Located in the Western region of Africa, Ancient Ghana occupied an area that includes the present-day nations of Mauritania and Mali, was the first of three powerful centralized statesto emerge in the savanna, a vast, flat grassland area between the Sahara Desert on the north and the coastal rain forest along the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Ghana flourished in the 8th through 11th centuries because of its control of major routes of … Continue reading GHANA (CA. 750-1076)
Located at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert and six miles north of the Niger River in the present-day nation of Mali, Timbuktu has been a centuries-old, significant city in West Africa. In the 14th Century it became the commercial, religious and cultural center of the West African empires of Mali and Songhai. With its population of traders, merchants and scholars, Timbuktu was known throughout western Africa … Continue reading TIMBUKTU (CA. 1100- )
The Mali Empire was the second of three West African empires to emerge in the vast savanna grasslands located between the Sahara Desert to the north and the coastal rain forest in the south. Beginning as a series of small successor trading states, Ancient Ghana, the empire grew to encompass the territory between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Chad, a distance of 2,600 miles (nearly … Continue reading Revisit: MALI EMPIRE (CA. 1200-1545 )
The Songhai Empire, the last of West Africa’s pre-colonial empires, emerged in Gao and expanded across the region. Under Sunni Ali Ber and Askia Muhammad Toure, it grew through conquest and trade. However, a civil war led to Moroccan conquest in 1591. Although the Moroccans withdrew in 1661, the empire could not be reestablished and fell to French colonial forces in 1901. Continue reading revisit: SONGHAI EMPIRE (CA. 1375-1591)
Black Art Story 