Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T06:07:58.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

17 - The Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Market Towns of West Africa

from Part III - Neighbours and Comparanda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2020

By
Sam Nixon
Edited by
Martin Sterry  and
David J. Mattingly
Martin Sterry
Affiliation:
University of Durham
David J. Mattingly
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
Get access

Summary

In the early Islamic period, trade across the Sahara escalated to new levels as the rich resources of West African gold, slaves and ivory were imported on camel caravans to the markets of North Africa and the wider Islamic world trade system, these goods being exchanged for products from North Africa such as copper, textiles and glasswares. The immediate destinations for Trans-Saharan camel caravans coming from North Africa were the market towns which developed on the southern fringes of the Sahara, in the most arid zones of the Sahel (Sahel meaning ‘shore’ in Arabic; see Fig. 17.1). These centres became the principal locations for the Trans-Saharan commercial exchange, meeting points between traders from North Africa and the Sahara and those coming from further south in West Africa. Certain trading centres directly involved in the Trans-Saharan exchange also grew up slightly further south in the Sahel, close to the centres of the West African states controlling the gold, slaves, and ivory resources (see Fig. 17.1).

Type
Chapter
Information
Urbanisation and State Formation in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond , pp. 621 - 666
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aillet, C., Cressier, P. and Gilotte, S. (ed.). 2017. Sedrata. Histoire et archéologie d’un carrefour du Sahara médiéval à la lumière des archives inédites de Marguerite van Berchem. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez.Google Scholar
Aradeon, S. 1989. Al-Saheli. The historian’s myth of architectural technology transfer from West Africa. Journal des Africanistes 59: 99–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arazi, N. 1999. An archaeological survey in the Songhay heartland of Mali. Nyame Akuma 52: 25–43.Google Scholar
Austen, R. 2010. Trans-Saharan Africa in World History. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bedaux, R., Polet, J., Sanogo, K. and Schmidt, A. 2005. Recherches archéologiques à Dia dans le Delta intérieur du Niger, Mali: Bilan des saisons de fouilles 1998–2002. Leiden: CNWS.Google Scholar
Bernus, S. and Cressier, P. 1991. La région d’in Gall – Tegidda N Tesemt (Niger). Programme archéologique d’urgence 1977–1981. Azelik-Takadda et l’implantation sédentaire médiévale (Études Nigériennes No.51). Niamey: Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines.Google Scholar
Berthier, S. 1997. Recherches archéologiques sur la capitale de l’empire de Ghana: Etude d’un secteur d’habitat à Koumbi Saleh, Mauritanie. Campagnes II–III–IV–V (1975–1976)-(1980–1981). (Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 41/BAR International Series 680). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
de Mézières, Bonnel, A. 1914. Découverte de l’emplacement de Tirekka. Bulletin du Comite des travaux historiques et scientifiques de l’Afrique occidentale française 29: 132–35.Google Scholar
Bonnel de Mézières, A. 1923. Recherche de l’emplacement de Ghana (fouilles à Koumbi et Settah). Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l’Académie de Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 13.1: 227–64.Google Scholar
Bovill, E. 1958. The Golden Trade of the Moors. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Capel, C., Zazzo, A., Saliège, J-F. and Polet, J. 2015. The end of a hundred-year-old archaeological riddle: First dating of the columns tomb of Kumbi Saleh (Mauritania). Radiocarbon 57.1: 65–75.Google Scholar
Cissé, M. 2017. The Trans-Saharan trade connection with Gao (Mali) during the first millennium. In Mattingly et al. 2017a, 101–30.Google Scholar
Cissé, M., McIntosh, S.K., Dussubieux, L., Fenn, T., Gallager, D. and Smith, A.C. 2013. Excavations at Gao Saney: New evidence for settlement growth, trade, and interaction on the Niger Bend in the first millennium CE. Journal of African Archaeology 11.1: 9–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cressier, P. 1992. Archéologie de la devotion soufi. Journal des africanistes 62.2: 69–90.Google Scholar
Devisse, J. (ed.). 1983. Tegdaoust III. Recherches sur Aoudaghost (campagnes 1960–1965, enquêtes générales). Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations (ADPF).Google Scholar
Devisse, J. 1988. Trade and trade routes in West Africa. In El Fasi, M. (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume 3: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 367–435.Google Scholar
Dupuy, C. 1999. L’art rupestre à gravures naturalistes de l’Adrar des Iforas (Mali). Sahara 11: 69–86.Google Scholar
Fenn, T., Killick, D., Chesley, J., Magnavita, S. and Ruiz, J. 2009. Contacts between West Africa and Roman North Africa: archaeometallurgical results from Kissi, northeastern Burkina Faso. In Magnavita et al. 2009, 119–46.Google Scholar
Fentress, E. 1987. The house of the prophet: North African Islamic housing. Archeologia Medievale 14: 47–68.Google Scholar
Fili, A., Messier, R., Capel, C., Naji, S. and Fili, L. 2013. Archaeology, Conservation, Development. Progress and Prospects of the Moroccan-American Project. Casablanca: Aghmat Foundation.Google Scholar
Fili, A., Messier, R., Capel, C. and Héritier-Salama, V. 2014. Les palais mérinides dévoilés: le cas d’Aghmat. In Lintz, Y., Déléry, C. and Tuil Leonetti, B. (eds), Maroc Médiéval. Un empire de l’Afrique à l’Espagne. Paris: Hazan, 446–50.Google Scholar
Flight, C. 1975. Excavations at Gao (Republic of Mali) in 1974. Nyame Akuma 7: 28–9.Google Scholar
Holl, A. 2006. West African Early Towns: Archaeology of Households in Urban Landscapes. Ann Arbor, MI: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Insoll, T. 1993. Looting the antiquities of Mali: The story continues at Gao. Antiquity 67: 628–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Insoll, T. 1995. A cache of hippopotamus ivory at Gao, Mali and a hypothesis of its use. Antiquity 69: 327–36.Google Scholar
Insoll, T. 1996. Islam, Archaeology and History. Gao Region (Mali) ca. AD 900–1250. (Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 39/BAR International Series 647.) Oxford: Tempus Reparatum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Insoll, T. 1997. Iron Age Gao: An archaeological contribution. Journal of African History 38: 1–30.Google Scholar
Insoll, T. 1999. The Archaeology of Islam. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Insoll., T. 2000. Urbanism, Archaeology and Trade: Further Observations on the Gao Region (Mali) – The 1996 Fieldseason Results (BAR International Series 829). Oxford: BAR.Google Scholar
Insoll, T. 2002. The archaeology of post-Medieval Timbuktu. Sahara 13: 7–22.Google Scholar
Insoll, T. 2003. The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kea, R. 2004. Expansions and contractions: World-historical change and the western Sudan World-System (1200/1000 B.C. – 1200/1250 AD). Journal of World-Systems Research 10.3: 723–816.Google Scholar
Lange, D. 1994. From Mande to Songhay: Towards a political and ethnic history of Medieval Gao. Journal of African History 35: 275–301.Google Scholar
Lange, D. 1996. The Almoravid expansion and the downfall of Ghana. Der Islam 73: 122–59.Google Scholar
Lange, D. and Berthoud, S. 1977. Al-Qasaba et d’autres villes de la route centrale du Sahara. Paideuma 23: 19–40.Google Scholar
Levtzion, N. 1980. Ancient Ghana and Mali (Revised Edition). New York: Africana.Google Scholar
Levtzion, N. and Hopkins, J.F.P. (eds). 2000. Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers.Google Scholar
Lewicki, T. 1974. West African Food in the Middle Ages According to Arabic Sources. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewicki, T. 1981. Les origines et l’islamization de la ville de Tadmakka d’aprés les sources arabes. In Devisse, J., Perrot, C.H., Person, Y. and Chrétien, J.P. (eds), Le sol, la parole et l’écrit. Mélanges en hommage à Raymond Mauny, vol.1. Paris: Societé française d’histoire d’outremer, 439–44.Google Scholar
Lhote, H. 1951. Sur l’emplacement de la ville de Tademekka, antique capitale des berbères soudanais. Notes Africaines 51: 65–69.Google Scholar
McIntosh, R. 1998. The Peoples of the Middle Niger. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
McIntosh, R. 1999. Western representations of urbanism and invisible African towns. In McIntosh, S.K. (ed.), Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 56–65.Google Scholar
McIntosh, S. 1995. Excavations at Jenne-Jeno, Hambarketolo and Kaniana (Inland Niger Delta, Mali), the 1981 Season. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
McIntosh, S. and McIntosh, R. 1993. Cities without citadels: Understanding urban origins along the middle Niger. In Shaw, T., Sinclair, P., Andah, B. and Okpoko, A. (eds), The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns. London: Routledge, 622–41.Google Scholar
MacDonald, K., Camara, S., Canós, S., Gestrich, N. and Keita, D. 2011. Sorotomo: A forgotten Malian capital? Archaeology International 13: 52–64.Google Scholar
Magnavita, S. 2009. Sahelian crossroads: Some aspects on the Iron Age sites of Kissi, Burkina Faso. In Magnavita et al. 2009, 79–104.Google Scholar
Magnavita, S. 2013. Initial encounters: Seeking traces of ancient trade connections between West Africa and the wider world. Afriques 4 [online only]. Available at: http://afriques.revues.org/1145 [last accessed 16 September, 2019].Google Scholar
Magnavita, S., Maga, A., Magnavita, C. and Idé, O. 2007. New studies on Marandet (central Niger) and its trade connections: an interim report. Die Zeitschrift für Archäologie außereuropäischer Kulturen 2: 147–65.Google Scholar
Magnavita, S. Koté, L. Breunig, P. and Idé, O. (eds). 2009. Crossroads: Cultural and Technological Developments in First Millennium BC/AD West Africa. Frankfurt am Main: Africa Magna Verlag.Google Scholar
Masonen, P. 2000. The Negroland Revisited: Discovery and Invention of the Sudanese Middle Ages. Helsinki: The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.Google Scholar
Mattingly, D.J. (ed.). 2013. The Archaeology of Fazzan. Volume 4, Survey and Excavations at Old Jarma (Ancient Garama) Carried out by C.M. Daniels (1962–69) and the Fazzan Project (1997–2001). London: Society of Libyan Studies.Google Scholar
Mattingly, D.J. and Sterry, M. 2013. The first towns in the Central Sahara. Antiquity 87.366: 503–18.Google Scholar
Mattingly, D.J., Leitch, V., Duckworth, C., Cuénod, A., Sterry, M. and Cole, F. (eds). 2017a. Trade in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and The Society for Libyan Studies.Google Scholar
Mattingly, D.J., Bokbot, Y., Sterry, M., Cuénod, A., Fenwick, C., Gatto, M., Ray, N., Rayne, L., Janin, K., Lamb, A., Mugnai, N. and Nikolaus, J. 2017b. Long-term history in a Moroccan oasis zone: The Middle Draa Project 2015. Journal of African Archaeology 15: 141–72.Google Scholar
Mauny, R. 1961. Tableau géographique de l’Ouest Africain au Moyen Âge d’après les sources écrites, la tradition et l’archéologie. Dakar: IFAN.Google Scholar
Messier, R. and Miller, J. 2015. The Last Civilized Place. Sijilmasa and Its Saharan Destiny. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, P. 2005. African Connections. Archaeological Perspectives on Africa and the Wider World. Walnut Creek: Altamira.Google Scholar
Monroe, J.C. 2017. ‘Elephants for want of towns’: Archaeological perspectives on West African cities and their hinterlands. Journal of Archaeological Research. Doi:10.1007/s10814-017–9114-2.Google Scholar
Moraes Farias, P.F. de. 2003. Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali. Epigraphy, Chronicles and Songhay-Tuāreg History. Oxford: Oxford University Press (British Academy).Google Scholar
Moraes Farias, P.F. de. 2017. Arabic and Tifinagh inscriptions. In Nixon 2017a, 41–51.Google Scholar
Nixon, S. 2009. Excavating Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali): New archaeological investigations of early Islamic trans-Saharan trade. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 44: 217–55.Google Scholar
Nixon, S. 2013. ‘A longing for Mecca’: The trans-Saharan Hajj and the caravan towns of West Africa. In Porter, V. and Saif, L. (eds), Hajj: Collected Essays. London: British Museum Press, 65–73.Google Scholar
Nixon, S. 2014. West Africa: Islamic archaeology. In Smith, C. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. New York: Springer, 7720–33.Google Scholar
Nixon, S. (ed.). 2017a. Essouk-Tadmekka: An Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Market Town. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Nixon, S. 2017b. Trans-Saharan gold trade in pre-modern times: Available evidence and research agendas. In Mattingly et al. 2017a, 156–88.Google Scholar
Nixon, S., Filomena Guerra, M. and Rehren, T. 2011. New light on the early Islamic West African gold trade: Coin moulds from Tadmekka, Mali. Antiquity 85: 1353–68.Google Scholar
Norris, H. 1962. The history of Shinqit according to the Idaw ‘Ali tradition. Bulletin de l’institut fondamental d’Afrique noire 24: 39–413.Google Scholar
Norris, H. 1975. The Tuaregs: Their Islamic Legacy and its Diffusion in the Sahel. Warminster: Aris and Philips.Google Scholar
Park, D.P. 2010. Prehistoric Timbuktu and its hinterland. Antiquity 84: 1076–88.Google Scholar
Polet, J. 1985. Tegdaoust IV, Fouille d’un quartier de Tegdaoust (Mauritanie Orientale): Urbanisation, architecture, utilisation de l’espace construit. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations (ADPF).Google Scholar
Prussin, L. 1986. Hatumere: Islamic Design in West Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Raimbault, M. and Sanogo, K. (eds). 1991. Recherches archéologiques au Mali. Paris: Éditions Karthala.Google Scholar
Robert, D., Robert, S.D. and Devisse, J. 1970. Tegdaoust I: Recherches sur Aoudaghost. Paris: Arts et Métiers Graphiques.Google Scholar
Robert-Chaleix, D. 1989. Tegdaoust V, Une concession médiévale à Tegdaoust: Implantation, évolution d’une unité d’habitation. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations (ADPF).Google Scholar
Saison, B. 1981. Azugi; Archéologie et histoire en Adlar mauritanien. Recherche, pedagogie et culture 5: 66–74.Google Scholar
Sanogo, K., Cissé, M. and Fane, Y. 2006. Site de la mosquée Kankou Moussa à Gao: Homage au docteur Téréba Togola. Bamako: Ministère de la Culture/ Direction Nationale du Patrimoine Culturel.Google Scholar
Savage, E. 1992. Berbers and blacks: Ibadi slave traffic in eighth-century North-Africa. Journal of African History 33.3: 351–68.Google Scholar
Thomassey, P. and Mauny, R. 1951. Campagne de fouilles à Koumbi Saleh. Bulletin de l’Institut Français [later Fondamental] d’Afrique Noire (Dakar) 13: 438–62.Google Scholar
Thomassey, P. and Mauny, R. 1956. Campagne de fouilles de 1950 à Koumbi Saleh (Ghana?). Bulletin de l’Institut Français [later Fondamental] d’Afrique Noire (Dakar) 18: 117–40.Google Scholar
Togola, T. 1996. Iron Age occupation in the Méma region, Mali. African Archaeological Review 13.2: 91–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanacker, C. 1979. Tegdaoust II, Fouille d’un quartier artisanal. Paris: Memoire de l’I.M.R.S.Google Scholar
Van Berchem, M. 1960. Sedrata et les anciennes villes berbères du Sahara dans les récits des explorateurs du XIXe siècle. Bulletin d’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 59: 289–308.Google Scholar
Van Doosselaere, B. 2014. Le roi et le potier. Etude technologique de l’assemblage céramique de Koumbi Saleh, Mauritanie (5e/6e–17e siècles). Frankfurt: Africa Magna Verlag.Google Scholar
Vikør, K. 1987. The early history of the Kawar oasis: A southern border of the Maghrib or a northern border of the Sudan? The Maghreb Review 12.3–4: 78–83.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×