Ghana Empire
Mauritania, 100 CE–1200. Draft, not yet reviewed
The Ghana Empire, also known as simply Ghana, Ghanata, or Wagadu, was an ancient western-Sahelian empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali. The first identifiable mention of the imperial dynasty in written records was made by Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in 830. Further information about the empire was provided by the accounts of Cordoban scholar al-Bakri when he wrote about the region in the 11th century. After centuries of prosperity, the empire began its decline in the second millennium, and would finally become a vassal state of the rising Mali Empire at some point in the 13th century.
Seat of power: Koumbi Saleh
No rulers documented for this era yet.
Culture
- The Soninke name for the polity was Ouagadou. Kaya Maghan (king of gold) was another title for these kings.
- Koumbi Saleh, or Kumbi Saleh, is the site of a ruined ancient and medieval city in south east Mauritania that may have been the capital of the Ghana Empire. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the site was occupied between the late 5th and 14th centuries, with the urban period extending approximately from the 11th to the 14th centuries.
- Al-Bakri who wrote in the eleventh century described the capital of Ghana as consisting of two towns 10 kilometres (6 mi) apart, one inhabited by Muslim merchants, and the other by the king of Ghana.
- From the ninth century, Arab authors mention the Ghana Empire in connection with the trans-Saharan gold trade.
Picture
The word Ghana means warrior or war chief, and was the title given to the rulers of the kingdom.
Image: Luxo, CC BY-SA 3.0, file
Sources
Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.