"The Serpent is in Ouidah a superior and excellent Divinity. He looks after and into everything, everybody appeals to him for advice, for rain, for good weather or in case of sickness or war, for trade, for harvest, for weddings."
Reverend Father Labat, 1730.
Serpents may have a negative reputation in Abrahamic religions as the symbol of evil, but in many societies across the world, the serpent is a powerful symbol associated with spiritual forces. Serpen...
2025-02-02 13:36:40 +0000 UTC
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Updated essay: The Nsibidi script ca. 600-1909 CE: a history of an African writing system
(New books and articles)
Compass - Comparative Literature in Africa edited by Maduka, Chidi T., Ekpo, Denis
Translation of ; Étude typographique du système d’écriture nsibidi, des pictos-idéogrammes du Nigeri...
2025-01-26 21:22:32 +0000 UTC
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Hi folks, I have been offline for the past three days attending the funeral of my father, who sadly passed away this Tuesday.
I was hoping to unlock this 3-year-old essay on the Nsibidi script for the general audience on substack this Sunday, only if the majority of you vote to make it free for all.
2025-01-24 21:19:27 +0000 UTC
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The Koutammakou landscape in northern Togo and Benin has the unusual distinction of being one of the few UNESCO world heritage sites that are known more to tourists than to historians of Africa. Towering above this undulating landscape are hundreds of fortified multi-story houses resembling small medieval castles built with coursed earth.
These monuments captured the imagination of later visitors to region, initially appearing among the drawings of Louis Binger in 1888 and...
2025-01-19 12:01:08 +0000 UTC
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Essay: A complete history of the Sudano-Sahelian architecture of west Africa
Making and Remaking Mosques in Senegal By Cleo Cantone
Tracing history in Dia, in the Inland Niger Delta of Mali : archaeology, oral traditions and written sources by N. Arazi
Al-Sahili : the historian's myth of arch...
2025-01-12 23:24:59 +0000 UTC
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In 1996, the discovery of an elite necropolis at Kissi in Burkina Faso containing grave goods that included Roman items dated to the early 1st millennium CE provided the first definitive evidence for long-distance trade in luxury goods in pre-Islamic West Africa.
In the early 2000s, excavations uncovered evidence for pre-Islamic nucleated settlements with monumental architecture at the sites of Oursi and the impressive ruins of Loropeni. These later sites feature a double-storey house c...
2025-01-05 13:16:57 +0000 UTC
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Essay: The Meroitic script and the documents of ancient Kush (ca. 300BC-450CE)
The Meroitic Language and Writing System By Claude Rilly, Alex de Voogt
Karanòg : the Meroitic inscriptions of Shablul and Karanòg...
2024-12-29 19:26:31 +0000 UTC
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Among the ruins of the Roman town of Herculaneum which was buried after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79CE are two well-preserved frescos depicting several aithiopian priests as central figures in a ceremony dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis.
Across the Mediterranean and up the Nile to the southernmost border of Rome was the city of Philae, where numerous inscriptions and relief scenes indicate the presence of Nubians as priests in Isiac ceremonies and temple admini...
2024-12-22 12:44:23 +0000 UTC
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Essay: The intellectual history of Ethiopia and Eritrea: Ge'ez manuscripts and scholars (ca. 200-1900CE)
The Traditional Teaching of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahedo Church By Christine Chaillot
The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles by Richard Pankhurst
The Glorious Victories of 'Āmda S̥eyon, King of Ethiopi...
2024-12-15 21:02:07 +0000 UTC
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The grand dionysiac procession of the Greco-Egyptian ruler Ptolemy Philadelphus, which occured around the year 276 BC, includes an unusual scene depicting elephants dragging a chariot along with tribute bearers, some of whom came from the kingdom of Kush whose armies had lost the region of lower Nubia to Philadelphus' armies in 278-279 BC.
Not long after the reign of Philadelphus, the Meroitic kings erected a massive temple dedicated to their national deity; Apedemack. Included in the m...
2024-12-08 17:23:43 +0000 UTC
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Essay:
The intellectual history of East Africa (ca. 900-1950 CE): from the Swahili coast to Buganda to Eastern Congo.
Renewers of the Age: Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir By Scott Reese
Islamic Sufi Networks in the Western Indian Ocean (c.1880-1940) By Anne K. Bang
Muslim B...
2024-12-01 21:52:15 +0000 UTC
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"Teaching students is hard work for little reward, because when students qualify, the teacher does not always get his pay." - Mtoro Mwinyi Bakari, 1903.
In 1903, one of the earliest foundational works on the anthropology of East African societies was written by a little-known African scholar named Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari. After arriving in Germany in 1900, Mtoro became a lecturer at the universities of Berlin and Hamburg, and his students included many...
2024-11-24 13:04:29 +0000 UTC
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Essay: A history of Horses in the southern half of Africa ca. 1498-1900.
Riding High: Horses, Humans and History in South Africa by Sandra Scott Swart
The Impact of the Horse on the AmaTola 'Bushmen'” New Identity in the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of Southern Africa by W Challis
Horse Nations: The Wor...
2024-11-17 20:18:03 +0000 UTC
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The region extending from the Atlantic coast of Congo to the western shores of Lake Tanganyika was home to what is arguably the largest contiguous cloth-producing region on the continent, known as the 'Central African textile belt'.
The Portuguese visitors to 16th-century Kongo described its textiles as "so beautiful that those made in Italy do not surpass them in workmanship," also mentioned that most of the highly coveted textiles were imported into Kongo from fu...
2024-11-10 16:59:58 +0000 UTC
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my article: Acemoglu in Kongo: a critique of 'Why Nations Fail' and its wilful ignorance of African history.
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty By Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson
The Kingdom of Kongo by Anne Hilton
That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in ...
2024-11-03 19:50:31 +0000 UTC
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Among the vast corpus of celebrated artworks from Benin are a handful of sculptures depicting soldiers carrying muskets and a plaque decorated with a miniature cannon. These artworks, which may be the earliest images of firearms in Africa, were produced during one of the most pivotal moments in the continent's history that marked the counter between Africa's Atlantic societies and Europe.
In the centuries following this initial encounter, the kingdom of Benin remained among the most pow...
2024-10-27 15:45:53 +0000 UTC
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Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria By Elisha P. Renne
Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria By Michael J. Watts.
Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Anne Haour, Benedetta Rossi
Big Is Sometimes Best: The Sokoto Caliphate ...
2024-10-20 20:44:16 +0000 UTC
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"I did not rest a moment during our
2024-10-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Meroe: A Civilization of the Sudan by P. L. Shinnie
The Double Kingdom Under Taharqo: Studies in the History of Kush and Egypt, c. 690 – 664 BC by Jeremy W. Pope
Hellenizing Art in Ancient Nubia 300 B.C. - AD 250 and Its Egyptian Models: A Study in "Acculturation" by László Török
2024-10-06 20:14:54 +0000 UTC
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Centuries before the Aksumite empire dominated the Red Sea region, the northern Horn of Africa was home to multiple complex societies which flourished in a region at the crossroads of many cultures linking North-East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
Scattered between the modern countries of Eritrea and Ethiopia are the ruins of many ancient settlements dating back to the 1st millennium BC, that contain stone temples and palaces, lithic and bronze tools, volumes of local pottery, and a h...
2024-09-29 15:44:47 +0000 UTC
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A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly
First Footsteps in East Africa: Or, An Explanation of Harar By Sir Richard Francis Burton with an introduction by Henry W. Nevinson
Sun, Sand and Somals By Henry A. Rayne
A Traveller in Thirteenth-century Arabia: Ibn Al-Mujāwi...
2024-09-22 19:29:27 +0000 UTC
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"I wandered around the city and saw women in it catching men and I thought: this city is the city of madmen, this is the end of the world, this is where you have come to get lost, Amur."
Africans had been exploring and traveling across the old world as envoys, merchants, and pilgrims since antiquity, but it wasn't until the 19th century that African travel writing became an established literary genre.
In 1891, the Swahili traveller Amur al-Omeri arrived i...
2024-09-15 13:20:06 +0000 UTC
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The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations Among the Mombasa Swahili by Marc J. Swartz
Fort Jesus and the Portuguese in Mombasa, 1593-1729 by Charles Ralph Boxer, Carlos de Azevedo
Three Swahili Women. Life Histories from Mombasa, Kenya. Edited by Sarah Mirza and Margaret Strobel
The Mijikenda and Mombasa to c. 1930 by J. Willis
Excavations at the Sit...
2024-09-08 20:10:32 +0000 UTC
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A sneak peek into the AfricanHistoryExtra Patreon account, please subscribe to access all my posts.
2024-09-01 19:12:58 +0000 UTC
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The Swahili coast of East Africa was one of the world's leading exporters of gold since the middle ages, with about as much gold passing through the port town of Sofala every year in the 15th century as was owned by Mansa Musa --the wealthiest person in history.
The coastal town of Sofala, which was referred to as 'Golden Sofala' in medieval Arab geography, was the terminus of long-distance trade routes exporting gold and ivory from the Shona kingdoms of South-East Africa, such as Great...
2024-09-01 13:03:05 +0000 UTC
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The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa by Lynn Meskell
Mapungubwe and the Origins of the Zimbabwe Culture by Thomas N. Huffman
Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The Origin and Spread of social complexity in Southern Africa by Thomas N. Huffman
Shell disc beads and the development of class‑based society at the K2‑Mapungubwe settlement complex (South Africa) by Michelle Mouton
2024-08-25 18:16:52 +0000 UTC
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The kingdom of Kongo, as it appears in 16th century accounts, was, along with Ethiopia, one of only two Christian states in Africa after the fall of medieval Nubia. However, Kongo's global recognition as Christian kingdom by the papacy in Rome and by the kings of Iberia, may obscure the continued presence of 'traditional' religious societies in the kingdom that co-existed with Kongo's Christian society.
In the 17th century, a powerful political-religious society known as the kimpasi eme...
2024-08-18 13:25:24 +0000 UTC
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Metals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy By Shadreck Chirikure
Metals in Mandara Mountains Society and Culture edited by Nicholas David
A Comparison of Early and Later Iron Age Societies in the Bassar Region of Togo Philip de Barros
The Origins of African Metallurgies by A.F.C. Holl
Book review essay: What do we know about African iron ...
2024-08-11 21:53:36 +0000 UTC
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Written in 1576, the chronicles of the kingdom of Bornu contain a curious account of an expedition conducted by King Idrīs Alooma beyond the southern banks of Lake Chad against a king of Wandara who had sought refuge in the mountain fortresses of northern Cameroon.
Beginning in 2002, archeologists started excavating a complex of stone platforms and terraces in the Mandara mountains of Cameroon whose construction was dated to between the 14th and 17th century.
Known as the DGB sit...
2024-08-04 12:53:18 +0000 UTC
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Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa by Nehemia Levtzion, Humphrey J. Fisher
Les états de Kong (Côte d'Ivoire) By Louis Tauxier, Edmond Bernus
La ville de Bobo-Dioulasso au Burkina Faso by Katja Werthmann, Mamadou Lamine Sanogo
Kong et sa région by Edmond Bernus
Islam on both Sides: Religion and Locality in Western Burkina Faso by Katja Werthmann
2024-07-28 12:53:04 +0000 UTC
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