TCAP Review Day 6 – West African Empires Flashcards
Griot
a member of a class of traveling poets, musicians, and storytellers who maintain a tradition of oral history in parts of West Africa.
Mali Empire
The Mali Empire was an empire in West Africa from c. 1226 to 1670. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita ( c. 1214 – c. 1255). The Empire of Mali was known for its immense wealth via the gold and salt trade. In addition, it was known for its advancements in education, architecture, and the establishment of Islam as a main religion in Western and Northern Africa.
The Ghana Empire
The Ghana Empire (Arabic: غانا), also known as simply Ghana, Ghanata, or Wagadou, was a West African classical to post-classical era western-Sahelian empire. Famous to North Africans as the “Land of Gold,” Ghana was said to possess sophisticated methods of administration and taxation, large armies, and a monopoly over notoriously well-concealed gold mines.
The Songhai Empire
The Songhai Empire was a state located in the western part of the Sahel during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Songhai Empire is best known for the works of Sunni Ali and Muhammad I Askia. Both kings expanded the empire greatly, and are responsible for the region’s economic prosperity and control of the trade networks through the Sahara.
Berber
A member of the indigenous people of North Africa.
Mansa Musa
Mansa Musa … Mansa Musa (reigned c. 1312 – c. 1337) was the ninth Mansa of the Mali Empire, which reached its territorial peak during his reign. Mansa Musa developed cities like Timbuktu and Gao into important cultural centers. He also brought architects from the Middle East and across Africa to design new buildings for his cities. Mansa Musa turned the kingdom of Mali into a sophisticated center of learning in the Islamic world.
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta was a medieval Muslim traveler who wrote one of the world’s most famous travel logs, the Riḥlah. This work describes the people, places, and cultures he encountered in his journeys along some 75,000 miles (120,000 km) across and beyond the Islamic world.
Trans Saharan Caravan Trade
Trans-Saharan trade is trade between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa that requires travel across the Sahara. Though this trade began in prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century CE. The Sahara once had a different climate and environment.
Djenne
Djenné (Bambara: ߖߍ߬ߣߍ߫, romanized: Jɛ̀nɛ́; also known as Djénné, Jenné, and Jenne) is a Songhai town and urban commune in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali.
Timbuktu
Timbuktu’s location at the meeting point of desert and water made it an ideal trading centre. In the late 13th or early 14th century it was incorporated into the Mali empire. By the 14th century it was a flourishing centre for the trans-Saharan gold and salt trade, and it grew as a centre of Islamic culture.
