The Ancient and Medieval
World HST 108 Ancient and Medieval Africa
Key Terms from Lecture and Textbook
| Bantu |
Makeda |
Coptic |
| Berbers |
Menelik |
Kebra Nagast |
| Tuareg |
Benue |
Swahili Coast |
| Kingdom of Ghana |
Great Zimbabwe |
Kilwa |
| Soninke |
griots |
Timbuktu |
| Kingdom of Mali |
Yekuno Amlak |
Sorko |
| Mandinka |
kingdom of Da'amat |
Askiya Muhammad |
| Sundiata |
King Ezana |
syncretism |
| Mansa Musa |
Sahel |
Zanj rebellion |
| Kingdom of Aksum |
Songhai |
malaria |
| Niger River |
trans-Atlantic slave trade |
yellow fever |
| Zambezi River |
Indian Ocean slave trade |
trypanosomiasis |
| Bantu Expansions |
3000 BCE - 1500 CE |
| Kingdom of Aksum |
1st-10th c. |
| Kingdom of Ghana |
9th-11th c. |
| Height of Swahili Society |
11th-15th c. |
| Great Zimbabwe |
11th-15th c. |
| Kingdom of Mali |
13th-17th c. |
A. climate zones [MAP: climate] [MAP: topography]
1. Mediterranean
2. desert: Sahara, Namib, Kalahari
3. sub-desert
4. savannah
5. sub-tropical
6. tropical rain forest
7. highlands
B. spread of agriculture
1. from Nile Valley to sub-desert to West Africa
2. then to tropics and further south
3. native crops, such as millet and sorghum
4. imported crops, such as bananas, sugarcane, coconut palms
5. imported animals, such as donkeys, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks
C. spread of iron-working
1. either via Egyptians or Phoenicians
2. spread to West Africa and then south with Bantu-speaking people
D. Bantu expansions [MAP: language] [MAP: expansions]
1. family of languages that developed around the Benue region
2. Benue region is around modern Cameroon and Nigeria
3. Bantu speakers began spreading south and east around 3000 BCE
4. reached far southeastern Africa around 1500 CE
5. possible causes
a. expanding population
b. appearance of centralized kingdoms
6. led to the spread of iron-working and mixed agriculture to eastern
and southern Africa
II. Western Africa [MAP: political] [MAP: general]
A. Western Sudan [MAP]
1. the area south of the Sahara and north of the Gulf of Guinea
2. society
a. kinship groups in villages and small city-states
b. chiefs and councils of elders
c. kings and priests
3. religion
a. polytheism
b. supreme being with many other gods/spirits/dead ancestors
4. position of women
a. women had significant power in many areas
b. the king's mother shared power with him among the Asante
(Ghana) and the Yoruba (Nigeria)
c. the Yoruba and Igbo in Nigeria had male AND female chiefs
B. The Berbers
1. the spread of trade networks
a. caravan routes
1. the native north African Berbers used camels to dominate
trade across the Sahara [MAP: medieval caravan routes] 2. they created caravan routes that ran from the Mediterranean
coast through the Sahara to the Sudan [modern caravan]
3. they determined access to the routes and charged protection
money
4. the Tuareg were nomadic Berbers in the Sahara who attacked
caravans [MAP]
b. goods
1. dates, salt, cotton, silk going south
2. gold, ivory, slaves going north
c. impact on west Africa
1. increased gold mining in Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana
2. increased slave trade
3. urban development
2. the spread of Islam [MAP]
a. the Berbers had converted to Islam during the 8th-10th centuries
b. they spread their new religion along the caravan routes
c. western Sudan kings converted to protect their kingdoms from
Berber attack
d. western Sudan merchants converted to maintain good relations
with the Berber caravan traders
e. Islam became class-based in West Africa
1. the wealthy and powerful had converted
2. early on, the common people remained polytheistic
f. spread of writing and record keeping due to Muslim influences
C. Decentralized States
1. 800-1500 is often seen as the age of great kingdoms/empires
2. actually, most Africans were NOT controlled by kings during this
period
3. most people lived in villages with chiefs who deferred to
councils of elders
D. Kingdom of Ghana, 900-1100 [MAP] [MAP: rivers]
1. location: north of the Niger River, south of the Sahara
2. the Soninke people
3. called Ghana (war chief) by outsiders, Wagadou by the Soninke
4. society
a. all powerful king
b. council of ministers (mostly Muslim)
c. merchants (including Muslims)
d. artisans, craftsmen, farmers
e. slaves
5. the army
a. standing army of about 1000 soldiers
b. protected the king, did his bidding, fought wars, etc.
6. decline
a. around 1100
b. probably because of Berber raids/invasion
E. Kingdom of Mali, 13th-17th c. [MAP]
1. the Mandinka
a. Ghana broke apart into smaller kingdoms
b. the Mandinka from Kangaba asserted themselves
c. created the kingdom of Mali in the early 13th century
2. booming economy
a. surplus millet and sorghum
b. middlemen between gold and salt mines and consumers in the
Mediterranean
3. dynamic leaders
a. Sundiata (1230-1255)
1. founder of the Mali dynasty
2. developed Niani on the Niger River into a trading center
3. expanded eastward on the Niger
b. Mansa Musa (1312-1337)
1. expanded the kingdom westward to the Atlantic and eastward
to Timbuktu and Gao
2. converted to Islam; made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324-5
a. massive entourage of soldiers, slaves, elephants
b. lavished gold on people as he went
c. this spread the word of Mali's wealth and power
d. the trip deepened his faith
e. brought Muslim merchants and intellectuals back with him
f. brought an architect named al-Saheli from Arabia to build
new mosques in Timbuktu and beyond
3. turned Timbuktu into a commercial/intellectual center
a. he attracted merchants and intellectuals from all over the
Mediterranean
b. it became a center of learning
1. about 150 Islamic schools
2. prolific book trade
III. Eastern Africa
A. Kingdom of Aksum (in Ethiopia) [MAP]
1. powerful kingdom by the 1st c. CE
2. dominated trade in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean
3. perfect climate for growing wheat, barley
4. Ethiopian Christianity
a. Coptic branch of the Christian Church
1. Coptic language = medieval Egyptian
2. they split from the Byzantine Orthodox Church in the 5th c.
3. spread from Egypt to Ethiopia in the early Middle Ages
4. Coptic Christianity had a foothold in the region well before
the spread of Islam
5. today, Ethiopia is about 60 percent Christian (mostly Coptic)
6. and Egypt is about 15-20 percent Christian (mostly Coptic)
b. Kebra Nagast
1. Ethiopian national epic written in the 14th century
2. combination of Coptic and Old Testament traditions
3. intended to unify Ethiopians with a Judeo-Christian tradition
4. it connected Ethiopian rulers to the Biblical era
5. the story
a. Ethiopian queen named Makeda (Sheba)
b. she goes to Jerusalem to get advice from king Solomon in
the 10th c. BCE
c. Solomon tricked her into sleeping with him
d. she has a son named Menelik
e. Menelik grew up and visited Solomon
f. Solomon appointed Menelik crown prince of Ethiopia
g. the young Jewish nobles sent home with him stole the Ark
of the Covenant
h. Solomon sent his army after them
i. God saved them by lifting them over the Red Sea into
Ethiopia
6. the meaning to Ethiopians
a. Menelik avenged his mother
b. God gave his covenant to Ethiopia, which was Israel's
successor
c. thus, it unified the Ethiopian people
d. and Ethiopian kings claimed descent from Solomon
through the 16th century
B. Swahili Coast [MAP]
1. Swahili is a Bantu language spoken in the region
2. had been a center of trade since ancient times
3. expansion of trade and culture during the Middle Ages
a. Muslim merchants set up trading colonies in the region
b. they introduced Islamic culture and intermarried with the locals
c. Swahili society becomes a mix of African, Asian and Middle
Eastern culture
4. large, powerful city-states arise
a. such as Kilwa, Mombossa, Pemba [MAP]
b. built on islands just off the coast
c. immense wealth allowed them to control surrounding territory
on the mainland
d. derived wealth from gold and slaves
e. most of the gold came from mines near the Zambezi River
f. most of the slaves came from raids and kidnapping
g. Arab traders sent slaves off to Arabia, Persia, India, China
h. in the late 15th century, Portuguese explorers and merchants
began taking slaves back to Europe
i. that eventually morphs in the Atlantic Slave Trade after the
Europeans create colonies in the Americas
IV. Southern Africa
A. hunter-gatherer society
1. isolated from influence of Berbers, Christians and Muslims
2. lived in caves and movable camps
B. Bantu arrival in the 8th century
1. brought iron-working and mixed agriculture
2. settled village life, growing crops, raising animals
C. expansion
1. population rose
2. chiefs gained more control
3. wealth from local copper and gold resources
D. Great Zimbabwe (11th-15th c.) [MAP] [MAP: rivers]
1. vast empire between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers
2. named after the largest city in the region
3. Zimbabwe itself means "large stone houses"
4. the ruins
a. the Hill Complex
b. the Valley Complex
c. the Great Enclosure
5. the largest stone construction in sub-Saharan Africa at the time
a. covered nearly three square miles
b. had a population of about 15-18,000
c. dry-stone architecture; no mortar
d. walls of the Great Enclosure are 36 feet high in places
6. racist 19th-century European explorers
a. thought it must have been built by Phoenicians or Arabs
b. saw the natives of Africa and the Americas as inferior
c. recent research proves that it was built by native Africans
themselves (ancestors of the local Shona people)
7. the local Africans were actually quite advanced
a. they had a vibrant artistic tradition (soapstone birds)
a. they traded with China and Persia
8. decline in the 15th century
a. over-planted the soil
b. exhausted local gold deposits