchased and had loaded with natron, which he subsequently sold. This level of trade likely represented the bulk of the textile trade across the empire, with small caravans of Hausa traders traveling in the dry season using donkeys to bring goods from Kano and other cities that they could trade along the way, exchanging cloth for other commodities in places as far as Fumban (capital of Bamum kingdom in Cameroon) and the Asante capital Kumasi in ghana. Wealthy merchants benefited from the city authorities of Kano who facilitated the export of textiles from this city to distant areas like Adamawa. Unlike North African traders who were forced to pay taxes on their commercial transactions, the rich local merchants accumulated enough wealth and influence to monopolize most of the empire's long\-distance trade alongside middlemen located in distant areas like Lagos, who increasingly demanded higher percentages of commercial transactions. The monopoly on trade by these merchants and the increase in taxes on all commerce shows that the Empire's politics became more oligarchic in the late 19th century, with authorities drawing their legitimacy more from the wealthy elites and less from the common population. This collusion between rulers and traders likely contributed to the empire's political fragmentation, among other factors, as each emirate increasingly became autonomous and could thus offer no significant resistance before it fell to the British in 1903\. Despite the disruption of the early colonial period, the textile industry of the Hauslands continued to flourish well into the middle of the 20th century when a combination of competition from cheaper, machine\-made imports, reorganisation of labour, and changes in policies, contributed to its gradual decline. Cloth dyeing and hand\-woven textiles still represent a significant economic activity in the Hausalands in the modern day, with cities like Kano preserving the remnants of this old industry. --- The 19th century world explorer Muhammed Ali ben Said of Bornu, traveled across over twenty countries in the four continents from 1849 to 1860 before serving in the Union Army during the American civil war and settling in the US where he published his travel account. Please subscribe to Patreon to read about Said’s fascinating journey across Europe, western Asia and the Carribean, here; SubscribeBig Is Sometimes Best: The Sokoto Caliphate and Economic Advantages of Size in the Textile Industry by Philip J. Shea pg 5\-7\) Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria By Michael J. Watts pg 78\-81\. Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria By Elisha P. Renne pg 30\-32 Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 196\-199, 204\-205\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 188\-191\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 192\-194\) Cotton Growing and Textile Production in Northern Nigeria from Caliphate to Protectorate c. 1804\-1914’: A Preliminary Examination by Marisa Candotti pg 4\) Cotton Growing and Textile Production in Northern Nigeria from Caliphate to Protectorate c. 1804\-1914’: A Preliminary Examination by Marisa Candotti pg 5\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 196\-197\) Journal of a second expedition into the interior of Africa, from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo. By. Clapperton, Hugh Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa Volume 1 By Heinrich Barth Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives by Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff pg 77\-78\. Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives by Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff pg 15\-39, 45\-47\. Plantation Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate: A Historical and Comparative Study By Mohammed Bashir Salau pg 47\-90, Jihād in West Africa During the Age of Revolutions by Paul E. Lovejoy. Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria By Michael J. Watts pg 60\-77\. Big Is Sometimes Best: The Sokoto Caliphate and Economic Advantages of Size in the Textile Industry by Philip J. Shea pg 13\-14\) Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria By Michael J. Watts pg 77\-78\) Big Is Sometimes Best: The Sokoto Caliphate and Economic Advantages of Size in the Textile Industry by Philip J. Shea pg 15\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 187\) Cotton Growing and Textile Production in Northern Nigeria from Caliphate to Protectorate c. 1804\-1914’ by Marisa Candotti pg 6, Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 375\-376\.) Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 368\-372, Cotton Growing and Textile Production in Northern Nigeria from Caliphate to Protectorate c. 1804\-1914’ by Marisa Candotti pg 5 Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 377\-385 Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 195\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 202\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 200, Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 391\) Big Is Sometimes Best: The Sokoto Caliphate and Economic Advantages of Size in the Textile Industry by Philip J. Shea pg 7\-9\) Big Is Sometimes Best: The Sokoto Caliphate and Economic Advantages of Size in the Textile Industry by Philip J. Shea pg 9\-12, Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 387\-389\) Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 389\-391\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 200\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 205\) Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa: Being a Journal of an Expedition Undertaken Under the Auspices of H. B. M.'s Government, in the Years 1849\-1855, Volume 1 by Heinrich Barth. Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa by D.Denham and H. Clapperton, 653 Hausaland Or Fifteen Hundred Miles Through the Central Soudan by Charles Henry Robinson pg 113 Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 365\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 201\) Nineteenth Century Hausaland Being a Description by Imam Imoru of the Land , Economy , and Society of His People by Douglas Edwin Ferguson, 374–8, Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 391\) Cotton Growing and Textile Production in Northern Nigeria from Caliphate to Protectorate c. 1804\-1914’ by Marisa Candotti pg 6\) Textile Production and Gender in the Sokoto Caliphate by Colleen Kriger pg 392\-396\) Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria By Elisha P. Renne pg 32\-35 African Crossroads: Intersections Between History and Anthropology in Cameroon edited by Ian Fowler, David Zeitlyn pg 176\-178, From Slave Trade to 'Legitimate' Commerce edited by Robin Law pg 97\-98 Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 204\) Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi pg 205\-206\) 28 )

A general history of African explorers of the Old world, and a 19th century Bornu traveller of twenty countries across four continents. in A general history of African explorers of the Old world, and a 19th century Bornu traveller of twenty countries across four continents. 3)This article provides a brief outline of over sixty African explorers who traveled across the ‘Old World’ from the classical period to the turn of the 20th century. The linked articles and the footnotes include sources on individual travelers for further reading. In antiquity, African travelers and diasporic communities began appearing across several societies in the eastern Mediterranean world and beyond. From the 8th century BC, classical accounts from ancient Assyria to ancient Greece mention the presence of Africans referred to as 'Kusaya'/'Aithiopians' who appeared in various capacities, as rulers, diplomats, charioteers, mercenaries, and horse\-trainers, and were often associated with the which had expanded into parts of modern Palestine and Syria. By the 5th century BC, were involved in the Battle of Himera on the Island of Sicily, and would later appear as mahouts in the ancient Punic wars between Carthage and Rome. However, most of these Aithiopians would have come from the Maghreb rather than from Kush or from West Africa. Envoys, priests, and pilgrims from Kush and Aithiopian travelers from other parts of Africa would begin to beginning in the 1st century BC and continuing into the early centuries of the common era. While most of their activities would be concentrated in Roman Egypt, such as the Meroite envoys; Pasan son of Paese, and Abaratoye in 253 CE and 260 CE, a handful of them would travel to the Greek Island of Samos, and the cities of Rome and Constantinople, along with envoys from the neighboring kingdoms of the Blemmyes and the Aksumites. From the 3rd century of the common era, Aksum's armies, merchants, and settlers were active across much of the western Indian Ocean and the Red Sea coast. s, appear in multiple places from western India and the island of Sri Lanka, to Yemen and western Arabia, to the Jordanian port city of Aila and the Eastern Roman capital Constantinople. Aksumite envoys would also visit the Chinese capital of Luoyang in the 1st century. By the 6th century, a large Aksumite army conquered the kingdom of Himyar in the western Arabian peninsula, ostensibly to protect the diasporic communities of Aksumite Christians and their allies. Under , the province of Himyar would extend its control over most of western, southern, and central Arabia, although the diasporic communities of Aksumite elites and soldiers would be concentrated in Yemen. Envoys from the kingdom of Aksum and the medieval Nubian kingdom of Makuria appeared in Constantinople in 532, 549 and 572 CE, while , beginning in the 8th century. By the late Middle Ages, royals, scholars, and other pilgrims from the kingdoms of Nubia and the successor states of Aksum would establish diasporic communities in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, and Cyprus. The itineraries of travelers like the 12th\-century Nubian king Moses George, the Ethiopian scholar Ewostatewos (d. 1352\), and other pilgrims would take them , Constantinople, and the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In the centuries following the rise of Islam, west African Muslims from the kingdom of Takrur and the empires of Ghana and Kanem would appear across the Muslim world from Andalusia (Spain) to the Hejaz (western Saudi Arabia) and to Palestine in various capacities. Some were scholars like Ibrahim Al\-Kanemi (d. 1211\) and auxiliaries from Takrur and Ghana who of the Almoravids and Almohads during the 11th to 13th century, , including , and ordinary travelers like the Timbuktu scholar and Medina resident Abu Bakr Aqit (d. 1583\), while others were military leaders like during the 9th century. were also attested across multiple places from the Eastern Mediterranean and western Indian Ocean. The Jabarti and Zaylai scholars from the kingdom of Ifat, Adal, and the city of Zeila formed diasporic communities from Damascus to Egypt, the Hejaz, and Yemen. mention itinerant scholars such as Sharaf al\-din Isma'il al\-Jabarti (d. 1403\) became administrators in Zabid in the Rasulid kingdom of Yemen, others like Ahmad b. 'Umar al\-Zayla'ī established the port town of al\-Luhayya in Yemen in 1304, while ordinary merchants from the city of Zeila sailed to Aden where they joined diasporic communities that included Africans from Mogadishu and the rest of the East African coast. There is archaeological and documentary evidence for the presence of , and China during the late Middle Ages. This is attested in the towns of Sharma (Yemen), al\-Hamr al\-Sharqiya (Oman), and Julfār (U.A.E), and accounts of East African traders and pilgrims from Barawa, Mogadishu, Kilwa, Zanzibar, Pate and Lamu and Comoros in Mecca, al\-Shihr, Mocha, Hormuz, Muscat, Socotra and Sri Lanka. Known travelers from the , especially during the Song and Ming dynasties. They include the who traveled to China twice in 1071 and 1083, the envoy Puluo Shen (Abu\-al\-Hasan) from Yuluhedi (Manda, Kenya) who reached who arrived in Bianliang on December of 1073\. These were later followed by many unnamed envoys from; Mogadishu (1101 CE); 'Gudanu' and 'Yaji' in Ethiopia (1283 CE, 1328 CE); and the envoys sent to meet the 15th\-century Chinese admiral Zheng He, who traveled from the cities of Zhubu, Mogadishu, Barawa in Somalia, and Malindi in Kenya. Other early East African travelers include the 14th\-century Mogadishu scholar Sa'id who visited the Hejaz, India, and China, and the 15th\-century Qadi of Lamu who traveled to Mecca and Egypt where he met the scholar al\-maqrizi. Beginning in the 15th century, several African kingdoms sent embassies to the kingdoms of southern Europe. These include the Ethiopian embassies to Venice (1404\), Rome (1403,1404, 1450, 1481, 1533\), Aragon (1427, 1450\), and Portugal (1452, 1527\), led by , who visited and briefly resided in Lisbon in 1527, and Rome in 1533, where the latter scholar would also be received by an established community of pilgrims led by Tomas Wāldā Samuʾel (1515\-1529\) and Yoѐannǝs of Qänṭorare (1529\- ca. 1550\) and forty\-one other resident scholars that included Täsfa Sәyon (d. 1553\). They were soon joined by African embassies from the kingdoms of the Atlantic Coast to the Portuguese capital Lisbon. These came from the Kingdom of Benin (Nigeria) in 1486\-87, led by Ohen\-Okun, the Kingdom of Kongo (in Angola) in 1487\-88, led by Kala ka Mfusu, and the Kingdom of Jolof (in Senegal) in 1488, led by Prince Jelen. Over the 16th and 17th centuries, the Christian Kingdom of These included Prince Henrique Ndoadidiki Ne\-Kinu a Mumemba who was a resident of Lisbon and became the first black Catholic Bishop in 1518, king Afonso Nzinga's cousin; Pedro de Sousa, who traveled as an envoy to Lisbon in 1512 where he was knighted in the ‘Order of Saint James of the sword’, the Kongo nobleman Antonio Vieira who was an envoy and resident of Lisbon where he was married in the 1540s; the envoy of the Kongo King Diogo ( r. 1545\-1561\) to Lisbon named Jacome de fonseca; the Ndongo envoy D. Pedro da Silva who traveled to Lisbon in 1579 where he was also knighted in the ‘Order of Saint James of the sword’. Others include; such as; Antonio Vieira (1595\) and António Manuel Nsaku ne Vunda (1604\); and the envoy . African travel across the Old World grew exponentially between the late 16th to mid\-19th centuries, with multiple African explorers from different parts of the continent traveling as far as and , as well as more proximate places like western India and Istanbul. Known travelers from this period include; the Ethiopian traveler Abba Gorgoryos who traveled to Rome in 1649 where he briefly resided before journeying to Nuremberg in Germany around 1652; the Ethiopian prince Zaga Christ, who traveled to Europe in 1634 and documented his journey across Italy and France where he was hosted by various nobles; The ambassador of the kingdom of Allada (in Benin), Don Matteo Lopez, who traveled to Paris in 1670, and the Assine princes Aniaba and Banga from Cote D'ivoire, who traveled to Paris in 1687, the envoy of Annamaboe (in Ghana), Louis Bassi, Prince de Corrantryn who traveled to and briefly resided in Paris during in the 1740s, while his brother William Ansah Sessarakoo also traveled to London in 1749 as an envoy; Philip Kwaku from Cape coast (Ghana) who traveled to England in the late 1750s where he studied and married before returning in 1765\. Later travelers included the 'Ga' Prince Frederick Noi Dowunnah who traveled to Copenhagen (Denmark) from Ghana in the 1820s; the 'Temne' Prince John Frederic who traveled to England in 1729, the two pairs of young Asante princes Owusu Ansa and Owusu Nkwantabisa, and Kwame Poku and Kwasi Boakye, who were sent to England and the Netherlands in 1836 and 1837; and the Xhosa prince Tiyo Songa who traveled from South Africa to Scotland in 1846\. Known during this period include; the Bornu envoy El\-Hajj Yusuf who reached the Ottoman capital in 1574; scholars from the Funj kingdom (Sudan) like, Ahmad Idrìs al\-Sinnàrì (b. 1746\) who traveled from the Funj Kingdom (Sudan) across Yemen, Hejaz, and Istanbul before settling down in Syria; and Ali al\-Qus (b. 1788\) who traveled across Syria, Crete, the Hijaz Yemen and Istanbul, before returning to settle at Dongola; and the scholar Muhammad Salma al\-Zurruq (b. 1845\) from Djenne who traveled across Ottoman territories and Morocco in the 1880s. Known during this period include; Swahili Prince Yusuf ibn al\-Hasan of Mombasa (Kenya) who traveled from Kenya to Goa in 1614 where he briefly resided, the Mombasa envoys Mwinyi Zago and Faki Ali wa Mwinyi Matano who traveled to Goa in 1661 and 1694 respectively; the Swahili merchants; Bwana Dau bin Bwana Shaka of Faza (Kenya) who settled in Goa after 1698; Mwinyi Ahmed Hasani Kipai who traveled to Surat and Goa in 1724 and Bwana Madi bin Mwalimu Bakar from Pate, who regularly traveled to Surat in the 1720s. Others include the Kalanga princes from Mutapa (zimbabwe) who were sent to Goa such as Dom Diogo in 1617, Miguel da Presentacao in 1629 (and Lisbon in 1630\), and the princes Mapeze and Dom Joao who were sent to Goa in 1699\. By the mid\-19th century, African travelers began to document their extensive travels across the Old World. These include; who visited England and Prussia (Germany) in 1856, The Swahili traveler , the Comorian traveler , and , where they encountered a delegation led by King Lewanika of the Lozi kingdom, and another delegation led by Ethiopia's Ras Mokannen, who also produced an account of his travel to England. While the above outline of African travelers is far from exhaustive, as it excludes the numerous scholars from across the continent who traveled to western Arabia and Palestine for pilgrimage and trade, it demonstrates that the history of Africa's exploration of the Old World is sufficiently known, including the individual African travelers and some of their own accounts of the exploratory journeys. My Latest Patreon article unites the history of African exploration of the ‘Old World’ with the ‘New World’ through the travel account of the Bornu explorer Muhammed Ali ben Said who traveled across over twenty countries in the four continents of; Africa, Asia, Europe and America between 1849 and 1860\. After serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War, Said settled in the state of Alabama and published a fascinating account of his life and travels. Employed as a ‘Valets de chambre’ by two Russian aristocrats and a Dutch abolitionist, Said presents an insider's perspective of the aristocratic families of the Ottoman, Russian, and Austrian empires, a first\-hand account of the politics of the Italian reunification, the customs of Victorian England, the complex history of Haiti, and the racialized society of the southern United States. Please subscribe to read about the remarkable journey of the world explorer Muhammed Ali ben Said here; --- for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribecheck footnotes of the article on Kush, additional sources include; The Horses of Kush by Lisa A. Heidorn, Cushites in the Hebrew Bible: Negotiating Ethnic Identity in the Past, and by Kevin Burrell Blacks in Antiquity by Frank M. Snowden pg 4, 130\-131, 142 Before Color Prejudice by Frank M. Snowden pg 31\-32 Between two worlds by L. Torok pg 467\-468, 523, Blacks in Antiquity by Frank M. Snowden pg 20, 193\-195, 187\-189, 167 Before Color Prejudice by Frank M. Snowden pg 97\-99, 55, 78 An analysis of Aethiopians in Roman art pg 54 Before Color Prejudice by Frank M. Snowden, images No. 60 and 61 Cultural Flow between china and Outside World Throughout History by Shen Fuwei pg 50 Arabs and Empires Before Islam by Greg Fisher, Soixante dix ans avant l'islam by C. J. Robin, Abraha et la reconquete de l’Arabie d´eserte by C. J. Robin A Note towards Quantifying the Medieval Nubian Diaspora by Adam Simmons, Nubia, Ethiopia, and the Crusading World, 1095\-1402 by Adam Simmons Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, Volume 4 pg 459\-460, Black women warriors Renaissance Europe by Thomas Foster Earle, K. J. P. Lowe pg 182\-184, The conquest that never was by David Conrad and Humphrey Fisher pg 31\-32, Black morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam By Chouki El Hamel pg 123\-124, on al\-Kanemi, see; Arabic Literature of Africa: The writings of Central Sudanic Africa. Vol. 2 by John Hunwick, pg 17\-18, on Abu Bakr Aqit, see; Arabic Literature of Africa, Volume 4: The Writings of Western Sudanic Africa edited by John O. Hunwick, R. Rex S. O'Fahey pg 15, On Swadan, see; The Muslims of medieval Italy By Alex Metcalfe pg 21, L'emirato di Bari By Giosuè Musca When did the Swahili become maritime by J Fleisher pg 106, L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen (626\-858/1229\-1454\) by Éric Vallet, Chapter9, East African travelers and traders in the Indian ocean by Thomas Vernet pg 182\-183, Julfār, an Arabian Port by John Hansman pg 49\-51 Cultural Flow Between China and Outside World Throughout History by Shen Fuwei pg 278, A History of Overseas Chinese in Africa to 1911 by Anshan Lipg 37\-47\) The travels of Ibn Battuta vol. IV pg 809, Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet pg 71\) Encounters Between Ethiopia and Europe, 1400–1660 by Matteo Salvadore, An Ethiopian Scholar in Tridentine Rome by Matteo Salvadore, The Two Yohannәses of Santo Stefano degli Abissini by Samantha Kelly, African cosmopolitanism in the early modern Mediterranean by Matteo Salvadore Africa's Discovery of Europe: 1450\-1850 by David Northrup pg 25\-40 Atlantic world and Virginia by Peter C. Mancall pg 202\-206, Representing Africa : Ambassadors and Princes from Christian Africa to Renaissance Italy and Portugal, 1402\-1608 by Kate Lowe pg 107, 112\-114, Black Africans in Renaissance Europe by Thomas Foster Earle, K. J. P. Lowe pg 294\-296 The Kingdom of Kongo and the thirty years' War by John K. Thornton pg 212\-213 Gorgoryos and Ludolf : The Ethiopian and German Fore\-Fathers of Ethiopian Studies by Wolbert Smidt, The narrative of Zaga Christ by Matteo Salvadore, The Negro in France by Shelby Thomas McCloy pg 16\-18, To be the key for two coffers pg 1\-25, Where the Negroes are masters by Randy J. Sparks pg 35\-51, Africa's discovery of Europe by David Northrup pg 143\-144, 120, 121, 147\-148 West African Travels and Adventures. Two Autobiographical Narratives from Nigeria., by Anthony Kirk\-Greene and Paul Newman Anthologie aus der Suaheli\-Litteratur by Carl Gotthilf Büttner, pg 156\-170 "De la Côte aux confins" by Nathalie Carré, The Voyage of Däbtära Fesseha Giyorgis to Italy at the end of the 19th Century Uganda's Katikiro in England: Being the Offical Account of His Visit to the Coronation of His Majesty King Edward VII by Ham Mukasa. Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain 1901\-1914 By Jeffrey Green, see Chapter on ‘Imperial Visitors’. 20 3)

The ancient city of Meroe: the capital of Kush (ca. 950 BC\-350 CE) in The ancient city of Meroe: the capital of Kush (ca. 950 BC\-350 CE) Journal of African cities: chapter 15 4)Located in the desert sands near the Nile in modern Sudan is the ancient city of Meroe, which ranks among the world's oldest cities and is home to . Established as early as the 10th century BC, Meroe was the political and cultural center of the great African Kingdom of Kush until its collapse in the 4th century of the common era. The powerful rulers who resided at Meroe constructed massive palaces, temples, and monuments, and their subjects transformed the city into a major religious and industrial center, once referred to as the 'Birmingham of Africa'. This article outlines the history and monuments of the ancient city of Meroe, utilizing images from the first excavations which uncovered the buildings more than 1,500 years after the ancient capital was abandoned. Map showing the location of Meroe. --- Sudan’s heritage is currently threatened by the ongoing conflict. Please support Sudanese organizations working to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the country by Donating to the ‘Khartoum Aid Kitchen’ gofundme page. --- A brief background on the history of Meroe. The city of Meroe first appears in the historical records on the inscription of King Amannote\-erike who ruled Kush during the second half of the 5th century BC in (named after Kush’s old Royal city of Napata). The inscription mentions that Amannote\-erike was “among the royal kinsmen” when his predecessor King Talakhamani died “in his palace of Meroë”. The city later appears in the inscription of his sucessor King Harsiyotef in reference to an Osiris procession, and on the 4th century BC inscription of King Nastasen who writes: “When I was the good youth in Meroë, Amun of Napata, my good father, summoned me, saying, ‘Come!’. I had the royal kinsmen who were throughout Meroë summoned…He will be a king who dwells successfully in Meroë…” Meroe also appears as the capital of the ‘Aithiopians’ in Herodotus' account from the 5th century BC. Based on information he received while in Egypt, Herodotus provides a semi\-legendary account of the city, mentioning the fountain of youth whose “thin” water supposedly enabled the “long\-lived” aithiopians (Meroites of Kush, not to be confused with modern Ethiopia) to live up to 120 years. Herodotus also refers to a prison where the prisoners were bound in fetters of gold because copper was deemed more valuable, and to a building outside the city called “Table of the Sun.” where animal offerings were left. Meroe was later visited by travelers from Ptolemaic Egypt such as Simonides the Younger and Philon who wrote a now\-lost account of the city and the kingdom in the 3rd century BC. These provided some of the information in the later accounts of Alexandrian geographer Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 246\-194 BC) and the ethnographer Agatharchides of Cnidus (b. 200 BC). It’s from the latter that we get a semi\-legendary account of King Ergamenes (Arkamaniqo), who is credited with establishing a new dynasty () after overthrowing the Napatan dynasty by shifting the royal cemetery from Napata to Meroe. The original name of Meroe was likely written as either Bedewi or Medewi, which is preserved in the name of the modern village of Begrawiya located next to the ancient site. In the texts of Kush’s Napatan\-period, the name of Meroe is rendered Brwt, while in the Ptolemaic texts, it is rendered as Mirw3i and in demotic inscriptions as Mrwt. The Greeks rendered the name as Μερόη, which was transliterated as Meroe in Latin and modern languages. --- Description of the monuments of Meroe The ancient city of Meroe is situated on the east bank of the Nile on a slightly elevated ground between two small seasonal rivers which branched out during the rainy season, making Meroe a seasonal island. The ruins of the ancient site cover an area of approximately 10km2, and include; the royal section enclosed by a wall; the north and south mounds which included domestic quarters; the outlying temples of Apedemak, Isis, the ‘Temple of the Sun’; and The site of Meroe was settled as early as the 7th millennium BC as indicated by finds of early pottery belonging to the ‘Khartoum Mesolithic’ tradition. Other materials dated to 1730–1410 BC, 1400–1000 BC, and 1270–940 BC indicate a continued albeit semi\-permanent human activity in the area. The foundation levels of the oldest structures found at the site, such as the palace M 750S and building M 292, provide dates ranging from 1010–800 BC to 961–841 BC. The distance between these structures and their construction in the 10th\-9th century BC, suggests that the early town of Meroe was already occupying a substantial area by then. Meroe came under the political orbit of the Napatan kingdom of Kush early in its history, although the exact nature of Kush's control remains a subject of debate. Excavations at the Palace M 750S revealed an older building with a large quantity of the Early Napatan pottery. The West Cemetery at Meroe contained graves of high officials and relatives of the early Kushite kings from Piankhy to Taharqo, dating to 750–664\. Epigraphic evidence from within the city goes back to the 7th\-century Bc rulers Senkamanisken and Anlamani, whose names were inscribed on objects found near Palace M 294 within the Royal City. The Napatan royals likely resided in Meroe long before the city explicitly appears in the internal documents of the 5th\-century BC mentioned above. This is indicated by the construction of a palace or temple dated to the 7th century BC in what would later become the royal compound; as well as King Aspelta’s construction of temple M 250 in the 6th century BC and the burial of a King’s wife in the Begrawiya South cemetery. The references to Meroe in the stela of Irike\-Amanote, Harsiyotef, and Aspelta in the context of internal strife and war likely indicate that the control of the city (or its hinterland), was likely contested even before King Arkamaniqo ultimately overthrew the Napatan dynasty around 275BC and moved the King’s burial site to the Begrawiya South cemetery. The appearance of the first burial of a King at the South Cemetery of Meroe also coincided with the creation of a separate royal district enclosed within a monumental wall. The masonry wall is about 5m thick, it originally stood several meters high and formed an irregular rectangle of 200x400m. Its construction is dated to between the early to mid 3rd century BC and encloses an area considered to be the “Royal City,” because of the numerous monumental buildings within it. It likely had no defensive function but rather served a monumental function separating the elite section of the city. The wall is pierced by five gates, whose asymmetrical location may reflect the position of the most important structures located in the city prior to its erection, and the course of the Nile channel. The Amun Temple at Meroe, also known as M 260, is the second\-largest Kushite temple after the Napatan temple B 500 at Jebel Barkal. It consists of; a courtyard with 3\.8 m tall pylons (now collapsed) and a Kiosk containing Meroitic inscriptions of King Natakamani and Queen Amanitore; a hypostyle forecourt that had a unique embedded stone basin and many Meroitic inscriptions eg the stela of Amanishaketo; and a Temple core with a series of hypostyle halls and side rooms, some with Meroitic inscriptions such as the stela of Amanikhabale, others with decorated and painted scenes with figures of royals and deities, and one with stone throne base measuring 1\.93 x 1\.8m . The temple was constructed in two main phases, with the first phase completed in the 1st century BC, which is corroborated by the dating of the material found at the site, while the second phase saw the addition of other structures between the 1st and 3rd century CE by various rulers. Among the most unique buildings in the Royal compound is one of the oldest structures in the city called M 292\. This was an important religious building, likely a chapel of a deity, that was continually rebuilt from the 10th century BC to the very end of the kingdom. It consists of two superimposed buildings, the lower one of whose columns (seen below) served as the bases for columns of a secondary structure. Its walls were extensively painted and decorated with victory scenes including Roman captives taken after Queen Amanirenas’ defeat of a Roman invasion, and it was here that the famous head of emperor Augustus was found. There are several monumental structures within the Royal compound identified as palaces, including, M 950, M 990, and M 998, dating to between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century CE. Besides these is an old palace M 750, located outside the Royal city, south\-east of the Amun temple. It consisted of two structures separated by a garden, and its interior contained inscribed and decorated blocks depicting procession scenes, as well as material dated to between the 8th century BC to 3rd century CE. Its construction method was similar to other Meroitic monuments: the stone foundations supported a plastered redbrick building covered with a brick roof resting on wood and palm fronds. Finds of pottery sherds lined on the west side of the palace indicate that some of the streets were paved to form a hard surface. An astronomical observatory, M 964, was found within, and below, Palace M 950\. Its function was determined by the graffiti incised on the wall showing two individuals with a wheeled astronomical instrument observing the sky and making calculations that were then inscribed on the wall in cursive meroitic. Added to this was the square and triangular stone pillars in the entrance, graffiti of instruments on the walls, and the stone basin in the subterranean room 954 for measuring Nile water, all of which were used by local priests to time specific Meroitic festivals. --- « Read more about the Meroe observatory here: --- Another unique structure of the later period is the so\-called Royal Bath complex, M 194\-5 is a 30x70m structure from the 3rd century BC, located on the western edge of the Royal City between the Enclosure Wall and Palace M 295\. Its main feature is a brick\-lined and plaster\-covered pool 7\.25 ×7\.15 m and 2\.50 m deep, surrounded by an ambulatory filled with locally made statuary, and supplied with water which flowed through water inlets cleverly concealed by the painted wall. A pipe fitted into a column stood in the center of the pool so that the water would flow into the basin from the spouts in the south wall and sprinkle fountain\-like in the center. This fountain feature recalls Herodotus’s observation of the “fountain of youth” at Meroe, which secured the longevity of the Meroites, an interpretation that is further complemented by paintings associated with the cults of Dionysus and Apedemak, who are linked with re\-birth, well\-being, and fertility. Most of the buildings excavated in the northeast part of the Royal City seem to be domestic quarters, magazines, and storage houses. East of the main Amun temple M260 were a series of small temples on both sides of a wide, open avenue that formed the processional way. These small, multi\-roomed temples show quite a diversity of layouts: including a simple three\-roomed edifice (M720\), a building erected on a high podium (KC 101\), and a double temple (KC 104\). The formal Processional Way to the Amun Temple separated two domestic areas known as the North Mound and the South Mound. The North mound excavations revealed extensive domestic occupations, iron furnaces along with heaps of iron slag, pottery kilns, and a large temple dedicated to Isis. Excavations in the south Mound revealed other important buildings besides the palace M 750, these included domestic remains such as; M 712, which contained a bakery; and the structure at SM 100 whose material was dated to between the 8th and 4th century BC. To the east of the city is building M 6, identified as the 'Lion Temple' of the Meroitic god Apedemak. It consists of two small rooms within an enclosing stone wall which is decorated with reliefs. It contained statues of lions, an inscribed stela with the name of the Lion\-headed deity Apedemak, and inscriptions belonging to the 3rd century CE Kings; Teqorideamani and Yesebokheamani. Further east of the ‘Lion Temple’ is building M 250, which is often wrongly called ‘Sun Temple’ after Herodotus’ fanciful account (there’s little evidence of sun worship at the temple). It was built in the 1st century BC by Prince Akinidad ontop of the remains of an earlier building erected by the Napatan King Aspelta. The edifice consists of a cella standing on a podium placed in the center of a peristyle court on top of a large artificial terrace approached by a ramp. It features highly decorated walls with relief registers depicting victory scenes. To the north of the city is M 600, identified as the temple of Isis, which was later reused in the medieval period as a church. It consisted of two columned halls leading to a shrine, where the altar stood on a floor of faience tiles. It contains a stela of King Teriteqas, two large columnar statues of the gods Sebiumeker and Arensnuphis protecting its entrance, and two figures of the goddess Isis. --- --- Life in the ancient city of Meroe An estimated 9,000 inhabitants lived in the royal city, including members of the Royal family and ordinary people. The bulk of the latter population lived in the smaller houses of mud\-brick walls found across the archeological site, and were engaged in a variety of crafts industries, from iron working, to gold smelting, textile manufacture, pottery making, the construction of monumental palaces, temples, and tombs found in the city, and the various sculptures and artworks that decorated their interior. According to Strabo’s description of Kush; “They live on millet and barley, from which they also make a beverage. Butter and suet serve as their olive oil. Nor do they have fruit trees except for a few date palms in the royal gardens. . . . They make use of meat, blood, milk, and cheese. . . . Their greatest royal seat is Meroe, the city with the same name as the island”. He adds that the land was populated by nomads, hunters, and farmers and that the Meroites were mining copper, gold, iron, and precious minerals. Discoveries of massive slag heaps, kilns, and forges in the outskirts of Meroe and the neighboring town of Hamadab, along with the remains of iron and copper tools, and gold and bronze jewelry, attest to the city’s importance as an important center of local industries (the iron\-slag mounds in particular earned it its nickname of the ‘Birmingham of Africa’). Commodities such as salt, gold, and other minerals, along with ebony, ivory, and other exotica were major trade items exported from Meroe to the Mediterranean world. Meroe is located within the monsoon rain belt region of Central Sudan in a savannah environment dotted with acacia trees, making it suitable for agro\-pastoralism which was the basis of Kush's economy in antiquity. The cultivation of cereals like sorghum was sustained by seasonal rains and the construction of water storages known as Hafirs. Finds of cattle bones and other animals (sheep, goats, pigs) in archaeological contexts corroborate written accounts about the importance of herding in Meroe. --- The end of Meroe Meroe remained a powerful capital well into the middle of the third century when the kingdom had to face serious political and economic difficulties, including the decline of Roman Egypt, the appearance of nomadic groups called the Blemmyes and the ‘Noba’ in its northern and eastern margins, and the rise of the Aksumite empire in the northern highlands of Ethiopia. The last inscription among the known Meroitic rulers, Talakhideamani, was found within the Amun Temple complex as well as in the Meroitic chamber at Philae (in Roman Egypt) where his envoys also left an inscription that contained the king's name, and at the temple of Musawwarat. His reign in the late 3rd century indicates that the kingdom, its capital and its main temple were still flourishing just decades before the Kush was invaded by the Aksumite kingdom. The royal city was sacked by the Aksumite armies in the early 4th century CE, evidenced by two Greek inscriptions found on the site, belonging to King Ousanas. They bear the typical Aksumite title of; "King of the Aksumites and Himyarites …" and they describe his capture of Kush's royal families, the erection of a throne and bronze statue, and the subjection of tribute on Kush. Ousanas’ campaign was later followed by his successor Ezana in 360 CE, who directed his armies against the Noba that were by then occupying much of Kush’s territory. The very end of habitation at Meroe City is represented by squatter occupation in the abandoned temples and by poor burials cut into the walls of deserted palatial buildings and in the inner rooms of the late Amun temple, as well as the complete disappearance of wheel\-turned pottery. The Meroitic dynasty likely ended with Queen Amanipilade, buried in Beg. N. 25, although the kingdom itself continued in some form until around 420 CE when the royals of established their royal necropolis at Ballana, formally marking the end of ancient Kush and its historic capital. --- Please support Sudanese organizations working to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the country by Donating to the ‘Khartoum Aid Kitchen’ gofundme page. --- --- --- Centuries before the rise of Aksum, the northern Horn of Africa was home to several complex societies referred to as the 'Pre\-Aksumite' civilization. Please subscribe to read about it here; --- for free to receive new posts and support my work. SubscribeThe Double Kingdom Under Taharqo: Studies in the History of Kush and Egypt, c. 690 – 664 BC by Jeremy W. Pope pg 12\-13\. Herodotus in Nubia By László Török The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan\-Meroitic Civilization By László Török pg pg 72\-73, Hellenizing Art in Ancient Nubia 300 B.C. \- AD 250 and Its Egyptian Models: A Study in "Acculturation" by László Török, Laszlo Torok pg 13\-19\. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 545 The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 456, 549\. A number of images in this essay were taken from the WildfireGames Forum article by ‘Sundiata’ titled: The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 551\-552 ‘Meroë as a Problem of Twenty\-Fifth Dynasty History’ in The Double Kingdom Under Taharqo: Studies in the History of Kush and Egypt, c. 690 – 664 BC by Jeremy W. Pope. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 551\-552, Meroe, the capital of Kush, old problems and new discoveries, by Krzysztof Grzymski pg 56\-58 The Double Kingdom Under Taharqo: Studies in the History of Kush and Egypt, c. 690 – 664 BC by Jeremy W. Pope pg 31\-33 The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan\-Meroitic Civilization By László Török pg 516\-517\. The Amun Temple at Meroe Revisited by Krzysztof Grzymski pg 142 Meroe: A Civilization of the Sudan by P. L. Shinnie pg 78\-79, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 553 The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 554\) Meroe, the capital of Kush, old problems and new discoveries, by Krzysztof Grzymski pg 52\-54, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 556\. The Meroitic Palace and Royal City by Marc Maillot The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 554, Hellenizing Art in Ancient Nubia 300 B.C. \- AD 250 and Its Egyptian Models: A Study in "Acculturation" by László Török pg 139\-188\. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 556\) Meroe, the capital of Kush, old problems and new discoveries, by Krzysztof Grzymski pg 47\-51, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 557 Meroe: A Civilization of the Sudan by P. L. Shinnie pg 83\-84, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan\-Meroitic Civilization By László Török pg 477\-479 The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan\-Meroitic Civilization By László Török 367\-270, 458, 520\) Meroe: A Civilization of the Sudan by P. L. Shinnie pg 84\. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 547, 557 Meroe: A Civilization of the Sudan by P. L. Shinnie pg 160\-165, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 547 The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia by Bruce Williams pg 456, 557\) The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan\-Meroitic Civilization By László Török pg 476\-478\. ‘Appendix: New Light on the Royal Lineage in the Last Decades of the Meroitic Kingdom’ in : The Amun Temple at Meroe Revisited by Krzysztof Grzymski pg 144\-146 Aksum and nubia by G. Hatke pg 67\-80, 95\-121, 135\. The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan\-Meroitic Civilization By László Török pg 481\-484 23 4)

Early civilizations of ancient Africa and the pre\-Aksumite civilization of the northern Horn. in Early civilizations of ancient Africa and the pre\-Aksumite civilization of the northern Horn. )In the closing decades of the 20th century, archaeologists working to uncover the foundations of urbanism and complex societies in West Africa discovered a vast cluster of stone ruins in southern Mauritania. Among these ruins was an urban settlement more than 80 ha large, with an elite necropolis at its centre surrounded by over 540 stone\-walled compounds and hundreds of funerary tumuli. The intricate layout of the settlement of Dakhlet el Atrouss I, its monumental tombs, and its estimated population of about 10,000 indicate that it was the capital of the during its 'classic phase' between 1600BC\-1000BC, and is arguably West Africa’s first town. Studies of African civilizations outside the Nile valley often start in the centuries after the common era, creating a false impression that social complexity in Africa only began during the Middle Ages. However, archeological investigations into the foundations of many of these medieval African societies have shown that they represent a culmination of centuries of cultural developments that extend back to antiquity. The Lake Chad basin, for example, has been at the center of many of Africa's largest pre\-colonial states since the Middle Ages including the empire of Kanem\-Bornu, and , which established large cities and towns protected by an extensive system of walls and ditches several meters tall and deep. While the construction of these walled towns was initially thought to have been influenced by exogenous factors, dating back to the early 1st millennium BC has shown that this form of urbanism was an autochthonous invention. Another example is the celebrated art traditions of , Ife, Benin, and other societies in southwestern Nigeria, which are known to have begun in the 9th century of the common era, seemingly without precedent. However, studies of , whose sculptural artworks featured similar motifs, carving styles, and expressions of belief systems, reveal the existence of an ancient precursor that links many of the region's art traditions, albeit indirectly. Ancient Africa therefore contained several complex societies whose cultural developments laid the foundations for the emergence of the better\-known kingdoms of empires during the Middle Ages. This gradual development is best exemplified in the northern Horn of Africa. Centuries before the Aksumite empire became one of "the four great kingdoms of the world", several complex societies emerged in the region between modern Eritrea and Ethiopia's Tigray state. Referred to as the 'Pre\-Aksumite' or 'Ona culture' sites, these settlements of agro\-pastoral communities constructed monumental stone temples and palaces, established towns, and cultivated links with south\-Arabia and the Nubian Nile valley. The history of the Pre\-Aksumite civilization is the subject of my latest Patreon article, please subscribe to read about it here; --- pre\-Aksumite temple at Yeha, Ethiopia. for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe25 )

The complete history of Zeila (Zayla), a medieval city in Somaliland: ca. 800\-1885 CE. in The complete history of Zeila (Zayla), a medieval city in Somaliland: ca. 800\-1885 CE. Journal of African cities: chapter 14 )The Gulf of Aden which links the Red Sea region to the Indian Ocean world was (and remains) one of the busiest maritime passages in the world. Tucked along its southern shores in the modern country of Somaliland was the medieval port city of Zeila which commanded much of the trade between the northern Horn of Africa and the western Indian Ocean. The city of Zeila was the origin of some of the most influential scholarly communities of the Red Sea region that were renowned in Egypt, Yemen, and Syria. Its cosmopolitan society cultivated trade links with societies as far as India, while maintaining its political autonomy against the powerful empires surrounding it. This article explores the history of Zeila, outlining key historical events and figures that shaped the development of the city from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. Maps showing the location of Zeila --- Support AfricanHistoryExtra by becoming a member of our Patreon community, subscribe here to read more about African history, download free books, and keep this newsletter free for all: --- The early history of Zeila from the 9th century to the 14th century The northern coastline of Somaliland is dotted with many ancient settlements that flourished in the early centuries of the common era. These settlements included temporary markets and permanent towns, some of which were described in the Periplus, a 1st\-century travel guide\-book, that mentions the enigmatic town of Aualitês, a small locality close to the African side of the narrow strait of Bab al\-Mandab. Some scholars initially identified Aualitês as Zeila, although material culture dating to this period has yet to be identified at the site. Zeila first appears in historical records in the 9th\-century account of the Geographer al\-Yaʿqūbī, who describes it as an independent port from which commodities such as leather, incense, and amber were exported to the Red Sea region. Later accounts from the 10th century by Al\-Iṣṭakḫrī, Al\-Masʽūdī, and Ibn Ḥawqal describe Zeila as a small port linked to the Hejaz and Yemen, although it’s not described as a Muslim town. Zeila remained a relatively modest port between the 10th and 11th centuries on the periphery of the late Aksumite state whose export trade was primarily conducted through . It wasn't until the early 13th century that Zeila reappeared in the accounts of geographers and chroniclers such as Yāqūt, Ibn Saʿīd and Abū l\-Fidā' who describe it as a Muslim city governed by local sheikhs. Zeila was regarded as an important stopping place for Muslim pilgrims en route to the Hejaz, as well as for the circulation of merchants, scholars, pilgrims, and mercenaries between Yemen and the sultanates of the northern Horn of Africa. A 15th\-century Ethiopian chronicle describing the wars of King Amda Seyon in 1332 mentions the presence of a ‘King’ at Zeila (negusä Zélʽa). The famous globe\-trotter Ibn Battuta, who briefly visited the city in 1331, describes it as "the capital of the Berberah \ The Egyptian chronicler Al\-ʿUmarī, writing in the 1330s from information provided by scholars from the region, mentions that the was “reigning over Zaylaʿ, the port where the merchants who go to this kingdom approach … the import is more considerable,” especially with “silk and linen fabrics imported from Egypt, Yemen and Iraq." He notes that external writers refer to the entire region as “the country of Zaylaʿ” which “is however only one of their cities on the sea whose name has extended to the whole." Al\-Umari’s account and contemporary accounts from 14th\-15th century Mamluk Egypt frequently mention the presence of scholars and students coming from the Horn of Africa, who were generally known by the nisba of ‘al\-Zayla'ī’ . They were influential enough to reserve spaces for their community at the Umayyad mosque in Damascus (Syria) and at al\-Azhar in Cairo (Egypt). One of these scholars was al\-ʿUmarī’s informant; the Ḥanafī jurist ʿAbdallāh al\-Zaylaʿī (d. 1360\), who was in Cairo at the head of an embassy from the Ifat kingdom to ask the Mamluk Sultan to intervene with the Ethiopian King on their behalf. Others include the Ḥanafī jurist Uthman al\-Zayla'ī (d. 1342\), who was the teacher of the aforementioned scholar, and a prominent scholar in Egypt. Another family of learned men carrying the nisba al\-Zaylaʿī is well\-known in Yemen: their ancestor Aḥmad b. ʿUmar al\-Zaylaʿī (d. 1304\) is said to have come to Arabia together with his father ʿUmar and his uncle Muḥammad “from al\-Habaša.” The family settled first in Maḥmūl, and Aḥmad ended his days in Luḥayya, a small port town on the coast of the Red Sea. --- « For more on the Zayla'ī scholars in the diaspora and the intellectual history of the northern Horn of Africa; please read this article » --- Corroborating these accounts of medieval Zeila’s intellectual prominence is the account of the 13th\-century Persian writer Ibn al\-Muǧāwir, which described the foreign population of Yemen’s main port, Aden, as principally comprising eight groups, including the Zayāliʿa, Abyssinians, Somalis, Mogadishans, and East Africans, among other groups. Customs collected from the ships of the Zayāliʿa accounted for a significant share of Aden's revenues and Zeila city was an important source of provisions for Aden. Scholars from the northern Horn of Africa who traveled to the Hejaz, Yemen and Egypt brought back their knowledge and books, as described in several local hagiographies. These scholars were instrumental in the establishment and spread of different schools of interpretation and application of Islamic law in the country, such as the Ḥanafī, Šāfiʿī, schools, and the Qadariyya Sufi order. The Qadari order was so popular in the northern Horn of Africa that one of its scholars; Sharaf al\-din Isma'il al\-Jabarti (d. 1403\), became a close confidant of the Rasulid sultan Al Ashraf Ismail (r. 1377\-1401\) and an administrator in the city of Zabid. Rasulid\-Yemen sources from the 14th\-15th century describe Zayla as the largest of the Muslim cities along the coast, its mariners transported provisions (everything from grain to construction material to fresh water) as far as Aden on local ships, and the city’s port handled most of the trade from the mainland. The Rasulid sultan reportedly attempted to take over the city by constructing a mosque and having the Friday prayers said in his name, but the people of Zeila rejected his claims of suzerainty and threw the construction material he brought into the sea, prompting the Rasulids to ban trade between Aden and Zeila for a year. Recent archeological surveys have revealed that the site occupied an estimated 50 hectares during the Middle Ages. At least three old mosques were identified, as well as two old tombs built of coral limestone, including the Masjid al\-Qiblatayn ("two miḥrāb" mosque) next to the tomb of Sheikh Babu Dena, the Shahari mosque with its towering minaret, the Mahmud Asiri \[Casiri] mosque, the mausoleum of Sheikh Eba Abdala and the mausoleum of Sheikh Ibrahim. The material finds included local pottery, fragments of glass paste, as well as imported Islamic and Chinese wares from the 13th\-18th centuries, which were used to date phases of the construction of the "two miḥrāb" mosque (The second mihrab wasn’t found, suggesting that the mosque’s name refers instead to its successive phases of construction which may have involved a remodeling to correct the original orientation). About 8km from the shore is the island of Saad Din, which contains the ruins of several domestic structures made of coral limestone as well as several tombs including one attributed to Sultan Saʽad al\-dīn. --- Zeila during the 15th and 16th centuries: alliances and conflicts with the kingdoms of Ifat, Adal and Christian\-Ethiopia. In the late 14th century, a dynastic split among the Walasma rulers of Ifat resulted in a series of battles between them and their suzerains; the Solomonids of Ethiopia, ending with the defeat of the Walasma sultan Saʿd al\-Dīn near Zeila between 1409\-1415, and the occupation of the Ifat territories by the Solomonid armies. In the decades following Saʿd al\-Dīn’s death, his descendants established a new kingdom known as Barr Saʿd al\-Dīn (or the Sultanate of Adal in Ge’ez texts), and quickly imposed their power over many other formerly independent Islamic territories including Zeila. While there’s no evidence that it came under the direct control of the Solomonids, Zeila remained the terminus of most of the overland trade routes from the mainland, linking the states of Ifat and Ethiopia to the Red Sea region. An early 16th\-century account by the Ethiopian Brother Antonio of Urvuar (Lalibela) describes Zeila as an "excellent port" visited by Moorish fleets from Cambay in India which brought many articles, including cloth of gold and silk. Another early 16th\-century account by the Florentine trader Andrea Corsali reported that it was visited by many ships laden with "much merchandise". The 1516 account of Duarte Barbosa describes Zeila’s “houses of stone and white\-wash, and good streets, the houses are covered with terraces, the dwellers in them are black.” The account by an Italian merchant in 1510 describes Zeila as a “place of immense traffic, especially in gold and elephant’s teeth (Ivory)”. He adds that it was ruled by a Muslim king and justice was “excellently administered”, it had an “abundance of provisions” in grain and livestock as well as oil, honey and wax which were exported. He also notes that many captives who came from the lands of ‘prestor John’ (Christian Ethiopia) went through it, which hints at the wars between Zeila and the Solomonids at the time. Internal accounts from the 16th century mention that governors of Zeila such as Lada'i 'Uthman in the 1470s, and Imam Maḥfūẓ b. Muḥammad (d. 1517\) conducted incursions against Ethiopia sometimes independently of the Adal sultan's wishes. This was likely a consequence of pre\-existing conflicts with the Solomonids of Ethiopia, especially since Zeila was required to send its ‘King’ to the Solomonid court during the 15th century, making it almost equal to the early Adal kingdom at the time which also initially sent a king and several governors to the Solomonids. Zeila’s relative autonomy would continue to be reflected in the later periods as it retained its local rulers well into the 16th and 17th centuries. After Mahfuz’s defeat by the Solomonid monarch Ləbnä Dəngəl around the time the Portuguese were sacking the port of Zeila, his daughter Bati Dəl Wänbära married the famous Adal General Imam Aḥmad Gran, who in the 1520s defeated the Solomonid army and occupied much of Ethiopia, partly aided by firearms purchased at Zeila and obtained by its local governor Warajar Abun, who was his ally. Between 1557 and 1559, the Ottoman pasha Özdemir took control of several port towns in the southern Red Sea like Massawa, Ḥarqiqo, and the Dahlak islands, which became part of their colony; Habesha Eyalet, but Zeila was likely still under local control. According to an internal document from the 16th century, the city was ruled by a gärad (governor) named ǧarād Lādū, who commissioned a wealthy figure named ʿAtiya b. Muhammad al\-Qurashı to construct the city walls between 1572 and 1577 to protect the town against nomads, while the Adal ruler Muhammad b. sultan Nasır was then in al\-Habasha \ --- Zeila from the 17th century to the mid\-19th century: Between the Ottoman pashas and the Qasimi Imams. Zeila likely remained under local control until the second half of the 17th century, when the city came under the control of the Ottoman’s Habesha Eyalet led by pasha Kara Naʾib, by the time it was visited by the Turkish traveler Evliya Celebi in 1672\. Celebi provides a lengthy description of the city, which he describes as a ‘citadel’, with a ‘castle’ that housed a garrison of 700 troops and 70 cannos under the governor Mehemmed Agha who collected customs from the 10\-20 Indian and Portuguese ships that visited the port each year to purchase livestock, oil and honey. He describes its inhabitants as ‘blacks’ who followed the Qadariyyah school and were wealthy merchants who traded extensively with the Banyans of Cambay (India) and with Yemen. He adds that they elect a Sunni representative who shares power with the Ottoman governor, along with "envoys" from Yemen, Portugal, India and England, and that the city was surrounded by 70\-80,000 non\-Muslims whose practices he compares to those of the Banyans. Zeila later came under the control of the Qasimi dynasty of the Yemeni city of Mocha around 1695\. The latter had expelled the Ottoman a few decades earlier and expanded trade with the African coast, encouraging the arrival of many Jalbas (local vessels) to sail from the Somaliland coast to Yemen, often carrying provisions. The city was also used to imprison dissidents from Mocha in the early 18th century. Zeila in the 18th and 19th centuries was governed by an appointed Amir/sheikh, who was supported by a small garrison, but his authority was rather limited outside its walls. Zeila had significantly declined from the great city of the late Middle Ages to a modest town with a minor port. It was still supplied by caravans often coming from Harar whose goods were exchanged with imports bought from Indian and Arab ships. In 1854, it was visited by the British traveler Francis Burton, who described it as such; "Zayla is the normal African port — a strip of sulphur\-yellow sand, with a deep blue dome above, and a foreground of the darkest indigo. The buildings, raised by refraction, rose high, and apparently from the bosom of the deep. After hearing the worst accounts of it, I was pleasantly disappointed by the spectacle of whitewashed houses and minarets, peering above a long, low line of brown wall, flanked with round towers." The town of 3\-4,000 possessed six mosques and its walls were pierced by five gates, it was the main terminus for trade from the mainland, bringing ivory, hides, gum and captives to the 20 dhows in habour, some of which had Indian pilots. \<\< Burton also learned from Zeila's inhabitants that mosquito bites resulted in malaria, but dismissed this theory as superstition \>\> --- Zeila in the late 19th century. At the time of Burton’s visit, the town was ruled by Ali Sharmarkay, a Somali merchant who had been in power since 1848\. He collected customs from caravans and ships, but continued to recognize the ruler of Mocha as his suzerain, especially after the latter city was retaken by the Ottomans a few years prior, using the support of their semi\-autonomous province; the Khedivate of Egypt. The Ottoman pasha of the region, then based at Al\-Hudaydah, confirmed his authority and sent to Zeila a small garrison of about 40 matchlockmen from Yemen. Ali Sharmarkay attempted to redirect and control the interior trade from Harar, as well as the rival coastal towns of Berbera and Tajura, but was ultimately deposed in 1855 by the pasha at Al\-Hudaydah, who then appointed the Afar merchant Abu Bakar in his place. The latter would continue to rule the town after it was occupied by the armies of the Khedive of Egypt, which were on their way to in the 1870s. The town's trade recovered after the route to Harar was restored, and it was visited by General Gordon, who stayed temporarily in one of its largest houses. Abubakar attempted to balance multiple foreign interests of the Khedive government —which was itself coming under the influence of the French and British— by signing treaties with the French. However, after the mass evacuation of the Khedive government from the region in 1884, the British took direct control of Zeila, and briefly detained Abubakar for allying with the French, before releasing him and restoring him but with little authority. The ailing governor of Zeila died in 1885, the same year that the British formally occupied the Somaliland coast as their colonial protectorate. In the early colonial period, the rise of Djibouti and the railway line from Djibouti to Addis Ababa greatly reduced the little trade coming to Zeila from the mainland. The old city was reduced to its current state of a small settlement cluttered with the ruins of its ancient grandeur Please subscribe to Patreon and read about an East African’s description of 19th\-century Europe here: SubscribeMaps by Stephane Pradines and Jorge de Torres An Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Horn: The British\-Somali Expedition, 1975 by Neville Chittick pg 125, Local exchange networks in the Horn of Africa: a view from the Mediterranean world (third century B.C. \-sixth century A.D.) by Pierre Schneider pg 15\. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 96, Le port de Zeyla et son arrière\-pays au Moyen Âge by François\-Xavier Fauvelle\-Aymar et al. prg 55\-64\) Le port de Zeyla et son arrière\-pays au Moyen Âge by François\-Xavier Fauvelle\-Aymar et al. prg 78\-86\) A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 97\) Le port de Zeyla et son arrière\-pays au Moyen Âge by François\-Xavier Fauvelle\-Aymar et al. prg 92\-94\) A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 108, 99\) First Footsteps in East Africa: Or, An Explanation of Harar By Sir Richard Francis Burton with introduction by Henry W. Nevinson, pg 66\. Islam in Ethiopia By J. Spencer Trimingham pg 62\) Islam in Ethiopia By J. Spencer Trimingham pg 72\) ALoA Vol 3, The writings of the Muslim peoples of northeastern Africa by John O. Hunwick, Rex Seán O'Fahey pg 19\) A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 152\) A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 442, A Traveller in Thirteenth\-century Arabia: Ibn Al\-Mujāwir's Tārīkh Al\-mustabṣir by Yūsuf ibn Yaʻqūb Ibn al\-Mujāwir pg 151, 123, 138\. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 152\) Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition by Alexander D. Knysh pg 241\-269\) L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen by Éric Vallet, Chapter 6, pg 381\-424, prg 44\-49, 78\. Le port de Zeyla et son arrière\-pays au Moyen Âge by François\-Xavier Fauvelle\-Aymar et al. prg 13\-20, Urban Mosques in the Horn of Africa during the Medieval Period pg 51\-52 A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 101\-3\) A Social History of Ethiopia: The Northern and Central Highlands from Early Medieval Times to the Rise of Emperor Téwodros II by Richard Pankhurst pg 55\) A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, Volume 35 by Duarte Barbosa, Fernão de Magalhães, pg 17 The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema By Ludovico di Varthema pg 86\-87 Islam in Ethiopia By J. Spencer Trimingham pg 82\-86 Harar as the capital city of the Barr Saʿd ad\-Dıˉn by Amélie Chekroun pg 27 Harar as the capital city of the Barr Saʿd ad\-Dıˉn by Amélie Chekroun pg 31\-32 , Ottomans, Yemenis and the “Conquest of Abyssinia” (1531\-1543\) by Amélie Chekroun, The Conquest of Abyssinia: 16th Century by Shihāb al\-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʻAbd al\-Qādir ʻArabfaqīh, Richard Pankhurst pg 104, 112, 344\. A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly pg 469, Harar as the capital city of the Barr Saʿd ad\-Dıˉn by Amélie Chekroun pg 37, Entre Arabie et Éthiopie chrétienne Le sultan walasmaʿ Saʿd al\-Dīn et ses fils (début xve siècle) by Amélie Chekroun pg 238 Celebi refers to Zeila’s inhabitants as “the Qadari tribe.. black Zangis.. they have Tatar faces and disheveled locks of hair”. the translator of his text adds that ‘Based on the tribal name, Evliya associates them with the Qadari theological school, believers in free will, which he frequently joins with other heretical groups’. \\ The ethnonym of ‘black Zangis’ is a generic term he frequently uses in describing ‘black’ African groups he encounters. The ‘Tatar faces (Turkish faces) ‘disheveled locks of hair’ indicate that they were native inhabitants, most likely Somali\\. Ottoman Explorations of the Nile: Evliya Çelebi’s Map of the Nile and The Nile Journeys in the Book of Travels (Seyahatname) by Robert Dankoff, pg 324\-328\) Celebi’s comparisons of the non\-Muslim groups in Zayla’s hinterland to the “fire\-worshiping” Banyans were likely influenced by the significant trade it had with India, which could have been the source of some traditions at the time that the city was in ancient times founded by Indians before the Islamic era. The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port by Nancy Um pg 26, 32, 114\-115\. Ethiopia: the Era of the Princes: The Challenge of Islam and Re\-unification of the Christian Empire, 1769\-1855 by Mordechai Abir pg 14\-16, Precis of Papers Regarding Aden, 1838\-1872 by N. Elias. pg 21\-26\) First Footsteps in East Africa: Or, An Explanation of Harar By Sir Richard Francis Burton with introduction by Henry W. Nevinson, pg 27\-33\) Precis of Papers Regarding Aden, 1838\-1872 by N. Elias. pg 22\-23, 26, The First Footsteps in East Africa by Francis Burton pg 28\-39, 63\) Ethiopia: the Era of the Princes by Mordechai Abir pg 19, Sun, Sand and Somals By Henry A. Rayne, pg 16\-17\) Sun, Sand and Somals By Henry A. Rayne, pg 18\-20, Abou\-Bakr Ibrahim. Pacha de Zeyla. Marchand d’esclaves, commerce et diplomatie dans le golfe de Tadjoura 1840\-1885\. review by Alain Gascon. British Somaliland By Ralph Evelyn Drake\-Brockman pg 17 16 )

Africa and Europe during the age of mutual exploration: a Swahili traveler's description of 19th century Germany. in Africa and Europe during the age of mutual exploration: a Swahili traveler's description of 19th century Germany. )The late modern period that began in the early 19th century was the height of mutual exploration on a global scale in which African travelers were active agents. In the preceding period, Africans had been traveling and occasionally settling across much of the old world since antiquity; from and to , , from and , to and the , and from to . Their activities contributed to the patterns of global integration that eventually led to the production of travel literature during the late modern period. The travel literature produced by these intrepid African explorers provides a rich medium to study different perceptions of foreign cultures and exotic lands. The African authors consistently compare the unfamiliar landscapes, people and fauna they encountered to those in their own societies. They describe foreign curiosities, eccentricities, and beliefs that inspire personal reflections on humanity and religion, using the language of wonder to express the strangeness of foreign customs. for example, contains many comparisons between the culture, places, and rituals of the people of England and Germany, with those of his own community near the city of Zinder in modern Niger. Dorugu included many interesting anecdotes about his hosts such as the Germans' penchant for smoking, and the curious dining traditions of the English, whose meals he considered as good as Hausa cuisine. --- --- provides an even more detailed account of the many different places and cultures he encountered. Selim meticulously reproduces his observations of the unfamiliar landscapes, peoples and fauna for which he struggled to find equivalents in the Swahili language. He was pleasantly surprised upon meeting "white Muslims" in such a 'remote' region and was fascinated by the nomadic practices of the Kalmyks whom he compares to the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania. provides what is arguably the most detailed account of foreign lands written by an African traveler from this period. Like the other travelers, Mukasa relied on a familiar vocabulary and set of concepts from his own society of Buganda, in Uganda, as a transcendental point of reference to describe the unfamiliar landscapes and objects of England, as well as in the way he characterized the different groups he met along the way; such as the Germans, Jews and Italians. Many of these travelogues were written on the eve of colonialism and can thus be read as inverse ethnographies, utilising a form of narrative inversion in which the African travellers reframe and subvert the dominant political order. They travel along well\-known routes, rely on local guides and interpreters, and comment on cultural differences using their own conceptual vocabularies. An excellent example of this is a little known travel document written by an East African traveller Amur al\-Omeri who visited Germany in 1891\. Written in Swahili, the document relates his puzzlement about the unfamiliar landscape and curiosities he witnessed that he consistently compares with his home city of Zanzibar; from the strange circuses and beerhalls of Berlin, to the museums with captured artefacts, to the licentious inhabitants of Amsterdam. The 19th century travelogue of Amur al\-Omeri is the subject of my latest Patreon article, please subscribe to read about it here; for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe35 )

a complete history of Mombasa ca. 600\-1895\. in a complete history of Mombasa ca. 600\-1895\. Journal of African cities: chapter 13 5)The island of Mombasa is home to one of the oldest cities on the East African coast and is today the largest seaport in the region. Mombasa’s strategic position on the Swahili Coast and its excellent harbours were key factors in its emergence as a prosperous city\-state linking the East African mainland to the Indian Ocean world. Its cosmopolitan community of interrelated social groups played a significant role in the region's history from the classical period of Swahili history to the era of the Portuguese and Oman suzerainty, contributing to the intellectual and cultural heritage of the East African coast. This article outlines the history of Mombasa, exploring the main historical events and social groups that shaped its history. Map of Mombasa and the Swahili coast. --- Support AfricanHistoryExtra by becoming a member of our Patreon community, subscribe here to read more about African history, download free books, and keep this newsletter free for all: --- The early history of Mombasa: 6th\-16th century. The island of Mombasa was home to one of the oldest Swahili settlements on the East African coast. Excavations on Mombasa Island reveal that it was settled as early as the 6th\-9th century by ironworking groups who used ‘TT’/’TIW’ ceramics characteristic of other Swahili settlements. An extensive settlement dating from 1000CE to the early 16th century was uncovered at Ras Kiberamni and the Hospital site to its south, with the latter site containing more imported pottery and the earliest coral\-stone constructions dated to the early 13th century. The first documentary reference to Mombasa comes from the 12th\-century geographer Al\-Idrisi, who notes that it was located two days sailing from Malindi, and adds that “It is a small town of the Zanj and its inhabitants are engaged in the extraction of iron from their mines… in this town is the residence of the king of the Zanj.” The globe\-trotter Ibn Battuta, who visited Mombasa in 1332, described it as a large island inhabited by Muslim Zanj, among whom were pious Sunni Muslims who built well\-constructed mosques, and that it obtained much of its grain from the mainland. The 19th\-century chronicle of Mombasa and other contemporary accounts divide its early history into two periods associated with two dynasties and old towns. It notes that the original site known as Kongowea was a pre\-Islamic town ruled by Queen Mwana Mkisi. She/her dynasty was succeeded by Shehe Mvita, a Muslim ‘shirazi’ at the town of Mvita which overlapped with Kongowea and was more engaged in the Indian Ocean trade. Such traditions compress a complex history of political evolution, alliances, and conflicts between the various social groups of Mombasa which mirrors similar accounts of the . Like most Swahili cities, Mombasa was governed like a "republic" led by a tamim (erroneously translated as King or Sultan) chosen by a council of sheikhs and elders (wazee). Between the 15th and 17th century, Mombasa’s residents gradually began forming into two confederations (Miji), consisting of twelve clans/tribes (Taifa) that included pre\-existing social groups and others from the Swahili coast and mainland. One of the confederations that came to be known as Tissia Taifa (nine clans) occupied the site of Mvita, and were affiliated with groups from The second confederation had three clans, Thelatha Taifa, and is associated with the sites of Kilindini and Tuaca. Archeological surveys at the site of Tuaca revealed remains of coral walls with two phases of construction, as well as local pottery and imported wares from the Islamic world and China. A gravestone possibly associated with a ruined mosque in the town bore the inscription ‘1462’. Other features of Tuaca include a demolished ruin of the Kilindini mosque, also known as Mskiti wa Thelatha Taita (Mosque of the Three Tribes); the remains of the town wall and a concentration of baobab trees. Later accounts and maps from the 17th century identify ‘Tuaca’ as a large forested settlement with a harbor known as ‘Barra de Tuaca’, next to a pillar locally known as Mbaraki. Excavations at the mosque next to the Mbaraki pillar indicate that the mosque was built in the 15th century before it was turned into a site for veneration in the 16th century, with the pillar being constructed by 1700\. A much older pillar which is noted in the earliest Portuguese account of Mombasa may have been the minaret of the Basheikh mosque. --- --- Mombasa during the 16th century: Conflict with Portugal and the ascendancy of Malindi. In April 1498 Vasco da Gama arrived at Mombasa but the encounter quickly turned violent once Mombasa’s rulers became aware of his actions on Mozambique island, so his crew were forced to sail to Malindi. This encounter soured relations between Mombasa and the Portuguese, and the latter’s alliance with Malindi would result in three major invasions of the city in 1505, 1526, 1589, and define much of the early . At the time of the Portuguese encounter, Mombasa was described as the biggest of the three main Swahili city\-states; the other two being Kilwa and Malindi. It had an estimated population of 10,000 who lived in stone houses some up to three stories high with balconies and flat roofs, interspaced between these were houses of wood and narrow streets with stone seats (baraza). Mombasa was considered to be the finest Swahili town, importing silk and gold from Cambay and Sofala. According to Duarte Barbosa the king of Mombasa was "the richest and most powerful" of the entire coast, with rights over the coastal towns between Kilifi and Mutondwe. A later account from the 1580s notes that the chief of Kilifi was a "relative" of the king of Mombasa. Barbosa also mentions that "Mombasa is a place of great traffic and a good harbour where small crafts and great ships were moored, bound to Sofala, Cambay, Malindi and other ports." An account from 1507 notes the presence of merchants from Mombasa as far south as the Kerimba archipelago off the coast of Mozambique. They formed a large community that was supported by the local population and even had a kind of factory where ivory was stored. Another account from 1515 mentions Mombasa among the list of Swahili cities whose ships were sighted in the Malaysian port city of Malacca, along with ships from Mogadishu, Malindi, and Kilwa. The rulers of Mombasa and maintained links through intermarriage and the former may have been recognized as the suzerain of Zanzibar (stone\-town). The power of Mombasa and the city\-state's conflict with Malindi over the region of Kilifi compelled the Malindi sultan to ally with the Portuguese and break the power of Mombasa and its southern allies. Malindi thus contributed forces to the sack of Mombasa in 1505, and again in 1528\-1529 when a coalition of forces that included Pemba and Zanzibar attacked Mombasa and its allies in the Kerimba islands. Despite the extent of the damage suffered during the two assaults, the city retained its power as most of its population often retreated during the invasions. It was rebuilt in a few years and even further fortified enough to withstand a failed attack in 1541\. Tensions between Mombasa and the Portuguese subsided as the latter became commercial allies, but the appearance of Ottomans in the southern read sea during this period provided the Swahili a powerful ally against the Portuguese. Around 1585, the Ottoman captain Ali Bey sailed down the coast from Aden and managed to obtain an alliance with many Swahili cities, with Mombasa and Kilifi sending their envoys in 1586 just before he went back to Aden. Informed by Malindi on the actions of Ali Bey, the Portuguese retaliated by attacking Mombasa in 1587 and forcing its ruler to submit. When Ali Bey's second fleet returned in 1589, it occupied Mombasa and fortified it. Shortly after Ali Bey's occupation of Mombasa, the Zimba, an enigmatic group from the mainland that had fought the Portuguese at Tete in Mozambique, arrived at Mombasa and besieged the city. In the ensuing chaos, the Zimba killed the Mombasa sultan and Ottomans surrendered to the Portuguese, before the Zimba proceeded to attack Malindi but were repelled by the Segeju, a mainland group allied to Malindi. In 1589 the Segeju attacked both Kilifi and Mombasa, and handed over the latter to the Sultan Mohammed of Malindi. The Portuguese then made Mombasa the seat of the East African possessions in 1593, completed Fort Jesus in 1597, and granted the Malindi sultan 1/3rd of its customs. --- Mombasa during the Portuguese period: 1593\-1698\. The Portuguese established a settler colony populated with about 100 Portuguese adults and their families at the site known as Gavana. These colonists included a few officers, priests who ran mission churches, soldiers garrisoned in the fort, and casados (men with families). The Swahili and Portuguese of Mombasa were engaged in ivory and rice trade with the mainland communities of the Mijikenda (who appear in Portuguese documents as the "Nyika" or as the "mozungulos"), which they exchanged for textiles with Indian merchants from Gujarat and Goa, with some wealthy Swahili from Mombasa such as Mwinyi Zago even visiting Goa in 1661\. Relations between the Malindi sultans and the Portuguese became strained in the early 17th century due to succession disputes and regulation of trade and taxes, in a complex pattern of events that involved the Mijikenda who acted as military allies of some factions and the primary supplier of ivory from the mainland. This state of affairs culminated in the rebellion of Prince Yusuf Hasan (formerly Dom Jeronimo Chingulia) who assassinated the captain of Mombasa and decimated the entire colony by 1631\. His reign was shortlived, as the Portuguese returned to the city by 1632, forcing Yusuf to flee to the red sea region, marking the end of the Malindi dynasty at Mombasa. Near the close of the 17th century however, the Portuguese mismanagement of the ivory trade from the mainland forced a section of the Swahili of Mombasa to request military aid from Oman. Contemporary accounts identify a wealthy Swahili merchant named Bwana Gogo of the Tisa Taifa faction associated with Lamu, and his Mijikenda suppliers led by 'king' Mwana Dzombo, as the leaders of the uprising, while most of the Thelatha Taifa and other groups from Faza and Zanzibar allied with the Portuguese. A coalition of Swahili and Omani forces who'd been attacking Portuguese stations along the coast eventually besieged Mombasa in 1696\. After 33 months, the Fort was breached and the Portuguese were expelled. The Omani sultans placed garrisons in Mombasa, appointing the Mazrui as local administrators. --- Subscribe --- --- Mombasa during the Mazrui era (1735\-1837\) Conflicts between the Swahili and Omanis in Pate and Mombasa eventually compelled the former to request Portuguese aid in 1727 to expel the Omanis. By March of 1729, the Portuguese had reoccupied Fort Jesus with support from Mwinyi Ahmed of Mombasa and the Mijikenda. However, the Portuguese clashed with their erstwhile allies over the ivory and textile trade, prompting Mwinyi Ahmed and the Mijikenda to expel them by November 1729\. He then sent a delegation to Muscat with the Mijikenda leader Mwana Jombo to invite the Yarubi sultan of Oman back to Mombasa. The Yarubi Omanis thereafter appointed Mohammed bin Othman al\-Mazrui as governor (liwali) in 1730, but a civil war in Oman brought the Busaidi into power and the Mazrui refused to recognize their new suzerains and continued to rule Mombasa autonomously. During the Mazrui period, most of the population was concentrated at Mvita and Kilindini while Gavana and Tuaca were largely abandoned. The Mazrui family integrated into Swahili society but, aside from arbitrating disputes, their power was quite limited and they governed with the consent of the main Swahili lineages. For example in 1745 after the Busaidi and their allies among the Tisa Taifa assassinated and replaced the Mazrui governor of Mombasa, sections of the Thelatha Taifa and a section of the Mijikenda executed the briefly\-installed Busaidi governor and restored the Mazrui. Persistent rivalries between the governing Mazrui and the Tisa Taifa forced the Mazrui to get into alot of debt to honour the multiple gifts required by their status. Some of the Mazrui governors competed with the sultans of Pate, who thus allied with the Tisa Taifa against the Thelatha Taifa. Both sides installed and deposed favorable rulers in Mombasa and Pate, fought for control over the island of Pemba, and leveraged alliances with the diverse communities of the Mijikenda. Mombasa continued to expand its links with the Mijikenda, who provided grain to the city in exchange for textiles and an annual custom/tribute that in the 1630s constituted a third of the revenue from the customs of Fort Jesus. The Mijikenda also provided the bulk of Mombasa's army, and the city's rulers were often heavily dependent on them, allowing the Mijikenda to exert significant influence over Mombasa's politics and social life, especially during the 18th century when they played kingmaker between rival governors and also haboured belligerents. Some of them, eg the Duruma, settled in Pemba where they acted as clients of the Mazrui. Some of the earliest Swahili\-origin traditions were recorded in Mombasa in 1847 and 1848, they refer to the migration of the Swahili from the city/region of Shungwaya (which appears in 16th\-17th century Portuguese accounts and corresponds to the site of Bur Gao on the Kenya/Somalia border) after it was overrun by Oromo\-speaking herders allied with Pate. These Swahili then moved to Malindi, Kilifi, and finally to Mombasa, revealing the extent of interactions between the mainland and the island and the fluidity of Mombasa’s social groups. At least four of the clans of Mombasa, especially among the Thelatha Taifa claim to have been settled on the Kenyan mainland before moving to the island. Mombasa under the Mazrui expanded its control from Tanga to the Bajun islands and increased its agricultural tribute from Pemba, which in the 16th\-17th century period amounted to over 600 makanda of rice, among other items, (compared to just 20 makanda from the Mijikenda). This led to a period of economic prosperity that was expressed in contemporary works by Mombasa’s scholars. Internal trade utilized silver coins (thalers) as well as bronze coins that were minted during the governorship of Salim ibn Ahmad al\-Mazrui (1826–1835\). In the late 18th century, Mombasa's external trade continued to be dominated by ivory and other commodities like rice, that were exported to south Arabian ports. However, Mombasa's outbound trade was less than that carried out by Kilwa, Pemba, and Zanzibar, whose trade was directed to the Omans of Muscat, who were hostile to the Mazrui. Mombasa also prohibited trade with the French who wanted captives for their colony in the Mascarenes, as they were allied with the Portuguese, leaving only the English who purchased most of Mombasa's ivory for their possessions in India. The city was part of the intellectual currents and wealth of the 18th century and early 19th century, which contributed to a with scholars from Pate and Mombasa such as Seyyid Ali bin Nassir (1720–1820\), Mwana Kupona (d. 1865\) and Muyaka bin Haji (1776–1840\), some of whose writings preserve elements of Mombasa’s early history --- Mombasa in the 19th century: from Mazrui to the Busaid era (1837\-1895\) At the start of the 19th century, internal and regional rivalries between the elites of Mombasa, Pate, and Lamu, supported by various groups on the mainland culminated in a series of battles between 1807 and 1813, in which Lamu emerged as the victor, and invited the Busaidi sultan of Oman, Seyyid Said as their protector, who later moved his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar. Internecine conflicts among the Mazrui resulted in a breakup of their alliance with the Thelatha Taifa, some of whom shifted their alliance to the Zanzibar sultan Sayyid Said, culminating in the latter’s invasion of Mombasa in 1837, and the burning of Kilindini town. The Thelatha Taifa then established their own area in Mvita known as Kibokoni, adjacent to the Mjua Kale of the Tissa Taifa to form what is now the ‘Old Town’ section of the city. Under the rule of the Zanzibar sultans, the Swahili of Mombasa retained most of their political autonomy. They elected their own leaders, had their own courts that settled most disputes within the section, and they only paid some of the port taxes and tariffs to Zanzibar. By the late 19th century, the expansion of British colonialism on the East African coast eroded the Zanzibar sultan’s authority, with Mombasa eventually becoming part of the British protectorate in 1895\. Economic and political changes as well as the arrival of new groups from India, Yemen, and the Kenyan mainland during the colonial period would profoundly alter the social mosaic of the cosmopolitan city, transforming it into modern Kenya’s second\-largest city. Mombasa derived part of its wealth from re\-exporting the gold of Sofala, which was ultimately obtained from Great Zimbabwe and the other stone\-walled capitals of Southeast Africa Please subscribe to read about the history of the Gold trade of Sofala and the internal dynamics of gold demand within Southeast Africa and the Swahili coast here: --- for free to receive new posts and support my work. SubscribeThe Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 621, Excavations at the Site of Early Mombasa by Hamo Sassoon. Excavations at the Site of Early Mombasa by Hamo Sassoon pg 3\-5 Oral Historiography and the Shirazi of the East African Coast by Randall L. Pouwels pg 252\-253, The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 52\) These are the; Mvita, Jomvu, Kilifi, Mtwapa, Pate, Shaka, Paza, Bajun, and Katwa. These are the Kilindini, Changamwe, and Tangana. The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations Among the Mombasa Swahili by Marc J. Swartz pg 30\-33, The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 621, 76\) The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 621\-622\) The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 622, Mbaraki Pillar \& Related Ruins of Mombasa Island by Hamo Sassoon Excavations at the Site of Early Mombasa by Hamo Sassoon pg 7 Mombasa Island: A Maritime Perspective by Rosemary McConkey and Thomas McErlean pg 109 Excavations at the Site of Early Mombasa by Hamo Sassoon pg 7 Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet pg 60\-61, 331, The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 620\) Mnarani of Kilifi: The Mosques and Tombs by James Kirkman East Africa and the Indian Ocean by Edward A. Alpers pg 9, Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamuby Thomas Vernet pg 75, 83\) The Medieval Foundations of East African Islam by Randall L. Pouwels pg 404\-406, Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 64\-65, 83\-84\) Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 85\-86, 89, 97\) Global politics of the 1580s by G Casale pg 269\-273, Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 100\-108\) Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 109\- 125\) Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 127\-140, 150, 152, 225\-227, Mombasa Island: A Maritime Perspective by Rosemary McConkey and Thomas McErlean pg 111\-113\. Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 414\-416\) Empires of the Monsoon by Richard Seymour Hall pg 266\-274\. Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 365\-373\) The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 522\-523\) Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 434\-460\) Mombasa, the Swahili, and the making of the Mijikenda by Justin Willis pg 59\-60, The Swahili community of Mombasa by J. Berg pg 50\-52 Oral Historiography and the Shirazi of the East African Coast by Randall L. Pouwels pg 253, Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 266, 469\-472, The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations Among the Mombasa Swahili by Marc J. Swartz pg 34\. by the 20th century, the Mijikenda were divided into nine groups; Giriama, Digo, Rabai, Chonyi, Jibana, Ribe, Kambe, Kauma and Duruma, some of whom, such as the Duruma and Rabai appear in much earlier sources. Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 261\-264, 413\-415, 528\-529\) Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 229\-231, 231\-235, 315\-316, The Swahili community of Mombasa by J. Berg pg 46\-49\. The Swahili community of Mombasa by J. Berg pg 49 Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 336\-338\) The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 454\-455, The Swahili community of Mombasa by J. Berg 52 Les cités\-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585\-1810 by Thomas Vernet pg 476\-481, The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 386\) The Swahili World, edited by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones, Adria LaViolette pg 524\) The battle of Shela by RL Pouwels The Swahili community of Mombasa by J. Berg pg 52\-53, The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations Among the Mombasa Swahili by Marc J. Swartz pg 35\. The Swahili community of Mombasa by J. Berg pg 53\-55 The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations Among the Mombasa Swahili by Marc J. Swartz pg 36\-40\. 29 5)

A brief history of Gold in Africa and the emporium of Sofala. in A brief history of Gold in Africa and the emporium of Sofala. 3)It was copper, not Gold, that was considered the most important metal in most African societies, according to an authoritative study by Eugenia Herbert. Employing archaeological evidence as well as historical documentation, Herbert concluded that copper had more intrinsic value than Gold and that the few exceptions reflected a borrowed system of values from the Muslim or Christian worlds. However, more recent historical investigations into the relative values of Gold and Copper across different African societies undermine this broad generalization. While there's plenty of evidence that Copper and its alloys were indeed the most valued metal in many African societies, there has also been increasing evidence for the importance of Gold in several societies across the continent that cannot solely be attributed to external influence. In ancient Nubia where some of the continent's oldest gold mines are found, Gold objects appear extensively in the archaeological record of the kingdoms of Kerma and Kush. Remains of workshops of goldsmiths at the capital of classic Kerma and Meroe, ruins of architectural features and statues covered in gold leaf, inscriptions about social ceremonies involving the use of gold dust and objects, as well as finds of gold jewelry across multiple sites along the Middle Nile, provide evidence that ancient Nubia wasn't just an exporter of Gold, but also a major consumer of the precious metal. In the Senegambia region of west Africa, where societies of , a trove of gold objects was included in the array of finery deposited to accompany their owners into the afterlife. The resplendent gold pectoral of Rao, dated to the 8th century CE is only the best known among the collection of gold objects from the Senegambia region that include gold chains and gold beads from the Wanar and Kael Tumulus, dated to the 6th century CE, which predate the Islamic period. Equally significant is the better\-known region of the Gold Coast in modern Ghana, where many societies, especially among the Akan\-speaking groups, were renowned for gold mining and smithing. The rulers of the earliest states which emerged around the 13th century at Bono\-Manso and later at Denkyira and Asante in the 17th and 18th centuries, placed significant value on gold, which was extracted from deep ancient mines, worked into their royal regalia, stored in the form of gold dust, and sold to the . While Africa's gold exports increased during the Islamic era and the early modern period, the significance of these external contacts to Africa's internal demand for gold was limited to regions where there was pre\-existing local demand. For example, despite the numerous accounts of the golden caravans from Medieval Mali such as the over 12 tonnes of gold carried by Mansa Musa in 1324, no significant collection of gold objects has been recovered from the region (compared to the many bronze objects found across Mali’s old cities and towns). A rare exception is the 19th\-century treasure of Umar Tal that was stolen by the French from Segou, which included 75kg of gold and over 160 tons of silver. Compare this to the Gold Coast which exported about 1 tonne of gold annually, and where hundreds of gold objects were stolen by the British from the Asante capital Kumasi, during the campaigns of 1826, 1874, and 1896, with at least 239 items housed at the British Museum, not counting the dozens of other institutions and the rest of the objects which were either melted or surrendered as part of the indemnity worth 1\.4 tonnes of gold. Just one of these objects, eg the gold head at London’s Wallace collection, weighs 1\.36 kg. Domestic demand for gold in Africa was thus largely influenced by local value systems, with external trade being grafted onto older networks and patterns of exchange. Examples of these patterns of internal gold trade and consumption abound from Medieval Nubia to the Fulbe and Wolof kingdoms of the Senegambia, to the northern Horn of Africa. This interplay between internal and external demand for gold is well attested in the region of south\-east Africa where pre\-existing demand for gold —evidenced by the various collections of gold objects from the many stone ruins scattered across the region— received further impetus from the Swahili city\-states of the East African coast through the port town of Sofala in modern Mozambique. At its height in the 15th century, an estimated 8\.5 tonnes of gold went through Sofala each year, making it one of the world's biggest gold exporters of the precious metal. The history of the Gold trade of Sofala and the internal dynamics of gold demand within Southeast Africa and the Swahili coast is the subject of my latest Patreon article, Please subscribe to read about it here: --- for free to receive new posts and support my work. SubscribeRed Gold of Africa: Copper in Precolonial History and Culture by Eugenia W. Herbert Black Kingdom of the Nile by Charles Bonnet pg 29, 49, 62, 65, 169\-173, The Image of the Ordered World in Ancient Nubian Art By László Török pg 82,85, 315, 472\-473, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan\-Meroitic Civilization By László Török pg 112\-121, 457, 460, 528\) Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara By Alisa LaGamma pg 51\-54, Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa by Kathleen Bickford Berzock pg 181\. The State of the Akan and the Akan States by I. Wilks pg 240\-246, The Archaeology of Islam in Sub\-Saharan Africa By Timothy Insoll pg 340\-342, emphasis on ‘stolen’ here is to highlight how colonial warfare and looting may be responsible for the lack of significant archeological finds of gold objects from this region, considering how the majority of gold would have been kept in treasuries rather than buried. Excavations in Ghana for example have yet to recover any significant gold objects, despite the well\-known collections of such objects in many Western institutions. Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa by Kathleen Bickford Berzock pg 179\-180\. From Slave Trade to 'Legitimate' Commerce: The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth\-Century West Africa by Robin Law pg 97 the 1826 loot included £2m worth of gold and a nugget weighing 20,000 ounces, the 1874 loot included dozens of gold objects including several masks, with one weighing 41 ounces, part of the 1874 indemnity of 50,000 ounces was paid in gold objects shortly after, and again in 1896\. see; The Fall of the Asante Empire by Robert B. Edgerton, Asante in the Nineteenth Century By Ivor Wilks 31 3)

The stone ruins of South Africa: a history of Mapungubwe, Thulamela and Dzata. ca. 1000\-1750CE. in The stone ruins of South Africa: a history of Mapungubwe, Thulamela and Dzata. ca. 1000\-1750CE. 4)The dzimbabwe ruins of south\-eastern Africa are often described as the largest collection of stone monuments in Africa south of Nubia. While the vast majority of the stone ruins are concentrated in the modern countries of Zimbabwe and Botswana, a significant number of them are found in South Africa, especially in its northernmost province of Limpopo. Ruined towns such as Mapungubwe, Thulamela, and Dzata have attracted significant scholarly attention as the centers of complex societies that were engaged in long\-distance trade in gold and ivory with the East African coast. Recent research has shed more light on the history of these towns and their links to the better\-known kingdoms of the region, enabling us to situate them in the broader history of South Africa. This article outlines the history of the stone ruins of South Africa and their relationship to similar monuments across the region. Map of south\-eastern Africa highlighting the ruined towns mentioned below. --- Support African History Extra by becoming a member of our Patreon community, subscribe here to read more about African history, download free books, and keep this newsletter free for all: --- State formation and the ruined towns of Limpopo: a history of Mapungubwe. During the late 1st millennium of the common era, the iron\-age societies of southern Africa mostly consisted of dispersed settlements of agro\-pastoralists that were minimally engaged in long\-distance trade and were associated with a widely distributed type of pottery known as the Zhizho wares. The central sections of these Zhizo settlements, such as at the site of Shroda (dated 890\-970 CE) encompassed cattle byres, grain storages, smithing areas, an assembly area, and a royal court/elite residence, in a unique spatial layout commonly referred to as the 'Central Cattle Pattern'. By 1000 CE, Shroda and similar sites were abandoned, and the Zhizo ceramic style largely disappeared from southwest Zimbabwe and northern South Africa. Around the same time, a new capital was established at the site known as ‘K2’, whose pottery tradition was known as the 'Leopard’s Kopje' style, and is attested at several contemporaneous sites. The size of the K2 settlement and changes in its spatial organization with an expanded court area indicate that it was the center of a rank\-based society. Around 1220CE, the settlement at K2 was abandoned and a new capital was established around and on top of the Mapungubwe hill, less than a kilometer away. The settlement at Mapungubwe contains several spatial components, the most prominent being the sandstone hill itself, with a flat summit 30m high and 300 m long, with vertical cliffs that can only be accessed through specific routes. The hill is surrounded by a flat valley that includes discrete spatial areas, a few of which are enclosed with low stone walling. Mapungubwe's spatial organization continued to evolve into a new elite pattern that included a stonewalled enclosure which provided ritual seclusion for the king. Other stonewalling demarcated entrances to elite areas, noble housing, and boundaries of the town centre. The hilltop became a restricted elite area with lower\-status followers occupying the surrounding valley and neighboring settlements, thus emphasizing the spatial and ritual seclusion of the leader and signifying their sacred leadership. Mapungubwe had grown to a large capital of about 10 ha, inhabited by a population of around 2\-5000 people, sustained by floodplain agriculture of mixed cereals (millet and sorghum) and pastoralism. Comparing its settlement size and hierarchy to the capitals of historically known kingdoms, such as the Zulu, suggests that Mapungubwe probably controlled about 30,000 km2 of territory, about the same as the Zulu kingdom in the early 19th century. There are a number of outlying settlements with Mapungubwe pottery in the Limpopo area which however lack prestige walling and instead occupy open situations. Those that have been investigated, such as Mutamba, Vhunyela, Skutwater and Princes Hill were organized according to the Central Cattle Pattern, indicating that they were mostly inhabited by commoners. However, the recovery of over 187 spindle whorls from Mutamba, about 80 km southeast of Mapungubwe, indicates that textile manufacture and trade weren’t restricted to elite settlements. --- Gold mining and trade before and during the age of Mapungubwe. Wealth from local tributes and long\-distance trade likely contributed to the increase in political power of the Mapungubwe rulers. The material culture recovered from the capital and other outlying settlements, which includes Chinese celadon shards, dozens of spindle\-whorls for spinning cotton textiles, and thousands of glass beads, point to the integration of Mapungubwe into the wider trade network of the Indian Ocean world via East Africa's Swahili coast. Prior to the rise of Mapungubwe, the 9th\-10th century site of Schroda was the first settlement in the interior to yield a large number of ivory objects and exotic glass beads, indicating a marked increase in long\-distance trade from the Swahili coast, whose traders had established a coastal entrepot at Sofala to export gold from the region. These patterns of external trade continued during the K2 period when local craftsmen produced their own glass beads by reworking imported ones and then selling their local beads to other regional capitals. It is the surplus wealth from this trade, and its associated multicultural interaction, that presented new opportunities to people in the Mapungubwe landscape. A marked increase in international demand contributed to an upsurge in gold production that began in the 13th century and is paralleled by an economic boom at on the East African coast. The distribution of Mapungubwe pottery in ancient workings and mines such as at Aboyne (1170 CE ± 95\) and Geelong (1230CE ± 80\) in southern Zimbabwe, indicates that the Mapungubwe kingdom may have expanded north to control some of the gold fields. A large cache of gold artifacts was found in the royal cemetery of Mapungubwe, dated to the second half of the 13th century. The grave goods included a golden rhino, bowl, scepter, a gold headdress, gold anklets and bracelets, 100 gold anklets and 12,000 gold beads, and 26,000 glass beads. Radiocarbon dates indicate that the gold objects were all made in the early 13th century, at the height of the town’s occupation. Analysis of the gold objects suggests that they were manufactured locally. Metal was beaten into sheets of the required thickness and then cut into narrow strips, or the strips were made from wire that was hammered and smoothed using an abrasive technique. The strips were then wound around plant fibers to form either beads or helical structures for anklets and bracelets, or around a wooden core for the rhino and bovine figurines. --- Subscribe --- Its however important to emphasize that long\-distance trade in gold from Mapungubwe and similar ‘Zimbabwe culture’ sites (the collective name for the stone ruins of southern Africa) was only the culmination of processes generated within traditional economies and internal political structures that were able to exploit external trade as one component of emergent hierarchical formations already supervising regional resources on a large scale. The trade of gold in particular appears to have also been driven by internal demand for ornamentation by elites, alongside other valued items like cattle, copper and iron objects, glass beads, and the countless ostrich eggshell beads found at Mapungubwe and similar sites that appear to have been exclusively acquired through trade with neighboring settlements. Gold has been recovered from numerous 'Zimbabwe culture' sites, but few of these have been excavated professionally by archaeologists and subjected to scientific analysis, with the exception of Mapungubwe and the site of Thulamela (explored below). Incidentally, Gold fingerprinting analysis shows that the Thulamela gold and part of the Mapungubwe collection came from the same source, indicating that miners from Mapungubwe exploited it before miners from Thulamela took it over. Around 1300 CE, the valley and hilltop of Mapungubwe were abandoned, and the kingdom vanished after a relatively brief period of 80 years. The reasons for its decline remain unclear but are likely an interplay of socio\-political and environmental factors. In most of the ‘Zimbabwe culture’ societies, sacred leadership was linked to agricultural productivity, rainmaking, ancestral belief systems, and a ‘high God’, all of which served to confirm the legitimacy of a King/royal lineage. Climatic changes and the resulting agricultural failure would have undermined the legitimacy of the rulers and their diviners while emboldening rival claimants to accumulate more followers and shift the capital of the kingdom. It’s likely that the sections of Mapungubwe’s population shifted to other settlements that dotted the region, since Mapungubwe\-derived ceramics have been found in association with a stonewalled palace in the saddle of Lose Hill of Botswana. Others may have moved east towards the town of Thulamela whose earliest occupation dates to the period of Mapungubwe’s ascendancy, and whose elites derived their gold from the same mines as the rulers of Mapungubwe. --- The ruined town of Thulamela from the 13th to the 17th century. Thulamela is a 9\-hectare site about 200km east of Mapungubwe. It consists of several stone\-walled complexes and enclosures on the hilltop overlooking the Luvuvhu River which forms a branch of the Limpopo River. The stone\-walled enclosures cluster according to rank in size and position, with the majority being grouped around a central court area situated at the highest and most isolated part of the site. The status of the inhabitants is reflected in the volume of stone used, all of which are inturn surrounded by non\-walled areas of habitation in the adjacent valley. Archeological evidence from the site indicates that a stratified community lived at Thulamela, with elites likely residing on the top of the hill while the rest of the populace occupied the adjacent areas below. A main access route intersects the central area of the hill complex leading to an assembly area, which in turn leads to a private access staircase to the court area. construction features including stone monoliths, small platforms, and intricate wall designs are similar to those found in other ‘Zimbabwe culture’ sites likely denoting specific spaces for titled figures or activities. The site has seen three distinct periods of occupation, with phase I beginning in the 13th century, Phase II lasting from the 14th to mid\-15th century, and Phase III lasting upto the 17th century. The earliest settlements had no stone walling but there were finds of ostrich eggshell beads similar to those from Mapungubwe. Stone\-walled construction appeared in the second phase, as well as long\-distance trade goods such as glass beads, ivory, and gold. Occupation of the site peaked in the last phase, with extensive evidence of metal smithing of iron, copper, and gold, Khami\-type pottery (), and a double\-gong associated with royal lineages. Other finds included Chinese porcelain from the late 17th/early 18th century associated with the , spindle\-whorls for spinning cotton, ivory bangles, and iron slag from metal production. Two graves were discovered at the site, with one dated to 1497, containing a woman buried with a gold bracelet and 290 gold beads, while the other was a male with gold bracelets, gold beads, and iron bracelets with gold staple, dated to 1434\. The location of the graves and the grave goods they contained indicate that the individuals buried were elites of high rank at Thulamela, and further emphasize the site's similarity with other ‘Zimbabwe culture’ sites like Mapungubwe. The recovery of other gold beads, nodules, wire, and fragments of helically wound wire bangles, along with several fragments of local pottery with adhering lumps of glassy slag with entrapped droplets of gold, provided direct evidence of gold working in the hilltop settlement. The fabrication technology employed in Thulamela's metalworking was similar to that found at Mapungubwe. --- --- --- Thulamela and the kingdoms of Khami and Rozvi during the 15th to 17th century. The presence of gold and iron grave goods, along with Chinese porcelain and glass from the Indian Ocean world indicates that trade and metallurgy were salient factors in urbanization, social structuring, and state formation across the region. The site of Thulamela was the largest in a cluster of three settlements near the Luvuvhu River, the other two being Makahane and Matjigwili. The three sites exhibit similar features including extensive stone walling and stone\-built enclosures, and the division of the settlement into residential areas. Archeological surveys identified the central court area of Makahane on the hilltop, enclosed in a U\-shaped wall, with the slopes being occupied by commoners. A gold globule found at Makahane indicates that it was also a gold smelting site. The site is traditionally thought to have been occupied in the 17th\-18th centuries according to accounts by the adjacent communities of the Lembethu, a Venda\-speaking group who still visited the site in the mid\-20th century to offer sacrifices and pray at the graves of the kings buried there. The sites of Thulamela and Makahane occupy an important historical period in south\-eastern Africa marked by the expansion of the kingdoms of Torwa at Khami and the Rozvi state at DhloDhlo in Zimbabwe, whose material culture and historical traditions intersect with those of the sites. It’s likely that the two sites represent the southernmost extension of the Torwa and Rozvi traditions (similar to ), without necessarily implying direct political control. The Rozvi kingdom is said to have split near the close of the 17th century after the death of its founder Changamire Dombo who had after a series of battles. According to Rozvi traditions, some of the rival claimants to Changamire’s throne chose to migrate with their followers into outlying regions, with one moving the the Hwange region of Zimbabwe, while another moved south and crossed the Limpopo river to establish the kingdom of Thovhela among the Venda\-speakers with its capital at Dzata, which appears in external accounts from 1730\. Besides Thulamela and Makahane, there are similar ruins in the Limpopo region with material culture associated with both the Torwa and Rozvi periods. The largest of these is the site of Machemma, which is located a few dozen kilometers south of Mapungubwe. It was a large stone\-walled site with highly decorated walls, whose court area yielded Khami band\-and\-panel ware, ivory, gold ornaments, and imported 15th\-century Chinese blue\-on\-white porcelain. --- A brief social history of south\-east Africa and the transition from Thulamela to Dzata. The fact that both Thulamela and Makahane were well known in local tradition indicates their relatively recent occupation compared to Mapungubwe and other early ‘Zimbabwe culture’ sites which were abandoned many centuries prior. The construction of the ‘Zimbabwe culture’ sites is attributed to the Shona\-speaking groups of south\-eastern Africa. The site of Makahane is however associated with the Nyai branch of the Lembethu, a Venda\-speaking group. Venda is a language isolate that shows lexical similarities with the Shona language, which linguists and historians mostly attribute to the southern expansion of an elite lineage group known as the Singo from Zimbabwe during the 18th century. Although it should be noted that the Singo would have encountered pre\-existing groups that likely included other Venda speakers indicating that the Shona elements in the Venda language were acquired much earlier than this. Venda traditions on the southern migration of the Singo describe the latter’s conquest of pre\-existing societies to establish a vast state centered at the site of Dzata, which later collapsed in the mid\-18th century. They identify the first Singo rulers as Ndyambeu and Mambo, who are both associated with the Rozvi kingdom (Mambo is itself a Rozvi aristocratic title). It’s likely that the traditions of the Singo’s southern migration and conquest of pre\-existing clans refer to this expansion associated with the split between Changamire's sons after his demise. The same traditions mention that when the Singo emigrated from south\-central Zimbabwe, they first settled in the Nzhelele Valley and established themselves at Dzata. The latter was a stone\-walled settlement that was initially equal in size to the pre\-existing capitals of the Lembethu at Makahane Ruin, and the Mbedzi at the Tshaluvhimbi Ruin, before the Singo rulers expanded their kingdom and attracted a larger following by the turn of the 18th century. --- The Singo kingdom of Dzata in the 18th century. Dzata is a 50\-hectare settlement located on the northern side of the Nzhelele River, a branch of the Limpopo River. The core of the settled area is a cluster of neatly coursed low\-lying stone walls, with a court area about 4,500 sqm large, surrounded by a huge ring of surface scatters with some rough terraced walling. Dzata is the only level\-5 ‘Zimbabwe culture’ site south of the Limpopo River, indicating it was the center of a large kingdom with a population equal to that found at Khami and Great Zimbabwe. A Dutch account obtained from a Tsonga traveler Mahumane, who was visiting the Delagoa Bay in 1730, mentions the dark blue stone walls of Dzata, in the kingdom, called ‘Thovhela’ (possibly a title or name of a king), where he had been a few years earlier. The account identifies the capital as ‘Insatti’ (a translation of Dzata) which was "wholly built with dark blue stones —the residences as well as a kind of wall which encloses the whole", adding that "The place where the chief sits is raised and also \ Ethnohistoric Information from other Venda sites indicates that the central cluster of stone walls at Dzata demarcated the royal area, whereas the big surrounding ring housed the commoners. According to some traditions, Dzata experienced more than one construction phase, associated with two kings. The town grew during the reign of Dimbanyika, the fourth king at Dzata, after he had finished consolidating his authority over the Venda. It was later expanded by King Masindi after the death of King Dimbanyika. Changes in the styles of walling and other features likely reflected political shifts at Dzata. The settlement was intersected by a central road through the commoner area to the stone walled royal section, which was separated by cattle byres. On the opposite side of the byres was the assembly area with a small circular platform and stone monoliths. Excavations of this area yielded four radiocarbon dates, all calibrated to around 1700 CE, while other sites near and around Dzata provided multiple dates ranging from the 16th century to the early 19th century. The material culture recovered from Dzata includes iron weapons and tools, coiled copper wire interlaced with small copper beads, spindle whorls, ivory fragments, bone pendants, and blue glass beads. The numerous remains of iron furnaces and copper mines in its hinterland corroborate 18th\-century accounts of intensive metal working and trading from the region, which was controlled by the ruler of Dzata. Gold, copper, and ivory from Dzata were exported to the East African coast through Delagoa Bay, where a lucrative trade was conducted with the hinterland societies. Trade between Dzata and the coast declined drastically around 1750, around the time when the Singo Venda abandoned Dzata. Following the collapse of the Singo kingdom, other stone\-walled sites were built across the region, with interlocking enclosures separating elite and commoner areas. Limited trade between the coast and the Limpopo region continued, as indicated by an account from 1836, mentioning trade routes and mining activities in the region, as well as competition between Venda rulers for access to trade goods. By the mid\-19th century, however, the construction of stone\-walled towns had ceased, after social and political changes associated with the kingdoms of the so\-called . The old ruins of Thulamela, Makahane, and Dzata nevertheless retained their significance in local histories as important sites of veneration, or in the case of Dzata, as the capital of a once great kingdom that is still visited for annual dedication ceremonies called Thevhula (thanksgiving). --- Traditional African religions often co\-existed with “foreign” religions for much of African history, including in places such as the kingdom of Kongo, which was considered a Christian state in the 16th century but was also home to a powerful traditional religious society known as Kimpasi. Please subscribe to read about the history of the Kimpasi religious society of Kongo on our Patreon: --- for free to receive new posts and support my work. SubscribeMap by Shadreck Chirikure et al, from “No Big Brother Here: Heterarchy, Shona Political Succession and the Relationship between Great Zimbabwe and Khami, Southern Africa.” Mapungubwe and the Origins of the Zimbabwe Culture by Thomas N. Huffman pg 15\-17\) Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The Origin and Spread of social complexity in Southern Africa by Thomas N. Huffman pg 42\) Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The Origin and Spread of social complexity in Southern Africa by Thomas N. Huffman Shell disc beads and the development of class‑based society at the K2‑Mapungubwe settlement complex (South Africa) by Michelle Mouton pg 3\-4\) Shell disc beads and the development of class‑based society at the K2‑Mapungubwe settlement complex (South Africa) by Michelle Mouton pg 5\) The lottering connection: revisiting the 'discovery' of Mapungubwe. by by Justine Wintjes and Sian Tiley\-Nel. Mapungubwe and the Origins of the Zimbabwe Culture by Thomas N. Huffman pg 25\-26, Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The Origin and Spread of social complexity in Southern Africa by Thomas N. Huffman pg 44, ) Mapungubwe and the Origins of the Zimbabwe Culture by Thomas N. Huffman pg 22, Fiber Spinning During the Mapungubwe Period of Southern Africa: Regional Specialism in the Hinterland by Alexander Antonite pg 106\) Fiber Spinning During the Mapungubwe Period of Southern Africa: Regional Specialism in the Hinterland by Alexander Antonites Fiber Spinning During the Mapungubwe Period of Southern Africa: Regional Specialism in the Hinterland by Alexander Antonite pg 110\-115, Mapungubwe and the Origins of the Zimbabwe Culture by Thomas N. Huffman pg 21 Mapungubwe and the Origins of the Zimbabwe Culture by Thomas N. Huffman pg 19\-20\) Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The Origin and Spread of social complexity in Southern Africa by Thomas N. Huffman pg 50, Ungendering Civilization edited by K. Anne Pyburn pg 63\. Dating the Mapungubwe Hill Gold by Stephan Woodborne Dating the Mapungubwe Hill Gold by Stephan Woodborne et al. The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline of Southern Zambezian States by Innocent Pikirayi pg 21\) Shell disc beads and the development of class‑based society at the K2‑Mapungubwe settlement complex (South Africa) by Michelle Mouton pg 16\-17 Trace\-element study of gold from southern African archaeological sites by D. Miller et al. Mapungubwe and the Origins of the Zimbabwe Culture by Thomas N. Huffman pg 15, Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The Origin and Spread of social complexity in Southern Africa by Thomas N. Huffman pg 51\) Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The Origin and Spread of social complexity in Southern Africa by Thomas N. Huffman pg 51\) Late Iron Age Gold Burials from Thulamela (Pafuri Region, Kruger National Park by Maryna Steyn pg 74\) A preliminary report on settlement layout and gold melting at Thula Mela by M.M Kusel pg 58\-60\) Late Iron Age Gold Burials from Thulamela (Pafuri Region, Kruger National Park by Maryna Steyn pg 75\-76, A preliminary report on settlement layout and gold melting at Thula Mela by M.M Kusel pg 60\-61\) Late Iron Age Gold Burials from Thulamela (Pafuri Region, Kruger National Park by Maryna Steyn pg 76\-84\) Trace\-element study of gold from southern African archaeological sites by D. Miller et al. pg 298, The fabrication technology of southern African archeological gold by Duncan Miller and Nirdev Desai Settlement hierarchies Northern Transvaal by T. Huffman, pg 16\-17, A preliminary report on settlement layout and gold melting at Thula Mela by M.M Kusel pg 56, 63\) A preliminary report on settlement layout and gold melting at Thula Mela by M.M Kusel pg 63 The Zimbabwe Culture by Innocent Pikirayi pg 215 Settlement hierarchies Northern Transvaal by T. Huffman pg 14\-15\) Snakes \& Crocodiles : Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe by Thomas N. Huffman pg 1\-5, The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline of Southern Zambezian States by Innocent Pikirayi pg 15\-18 Language in South Africa edited by Rajend Mesthrie pg 71\-72, Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics edited by Rajend Mesthrie pg 45\-46\) Settlement hierarchies Northern Transvaal by T. Huffman pg 23, The Ethnoarchaeology of Venda\-speakers in Southern Africa by J. H.N Loubser pg 398\-399\. Settlement hierarchies Northern Transvaal by T. Huffman pg 21\-22, The Ethnoarchaeology of Venda\-speakers in Southern Africa by J. H.N Loubser pg 391 Settlement hierarchies Northern Transvaal by T. Huffman pg 19\) The Ethnoarchaeology of Venda\-speakers in Southern Africa by J. H.N Loubser pg 293, Settlement hierarchies Northern Transvaal by T. Huffman pg 21\. Settlement hierarchies Northern Transvaal by T. Huffman pg 19\) The model of Dzata at the National Museum by J. H.N Loubser pg 24 The Ethnoarchaeology of Venda\-speakers in Southern Africa by J. H.N Loubser pg 290, 307\-308\. The model of Dzata at the National Museum by J. H.N Loubser pg 25 The Archaeology of Southern Africa By Peter Mitchell pg 340 The model of Dzata at the National Museum by J. H.N Loubser pg 25 The Archaeology of Southern Africa By Peter Mitchell pg 340\-341\. 26 4)

a brief note on the history of indigenous and foreign religions in African history, and the Kimpasi society of Kongo in a brief note on the history of indigenous and foreign religions in African history, and the Kimpasi society of Kongo 8)The majority of Africans today primarily identify as Christians and Muslims of various denominations, with a relatively small fraction adhering to other belief systems often referred to as 'indigenous' or 'traditional' religions. The history of religion in Africa is as old and invariably complex as the history of its societies, of which religion was an integral component. It was determined by multiple internal developments in Africa’s belief systems and social institutions, and the continent’s interaction with the rest of the Old World. As African societies increasingly interacted with each other and the rest of the old world, they created, adopted, and syncretized different belief systems in a process familiar to scholars of religion from across the world. For this reason, so\-called "indigenous" and "foreign" religions have co\-existed and influenced each other across the history of many different societies, so much as to render both terms superfluous. The , for example, included a rich pantheon of deities, religious practices, and myths that were derived from the diverse populations of the different kingdoms that dominated the region. From the solar deities and ram cults of ancient Kerma to the shared deities in the temple towns of New\-Kingdom Egypt and Nubia, to the southern deities introduced by the Meroitic dynasty, the religion of ancient Kush was a product of centuries of syncretism/hybridism and plurality, influenced by political and social changes across its long history. Similar developments occurred in West Africa, such as in the kingdom of Dahomey, where the promotion of religious plurality led to the creation and adoption of multiple belief systems, religious practices, and deities from across the region. Dahomey's "traditional" belief systems and practices, called Vodun, were syncretized with "foreign" belief systems, especially , which contained numerous temples dedicated to local and foreign deities. The people of Dahomey adopted deities from its vassal kingdom of Ouidah (eg the python god Dangbe), as well as other deities and practices from its suzerain —the empire of , where the Ifa religion was dominant, and from where the Vodun/Orisha of Gu/Ogun originated. In the Hausalands of northern Nigeria, the adherents of "traditional" belief systems recognized and adopted different kinds of deities that evolved along with the "foreign" belief systems of their Muslim peers. In the kingdom of Kano, internal accounts by local Muslim scholars document the —the last of which is only the latest iteration in the polytheistic religion of the Maguzawa Hausa, whose deities also included ‘Mallams’ (ie: Muslim clerics). These traditionalists are presented as active agents in Kano's history whose status was analogous to the dhimmis (protected groups) in the Muslim heartlands such as Christians and Jews. This brief outline demonstrates that the terms 'traditional' and 'foreign' are mostly anachronisms that modern writers extrapolate backward to a period when such binary concepts would have been unfamiliar to the actual people living at the time. Religions could emerge, spread, decline, and evolve in different societies in a process that was influenced by multiple factors. Since 'religions' weren't separate institutions but were considered an integral part of many societies' social and political structures, the history of Religion in Africa was inextricably tied to broader changes and developments in Africa's societies. The Kingdom of Kongo presents one of the best case studies for the evolution of 'traditional' religions in Africa. While much of the kingdom adopted Christianity on its own terms at the end of the 15th century, the kingdom’s eastern provinces were home to a powerful polytheistic religious society known as the Kimpasi whose members played an influential role in Kongo's politics during the 17th and 18th centuries. The kimpasi society co\-existed with the rest of Kongo's Christian society well into the 20th century and was considered by the latter as a lawful institution, despite being denounced by visiting priests. The history of the Kimpasi religious society and the 'traditional' religions of Kongo is the subject of my latest Patreon Article. Please subscribe to read about it here: --- Top: "Spirits of the Great Mallams". (ie: Muslim teachers) Bottom: "Uwal Yara, or Magajiya, the spirit which gives croup and other ailments to children." for free to receive new posts and support my work. SubscribeReligious Studies: A Global View by Gregory D. Alles, Syncretism in Religion: A Reader edited by Anita Maria Leopold, Jeppe Sinding Jensen Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey by Edna G. Bay pg 60\-63, 189, 255\-257\. 35 8)

A General History of Iron Technology in Africa ca. 2000BC\-1900AD. in A General History of Iron Technology in Africa ca. 2000BC\-1900AD. 6)The smelting and working of iron is arguably the best known among the pre\-colonial technologies of Africa, and the continent is home to some of the world's oldest sites of ironworking. Iron metallurgy was an integral component of socioeconomic life across the continent, and has played a significant role in the sociocultural, economic, and environmental spheres of many African societies, past and present, not only for utilitarian items, but also in the creation of symbolic, artistic, and ornamental objects. The production, control, and distribution of Iron was pivotal in the rise and fall of African kingdoms and empires, the expansion of trade and cultural exchange, and the growth of military systems which ensured Africa’s autonomy until the close of the 19th century. This article outlines the General History of Iron technologies in Africa, from the construction of the continent's oldest furnaces in antiquity to the 19th century, exploring the role of Iron in African trade, agriculture, warfare, politics, and Art traditions. --- Support AfricanHistoryExtra by becoming a member of our Patreon community, subscribe here to read more about African history, download free books, and keep this newsletter free for all: --- On the invention of Iron technology in Africa. Most studies of the history of Ironworking begin with the evolution of metallurgy in the Near Eastern societies and the transition from copper, to bronze and finally to iron. The use and spread of these metals across the eastern Mediterranean was a complex and protracted process, that was politically and culturally mediated rather than being solely determined by the physical properties of the metals. Since the transition from copper to iron across most of the societies in the Near East was broadly similar, and the region was initially thought to be home to the oldest known iron\-working sites, researchers surmised that iron technology had a single origin from which it subsequently spread across the old world from Asia to Europe, to Africa. In North Africa, ironworking was only known from historical documents, it was only recently that archeological investigations have provided firmer evidence for early iron smelting in the region. This includes sites such as Bir Massouda at Carthage in Tunisia between 760\-480 BCE, at Naucratis and Hamama in Egypt between 580\-30BCE, at Meroe and Hamadab in Sudan around 514 BCE and in the Fezzan region of Libya around 500BCE. However, as it will become evident in the following paragraphs, the development of iron technology in the rest of Africa was independent of North African ironworking and is likely to have been a much older phenomenon. In contrast to the Maghreb, metallurgy in the rest of Africa kick\-started with the simultaneous working of iron and copper between the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BC, to be later followed by bronze, gold and other metals. A number of radiocarbon dates within the range of 2200 to 800 BCE have since been accumulated across multiple sites. This includes sites such as; Oboui and Gbatoro in Cameroon and Central Africa, where iron furnaces, bloom fragments, slag pieces, and at least 174 iron tools were found dated to c. 2200–1965 BCE; at Ngayene in the Senegambian megaliths, where iron tools were found dated to 1362–1195 BCE; and at Gbabiri (north of Oboui) where similar iron objects and forges were found dated to 900–750 BCE. More extensive evidence for iron working in West Africa is dated to the period between 800\-400 BCE, where the combined evidence for iron tools, furnaces, slag, and tuyeres was found at various places. These include the sites of Taruga and Baidesuru in the Nok culture of central Nigeria, In the northern Mandara region of Cameroon, at Dhar Nema in the Tichitt Neolithic culture of southern Mauritania, at Dia In the Inland Niger delta of Mali, at Walalde in Senegal, at Dekpassanware, in Togo at the Nsukka sites of Nigeria, and at Tora Sira Tomo in Burkina Faso, among other sites. The subsequent spread of ironworking technology to central, East and South Africa was linked to the expansion of Bantu\-speaking groups, a few centuries after they had settled in the region. For the period between 800\-400BC Iron working sites, are found at Otoumbi and Moanda in Gabon, at the Urewe sites of; Mutwarubona in Rwanda, Mirama III in Burundi, at Katuruka in Tanzania. By the turn of the common era, Ironworking had spread to the southeastern tip of the continent, with sites such as Matola in Mozambique and ‘Silver Leaves’ in South Africa being dated to between the 1st\-2nd century CE. While few studies have been conducted in the northern Horn of Africa, there’s evidence for extensive use of iron tools at Bieta Giyorgis and Aksum in Ethiopia, between the late 1st millennium BC and the early centuries of the common era. While proponents of an independent origin of iron technology in Africa rely on archeological evidence, the diffusionist camp is driven by the hypothesis that ironworking required pre\-existing knowledge of copper smelting, they therefore surmise that it originated from Carthage or Meroe. However, there's still no material evidence for any transmission of ironworking technology based on the furnace types from either region, and the recently confirmed dates from Cameroon, Central Africa, and Senegal significantly predate those from Meroe, the Fezzan, and Carthage. Furthermore, there was no contact between the earliest West African Iron Age sites of the Nok Culture with North Africa; nor was there contact between Nok and its northern neighbor; the Gajiganna culture of Lake Chad (1800\-400BCE) which had no iron at its main proto\-urban capital of Zilum; nor were there during this period. Even links between more proximate regions like the Fezzan in Libya (which had Iron by 500 BCE) and the Lake Chad basin before the common era remain unproven. The site of Oboui in the Central African republic has been the subject of intense interest by archeometallurgists since it provides the earliest known iron\-working facility anywhere in the world. So while it may "never be possible to write a history of African metallurgy that truly satisfies the historian's inordinate greed for both generalization and specificity," the most recent research weighs heavily in favor of an independent origin of Ironworking in Africa. --- The process of Smelting and Smithing Iron in African furnaces. The process of ironworking starts with the search and acquisition of iron ores through mining and collecting, followed by the preparation of raw materials including charcoal, followed by the building of the smelting installations, furnaces, tuyeres and crucibles, followed by the smelting itself which reduces the ores to metal, followed by bloom cleaning, smithing, and the forging of the finished product. This was extremely labour\-intensive and time\-consuming, especially collecting the ore and fuel, which could at times last several weeks or months. In nature, iron may be found in five different compounds: oxide, hydroxide, carbide, sulfide, and silicate, of which there are many different types of iron ores in Africa (lateritic, oolitic, magnetite\-ilmenite, etc) which invariably influenced the smelting technology used. Ancient African bloomery furnaces exhibit remarkable diversity, suggesting constant improvisation and innovations. As one metallurgist observed, "every conceivable method of iron production seems to have been employed in Africa, some of it quite unbelievable." African ironworkers adapted bloomery furnaces to an extraordinary range of iron ores, some of which cannot be used by modern blast furnaces and weren’t found anywhere else in the Old World. African iron\-smelting processes are all variants of the bloomery process, in which the air blast must be stopped periodically to remove the masses of metal (blooms), while the waste product (slag) may be tapped from the furnaces as a liquid, or may solidify within it. Most of the oldest African furnaces were shaft furnaces that ranged from small pit furnaces to massive Natural\-draft smelting furnaces with tall shafts upto 7 meters high. Bloomery smelting operates around 1200°C; ie at a temperature below the melting point of iron (1540°C), which is high enough only to melt the gangue minerals in the ore and separate them from the unmolten iron oxides. Air is introduced to the furnace either through forced draft using bellows and tuyères (ceramic pipes), or by natural draft taking advantage of prevailing winds or utilizing the chimney effect. This enables the fuel (usually charcoal) to burn, producing carbon monoxide, which reacts with the iron oxide, ultimately reducing it to form metallic iron. These furnaces could produce cast iron and wrought iron, as well as steel, the latter of which there is sufficient evidence in several societies, most notably in the 18th\-century kingdom of Yatenga between Mali and Burkina Faso, where blacksmiths built massive furnaces upto 8m high to produce steel bars and composite tools with steel\-cutting edges. Steel is iron alloyed with between 0\.2% and 2% carbon, and it has been found in archaeometallurgical studies of furnaces and slag from Buhaya in northern Tanzania, and in northern Mandara region of Cameroon among other sites. Most high\-carbon steel could be produced directly in the bloomery furnace by increasing the carbon content of the bloom, rather than by subsequent smithing as in most parts of the Old World. Once smelting was complete, the bloom settled to the bottom of the furnace and was removed for further refinement through repeated heating and hammering into bars using large hammerstones. After which, the iron bars produced from this process were forged at high temperatures, and the blacksmith will use various hammers, tongs, quenching bowls, and anvils to work the iron into a desired shape. In a few cases, methods like lost wax casting and the use of molds which were common in the working of gold and copper alloys were also used for iron to produce different objects, ornaments, and ingots. Like all forms of technology, the working of Iron in Africa was socially mediated. The role of blacksmiths was considered important but their social position was rather ambiguous and varied. Depending on the society and era, they were both respected or feared, powerful or marginalized, because they wielded social power derived from access to knowledge of metallurgy, divination, peacemaking, and other salient social practices. The smith’s craft extended from the production of the most basic of domestic tools to the creation of a corpus of inventive, diverse, and technically sophisticated vehicles of social and spiritual power The various taboos and rituals associated with the craft were a technology of practice that enabled smelters to take control of the process through learned behavior. One key feature of African metallurgy is that it resists homogenization, yet anthropologists who study the subject are more inclined to homogenize than to seek variations. In contrast to the making of pottery and sculptures, the apprenticeship of iron smelting has not been the focus of ethnological studies. While such studies can only provide us with information from the 20th century, the persistence of pre\-industrial methods of iron production in some parts of the continent suggests that some of this information can be extrapolated back to earlier periods. A number of researchers have left ethnographic descriptions of smelting sessions that they attended, observing that there is a head smelter or an elder’s council, as well as young people or apprentices. Under the leadership of a master, the metallurgists seem to take part collectively in the smelting, and the associated rituals involved in the process. Each member of a smelting session detects the physical and chemical changes of the material being processed inside the furnace. Ethnographic descriptions show the major importance of smith castes and ritual practice, as well as political control over resources like iron ore, wood, land, and labour. In many parts of the continent, there's extensive evidence that iron smelting was considered ritually akin to the act of procreation and therefore was carried out away from or in seclusion from women and domestic contexts. Yet there were numerous exceptions in southern and East Africa where women were allowed in the smelting area, procuring iron ores, and constructing furnaces. Evidently, all available labour was utilized for iron working when necessary, depending on the cultural practices of a given society. --- The role of Iron in early African Agriculture and Trade. Ironworking played a pivotal role in the advent and evolution of agriculture and long\-distance trade across the African continent, as the widespread use of iron tools helped to increase food production and the exchanges of surpluses between different groups. In many societies, the various types of iron tools (such as plows and hoes) the design of furnaces, and the organization of labor, influenced and were influenced by developments in agriculture, trade, and cultural exchanges. For example, the use of natural draught furnaces and the creation of a caste of blacksmiths frees up labour for working the raw iron to make iron objects and develop long\-distance trade and exchange. Such high\- fuel low\-labour furnaces were particularly common in the West African Sudanic woodland zone from Senegal to Nigeria and in the miombo woodlands of Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, where labour requirements for swidden agriculture may have reduced available labour for smithing. In other regions, the demand for Iron objects beyond the immediate society in which specialist smiths lived facilitated the production of large quantities of Iron for export. For example, at least 15 sites used by Dogon smiths in south\-central Mali produced a about 400,000 tonnes of slag – or 40,000 tonnes of iron objects over a period of 1,400 years, which is about 26 tones of iron objects per year; while the site of Korsimoro (Burkina Faso) yielded 200,000 tonnes of slag \- or 20,000 tonnes of iron objects between 1000\-1500 CE, which is about 32 tonnes of iron per year. This scale of production doubtlessly suggests that the iron was intended for export to neighboring societies, albeit not at a scale associated with large states. For example, the dramatic rise in iron production from a small site of Bandjeli in Togo, from less than a tonne in the 18th century to over 14 tones per year by 1900 may have been associated with demand from sections of the kingdoms of Dagomba, Gonja, Mamprusi, although it was far from the only site. It therefore appears that in most parts of Africa, specialization was based on pooling together surplus from various relatively small\-scale industries which cumulatively produced bigger output, and may not have been concentrated even in the case of large states. Several types of iron objects served as convenient stores of wealth and were at times used as secondary currencies in some contexts, primarily because of the ever\-present demand for domestic and agricultural iron implements like hoes, knives, machetes, harpoons, as well as the general use of metals for tribute, social ceremonies, and trade. In West Africa, iron blooms were traded and kept as heirlooms, while knives and iron hoes were both a trade item and a medium of exchange in parts of Southern Africa and west\-central Africa. In East Africa, where long\-distance traders like the 19th century were required by local rulers to give iron hoes as a form of tax on their return journeys from the interior as a substitute for cowries and cloth. Similary In Ethiopia, iron plowshares were valued items of trade. --- Iron in the History of Warfare and Politics in Pre\-colonial Africa. Given its centrality in agriculture and trade, the spread of iron working in Africa was closely associated with the emergence and growth of complex societies across the continent. The rise of African states resulted in an increased demand for symbols of prestige and power, among which iron, copper, and gold were prominent. Increase in metal production and changes in furnace construction in the Great Lakes region for example, were associated with the emergence of the kingdoms of Bunyoro, Buganda, and Nyiginya (Rwanda), and similar developments in southern Africa and the East African coast were associated with the rise of the kingdoms at Great Zimbabwe and Kilwa. A significant number of iron tools found at the oldest sites of ironworking across the continent included knives and arrowheads. Additionally, a number of historical traditions of societies in central Africa like the kingdom of Ndongo and Luba, either attribute or closely associate the founding of kingdoms to iron\-wielding warrior\-kings and blacksmiths. Iron was often conceptually integrated within the organizing structures of these states, with iron symbolism frequently incorporated within iconography, mythology, and systems of tribute payment, all of which underscores the importance of iron weapons to the emergence and expansion of African kingdoms and empires, especially in warfare. [![Number 307:1983 ]( "Number 307:1983 ")]( made by a Ngala smith from Congo, Copper alloy handle with iron struts attached to iron blade, Late 19th century, Saint Louis art museum --- --- and is too diverse to summarise here, but it suffices to say that the majority of weapons were made locally and most of them were made of Iron. The provision of weapons and the distribution of power were often strongly correlated, especially in larger complex societies where rulers retained large arsenals of weapons to distribute to their armies during times of war, and maintained a workforce of blacksmiths to provide these weapons. In most parts of the continent, blacksmiths were numerous and usually worked in closely organized kin guilds associated with centers of political power, where rulers acted as their patrons, receiving protection and supplies in exchange for providing armies with swords, lance heads, chainmail, helmets, arrow points and throwing knives. In some exceptional cases, a few of these items were imported by wealthy rulers and subsequently reworked by local smiths to be kept as prestige items. Among the most common iron objects in African ethnographic collections are the two\-edged straight or gently tapering sword, which was common in West Africa, as well as in most parts of central Africa, North\-East Africa and the East African coast. Other collections include curved blades and throwing weapons with multiple ends, as well as axes, arrowheads, and javelin points. By the 18th century, swords and lances had largely fallen out of use in the regions close to the Atlantic coast and were replaced by muskets. The repair of guns and cannons, as well as the manufacture of iron bullets was also undertaken across many societies, from and , to and . The casting of brass and iron cannons, in particular, was attested in many parts of West Africa, most notably in the 16th\-century kingdoms of Benin and Bornu, , as well as in the 19th\-century . Benin in particular is known to have made a number of firearms, some of which appear in western museum collections. The complete manufacture of firearms was accomplished in some societies during the 19th century such as the , the and the Ethiopian Empire under Tewodros. In the 1880s Samori concentrated 300\-400 ironworkers in the village of Tete where they succeeded in manufacturing flintlocks at a cost lower than the price paid for those bought from Freetown. Tete was evacuated in 1892 and its armament workers were reassembled at Dabakol under the direction of an artificer who had spent several months in a French arsenal. They succeeded in making effective copies of Kropatschek repeating rifles at a rate of two of these guns per day. --- Iron in the making of African Art and Culture. According to Cyril Stanley Smith, a founding father of archaeometallurgy, "aesthetic curiosity" was the original driving force of technological development everywhere, and the human desire for pretty things like jewelry and sculpture, rather than for "useful" objects such as tools and weapons, first led enterprising individuals to discover new materials, processes, and structures. While many of the oldest iron tools found in the ancient metallurgical centers of Africa were agricultural implements and weapons, a number of them also included small caches of jewelry in the form of bracelets and anklets. Later sites include Iron ornaments such as earrings, earplugs, and nose rings. African jewelry made from metal primarily consisted of gold, copper alloys, and silver, with iron being relatively uncommon. However, there are a few notable exceptions such as the kingdom of Dahomey, where skilled blacksmiths produced a remarkable corpus of sculptural artworks made of Iron called asen. Historically, asen were also closely identified with the belief systems of the Vodun religion and practices. Following the rise of the Dahomey kingdom, their function shifted toward a more specifically royal memorial use as each king was identified with a distinct asen. These royal asen were brought out during annual “custom” rites, placed near the djeho (spirit house of the king), and given libations while fixed in the ground using long iron stems. The asens feature figurative scenes depicting processions of titled persons in excellent detail, at the end of which are placed togbe pendants around the edge of the platform. Iron sculptures and other artifacts made of composite materials that include iron are attested across multiple African art traditions, from West African figures made by the Yoruba of south\-western Nigeria, as well as the Dogon and Mande of Mali, to the composite wood\-and\-iron sculptures of West central Africa, to the musical instruments of central and southern Africa, such as thumb pianos and rattles of the Chokwe artists of Angola and D.R.Congo. The smelting of Iron in Africa gradually declined in the 20th century as local demand was increasingly met by industrial iron and steel, but smithing continues across most parts of the continent. This shift from smelting to smithing began in some coastal regions significantly earlier than on the African mainland, where smelting persisted well into the post\-colonial era. In response to shifts in local economies during the colonial and post\-colonial era, African blacksmiths began incorporating salvaged materials into their work through creative recycling. Blacksmiths continue to serve as technology brokers who transform one object into another— truck wheels become bells and gongs; leaf springs from cars become axes and asen in Benin; and bicycle spokes become thumb pianos in western Zambia. Today, smiths forge work to accommodate new contexts and purposes. For example in southern Nigeria, where the Yorùbá deity of iron, Ògún, has become the patron of automobiles, laptops, and cell phones. Iron continues to play a central role in the development of African societies, a product of centuries of innovations and developments in one of the continent’s oldest technologies. --- Recent archeological research has uncovered a series of stone complexes in the Mandara mountains of Cameroon which historical documents from the region associate with the expansion of complex societies and empires at the end of the Middle Ages. Please subscribe to read about the DGB ruins and the Mandara kingdom here: SubscribeMetals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy By Shadreck Chirikure pg 20\-23\) Ferrous metallurgy from the Bir Massouda metallurgical precinct at Phoenician and Punic Carthage and the beginning of the North African Iron Age by Brett Kaufman et al. Ancient Mining and Smelting Activities in the Wadi Abu Gerida Area, Central Eastern Desert, Egypt: Preliminary Results by Mai Rifai, Yasser Abd El\-Rahman, Metals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy By Shadreck Chirikure pg 71, Investigating the ironworking remains in the Royal City of Meroe , Sudan by Chris Carey, The ancient iron mines of Meroe by Jane Humphris et al., A New Radiocarbon Chronology for Ancient Iron Production in the Meroe Region of Sudan by Jane Humphris, Metals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy By Shadreck Chirikure pg 72 Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond edited by C. N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, D. J. Mattingly pg 239\) Preindustrial Mining and Metallurgy in Africa by F Bandama pg 6, The Origins of African Metallurgies by A.F.C. Holl pg 7\-8, 12\-13, 21\-31\) Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond edited by C. N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, D. J. Mattingly pg 238\) Excavations at Walalde: New Light on the Settlement of the Middle Senegal Valley by Iron\-Using People by A Deme The Early Iron Metallurgy of Bassar, Togo: furnaces, metallurgical remains and iron objects by PL de Barros Lejja archaeological site, Southeastern Nigeria and its potential for archaeological science research by Pamela Ifeoma Eze\-Uzomaka et. al. Iron metallurgy in West Africa: An Early Iron smelting site in the Mouhoun Bend, Burkina Faso by Augustin Ferdinand Charles Holl Indigenous African Metallurgy: Nature and Culture by S. Terry Childs pg 321\-322 The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns edited by Bassey Andah, Alex Okpoko, Thurstan Shaw, Paul Sinclair pg 302\-306, Our Iron Smelting 14C Dates from Central Africa: From a Plain Appointment to a Full Blown Relationship" by Bernard Clist, A critical reappraisal of the chronological framework of the early Urewe Iron Age industry by Bernard Clist. Metals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy By Shadreck Chirikure pg 22\. Foundations of an African Civilisation by D. Philipson pg 142, 166\-167\. Book review essay: What do we know about African iron working? by D. Killick pg 107 The Origins of African Metallurgies by A.F.C. Holl pg 4, Metals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy By Shadreck Chirikure pg 25 Zilum: a mid\-first millennium BC fortified settlement by C Magnavita pg 166\-167 Urbanisation and State Formation in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond by Martin Sterry, ‎David J. Mattingly pg 516, Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past: Essays in Honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias pg 25\-32\) The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns pg 333\-334 The Social Context of Iron Forging on the Kenya Coast by Chapurukha M. Kusimba pg 401\-402\) Did They or Didn't They Invent It? Iron in Sub\-Saharan Africa by Stanley B. Alpern pg 85, Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond edited by C. N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, D. J. Mattingly pg 292\-294\) Invention and Innovation in African Iron\-smelting Technologies by David J Killick pg 312\-313\) African Iron Production and Iron\-Working Technologies pg 2\-3 Book review essay: What do we know about African iron working? by D. Killick pg 108 Cairo to Cape: The Spread of Metallurgy Through Eastern and Southern Africa by D. Killick pg 408 Metals in Mandara Mountains Society and Culture edited by Nicholas David pg 12\-13, 174\. Did They or Didn't They Invent It? Iron in Sub\-Saharan Africa by Stanley B. Alpern pg 87, Preindustrial Mining and Metallurgy in Africa by F Bandama pg 11\) Preindustrial Mining and Metallurgy in Africa by F Bandama pg 12, African Iron Production and Iron\-Working Technologies pg 4\-5\. The Social Context of Iron Forging on the Kenya Coast by Chapurukha M. Kusimba, 386, Style, Technology, and Iron Smelting Furnaces in Bantu\-Speaking Africa by S. Terry Childs pg 343\-345 Metals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy By Shadreck Chirikure pg 10, Indigenous African Metallurgy: Nature and Culture by S. Terry Childs pg 325\-326, Warfare in Pre\-Colonial Africa by C. G. Chidume et al pg 75\-76 Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond edited by C. N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, D. J. Mattingly 303\-304, The Social Context of Iron Forging on the Kenya Coast by Chapurukha M. Kusimba, pg 390\-393\) Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond edited by C. N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, D. J. Mattingly pg 295\-302\) Indigenous African Metallurgy: Nature and Culture by S. Terry Childs pg 327\-328 Preindustrial Mining and Metallurgy in Africa by F Bandama pg 13\-14, When the smith is a woman: innovation, improvisation and ambiguity in the organisation of African iron metallurgy by Ezekiel Mtetwa et. al. How Societies Are Born by Jan Vansina pg 65\-66, 79\-81\. Invention and Innovation in African Iron\-smelting Technologies by David J Killick pg 314\-316\) Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond edited by C. N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, D. J. Mattingly pg 302, 305\) A Comparison of Early and Later Iron Age Societies in the Bassar Region of Togo Philip de Barros pg 10\-11 A technological and anthropological study of iron production in Venda, Limpopo Province, South Africa by Eric Ndivhuwo Mathoho pg 18, Early metallurgy and surplus without states in Africa south of the Sahara by Shadreck Chirikure Indigenous African Metallurgy: Nature and Culture by S. Terry Childs pg 332\-333 Preindustrial Mining and Metallurgy in Africa Foreman Bandama pg 12, How Societies Are Born by Jan Vansina pg 126\-127, 154\-155 People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800–1990 By James McCann pg 130 Indigenous African Metallurgy: Nature and Culture by S. Terry Childs pg 330\-331, Pre\-colonial iron production in Great Lakes Africa by Louise Iles pg 60\-63 Innovation, Tradition and Metals at Kilwa Kisiwani by Stephanie Wynne\-Jones Blacksmiths of Ilamba: A Social History of Labor at the Nova Oeiras Iron Foundry (Angola, 18th Century) by Crislayne Alfagali Pre\-colonial iron production in Great Lakes Africa by Louise Iles pg 58\-60, Paths in the rainforests by Jan Vansina pg 60\-61, Warfare \& Diplomacy in Pre\-colonial West Africa by Robert Sidney Smith pg 92, 101, Warfare in Pre\-Colonial Africa by C. G. Chidume et al pg 78\-79\. Warfare \& Diplomacy in Pre\-colonial West Africa by Robert Sidney Smith pg 90\-91, 103\-105\) Warfare \& Diplomacy in Pre\-colonial West Africa by Robert Sidney Smith pg 93\-94\) Warfare \& Diplomacy in Pre\-colonial West Africa by Robert Sidney Smith pg 107\-108\) Warfare \& Diplomacy in Pre\-colonial West Africa by Robert Sidney Smith pg 116\) Africa and the Indian Ocean World from Early Times to Circa 1900 by Gwyn Campbell pg 202\-208 Warfare \& Diplomacy in Pre\-colonial West Africa by Robert Sidney Smith pg 116 Did They or Didn't They Invent It? Iron in Sub\-Saharan Africa by Stanley B. Alpern pg 87\) Asen: Dahomey history, and Forged memories of Iron by S. Blier, Asen: Identifying Form, Style and Artists by S. Blier. The Social Context of Iron Forging on the Kenya Coast by Chapurukha M. Kusimba pg 400\-401 Striking Iron The Art of African Blacksmiths by Allen F. Roberts and Marla C. Berns 35 6)

a brief note on new discoveries in African archeology and the stone ruins of Cameroon. in a brief note on new discoveries in African archeology and the stone ruins of Cameroon. 3)Among the first ancient Egyptian accounts on its southern neighbors is an old kingdom inscription that describes a trading expedition to an unspecified region called . Egyptologists had long debated about the location of this mysterious territory before recent archeological discoveries at Mahal Teglinos in eastern Sudan and the Red Sea port of Mersa eventually solved the riddle of Punt’s precise location. Archeology plays a central role in reconstructing Africa's history, despite the rather complicated relationship between the two disciplines. On a continent where the limitations of written and oral histories have been acknowledged, archeologists and historians often work together to develop an interdisciplinary study of Africa's past. Most of the latest research into the history of different African societies has been the product of interdisciplinary cooperation between archaeologists and historians. The locations of many African historical sites that were amply described by historians have since been identified and rediscovered by archeologists, helping to expand our understanding of Africa's past. For example in northern Ethiopia, where there are several historical accounts describing the highly urbanized , recent archeological excavations have uncovered many ruined cities and towns which include the kingdom’s capital, whose cemetery contained inscribed tombs of the kingdom's rulers. In northern Ghana, there are multiple internal and external accounts describing the which was founded by migrant elites from the Mali empire. Recent archeological work has identified the old capital of the kingdom as well as several complex structures whose construction resembles the architectural style of medieval Mali. In South Africa, oral and written accounts about heterogeneous groups of Sotho\-Tswana and Nguni\-speakers referred to as "Koni" have helped historians and archeologists to identify the builders of , a widely distributed complex of terraced stone\-walled sites in the escarpments of the Mpumalanga province. Similar discoveries abound across most of the continent, from the , to the painted churches of , all of which demonstrate the usefulness of interdisciplinary studies. Recent archeological work in the mountains of northern Cameroon has uncovered more than sixteen complexes of stone ruins whose construction between the 14th and 17th centuries coincided with the expansion of the Bornu empire and the lesser\-known kingdom of Mandara, during an era when the region’s history was well documented. My latest Patreon article explores the history of the stone ruins of Cameroon within the context of the documented history of the Mandara kingdom during the 16th century. Please subscribe to read about it here: --- for free to receive new posts and support my work. SubscribeTrouble with Siblings: Archaeological and Historical Interpretation of the West African Past, By Christopher DeCorse and Gerard Chouin, The intersection of archaeology, oral tradition and history in the South African interior by Jan CA Boeyens. 28 3)