## Timbuktu is an important example of an African city that came to prominence because of the government's protection of trade. Were there others in other regions? via [[rAskHistorians|r/AskHistorians]] I've recently learned more about some of the predecessor cultures and civilizations in [[Mesoamerica]] that show up in the common core state standards for American education, and as a history teacher, it reminded me that what I teach to 12 year olds is by necessity a really limited glance into a slice-of-life sort of cherrypicked example... ... which got me thinking about Timbuktu. I teach about Timbuktu in the context of [[West African Kingdoms|Ghana, Mali and Songhai]], and Timbuktu (and Gao, etc) are really interesting for a jillion different reasons, but I was wondering if there are any other great examples of African trade centers that came to prominence in the same way in other regions of Africa. I'd love to be able to do a better job of teaching Timbuktu in context but I wasn't able to find anything useful when I tried looking into it on my own. Thanks! > I remember in HS before common core the only mention we ever had of African history was Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, and Mansa Musa. It’s great you want to expose your students to more. I’m an archaeologist who works primarily in Africa now. I’m on my phone on my lunch break so forgive me any typos or shortcomings. I’ll return to edit later. > > By “put in context” do you mean more about western Sahelian history or more urban trading states in Africa? If the latter, there were many. Here are a few in chrono order: ## Meroe > Meroe in modern Sudan. Culmination of a series of evolving states which had once ruled over Egypt. Adapted Egyptian royal customs and religion to their own distinct culture. Built more pyramids than Egypt and had many powerful female rulers. Primary source of wealth was their tremendous production of iron. Hills of slag still dot the area and deforestation for charcoal may have contributed to its decline. ## Aksum > Aksum in modern Ethiopia. A major state on the global stage. Aksumite coins were minted to the same standard as the Byzantine state and Greek was used in some public monuments to facilitate international trade. Royal tomb goods included Roman wine amphora and Aksumite coins have been found as far away as India. The state was even mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a 1st century Greek merchant’s guide. It was succeeded by a number of pretty fabulous places like Lalibela with its rock hewn churches and Gondar with its castles combing Jesuit and Indian influence. All three are UNESCO World Heritage sites. Cities aside, Ethiopia also has a great history as a Christian nation since the 300s, a state with a continuous monarch that stretched from Aksum to 1974, and the only state in Africa never successfully colonized. ## Great Zimbabwe > Great Zimbabwe in modern Zimbabwe, as well as its preceding and successor cities. GZ is romantically enigmatic due, sadly, to its horrible ransacking by European looters. We know historically though that it was the capital of a vast state that grew wealthy on cattle ranching and the royally-organized mining of gold. Much of the gold was traded to my next entry, the Swahili Coast cities, where it then went into international circulation. ## Swahili Coast > Swahili cities extend across the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique. They have their origins in indigenous communities in the 7th or 8th centuries, but become major cosmopolitan trade cities with their own uniquely international culture, language, and architecture by the 12th century and many continued to thrive even through both Portuguese and Omani colonialism. Kilwa Kisiwani is one of the most famous cities and has an amazing palace with a pool/bath overlooking the sea that to this day I am still jealous of. Lol. The Swahili were major maritime merchants and sailors in the Indian ocean. Their cities are distinctive for their use of coral in construction and sculpture. ## Other Resources > There are many more in central and west Africa too. You might look up Benin City and Dahomey for example which flourished largely on European trade. > > Graham Connah’s African Civilizations is a great resource you might check out. The third edition gets a little lost in the weeds of detail imho but has more expansive coverage. Kevin Shillington’s History of Africa is a reasonably good college textbook covering this stuff too (stick to the most recent eds though as his earlier eds lagged far behind contemporary scholarship). > Mark Horton’s Swahili Corridor article is a little dated but very accessible. > > I have a few others but have to run. Jenne Jeno comes to mind. Heterarchical social org. > <div></div> > <cite>u/AgentIndiana</cite> Thanks for this! I'm moderately familiar with Aksum (the history of Ethiopia gets a fair amount of space in the textbook my district uses, which was surprising but awesome) and obviously Egypt, but Meroe and many of the others you mentioned are new names for me. It may hearten you to know that my 6th grade "global studies" course spends more total time on Africa than it does the classical period and about the same amount of time on the the Timbuktu region as it does Rome, although there are obviously gaps (I once wrote an entire article complaining about the omission of [[Phoenician|Phoenicia]] when we teach Mediterranean history, lol, but I digress) I have relatively little control over the curriculum and the pieces I have to hit, but in terms of tone being able to say that Timbuktu was one of many examples of African urban trading centers and then speak knowledgeably if my students have follow-up questions I think there's a world of good for making clear that Mali, Ghana, and Songhai aren't, like, huge outliers. I've been able to do a reasonable amount of research on the [[Berbers]] and [[Phoenician|Punic]] history, but for some reason my searches about historical African urban centers weren't turning up any of the stuff that you mentioned. I will definitely check out the places you mentioned, and probably put that book on my wish list for Christmas. I'm definitely ready to dig beyond the West African kingdoms, heh. #### Hausa city-states >Contemporary with Mali and Songhay were the Hausa city states (Kano, Zaria, Gobir, Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina, etc) which were in what is now northern Nigeria/southern Niger. Michael Gomez states that Sonni Ali and Askia Mohammad tried but failed to conquer the Hausa cities in order to more fully control trade crossing the sahara. > >Indeed, after the Moroccan conquest in 1590s, a lot of the trans-saharan trade networks shifted east and re-routed through the Hausa states. ><div></div> ><cite>u/Commustar</cite> #### Horn of Africa >Besides Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa there were also cities like Harar and Zayla which were first part of the Sultanate of Ifat and later the Sultanate of Adal. These cities would have been inhabited by Somali or Afar speaking peoples neighboring but outside medieval Ethiopian highlands, and routes of trade to the Gulf of Aden/Red Sea. Harar is now part of modern Ethiopia and Zayla is in Somaliland. ><div></div> ><cite>u/Commustar</cite> ### Book Recommendations >Timothy Insoll covers both Hausa and Harar/Zayla in Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa. It requires a bit more familiarity with archaeology than Connah's book, but it is richly illustrated with maps and artifact illustrations. > >I'd also throw in a recommendation for Golden Rhinocerous by Francis Xavier Fauvelle, which digs into African contacts with the Muslim world, India and China in the middle ages. It's quite good and I think it will help you put Mali and Songhay in context. > >Golden Rhinoceros is aimed at the general reader and strives to be a broad overview, so that is a good place to start. > > There's also Medieval Africa by Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore which is older scholarship but which gives coverage to Atlantic and Central Africa, areas for which there are not written accounts prior to about 1500s. In contrast, Fauvelle restricts himself to areas where there is Chinese, Indian and Arabic textual sources. > >There's also Chris Ehrets African Civilizations to 1800 book which is in 2nd edition and is geared towards upper level high-school or undergraduate textbook for pre-colonial African history (covering whole continent). ><div></div> ><cite>u/Commustar</cite>