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Kingdom of KushKush (also known as Nubia) was the empire to the south of Egypt. Kush was built in at the base of the mountains, at the start of the Nile River. They didn't have to worry, as the Egyptians did, about the annual flooding of the Nile to bring good soil. They had good soil. They enjoyed plenty of rainfall all year long to keep things fresh and growing.Kush had tremendous natural wealth. They had gold mines and ivory and iron ore. Other kingdoms wanted to conquer Kush and keep the wealth for themselves. Kush did not allow this to happen. They were known as the Land of the Bow because of their many expert archers.The nobles lived along the Nile River. They thought of themselves as Egyptians, although the Egyptians would not have agreed. They lived in similar houses and worshiped the same gods as the ancient Egyptians, with a couple of additional gods tossed in, like the three-headed lion god. Unlike the Egyptians, their rulers were queens, rather than kings or pharaohs. They mummified their dead. They built tombs with flat roofs.Like the Kush nobles, the common people mummified their dead, and worshiped the same gods. But they did not think of themselves as Egyptians. The common people lived in villages. They were farmers. They were proud of their village. Each village had a leader, but the leader was not a king or queen or chief. The leader did not rule. Rather, the leader suggested and led discussions. The villagers decided.There was a place in Kush where two or more villages might meet. You had to be invited, but if invited, you knew where to go, as the meeting place was always the same. Festivals were held in the meeting place.One of Kush's natural resources was iron ore. This was the Iron Age. Everyone wanted iron weapons and iron tools. Kush was the center of the iron trade in the ancient African world. To produce iron from ore, Kush needed to burn wood. Wood was running out. Kush had to turn their attention to other trade goods to survive.They had heard stories of the wonderful gold mines on the other side of Africa. It was a very long trip. The Sahara Desert was in the way. Around 750 CE, Kush tried using camels and camel trains to cross the sea of sand. It was dangerous. It was miserable. But as Kush traders discovered, it could be done. Kush turned their attention to the trade with West Africa. This was the beginning of the?Trans-Sahara Trade Route.Kingdom of GhanaThe kingdom of Ghana lasted about 800 years, until the kingdom of Mali took over.The kingdom of Ghana was rich! Ancient Ghana is located in a different place than the modern country of Ghana in West Africa. The ancient kingdom of Ghana was a key part of the Trans-Sahara Trade Route.But even earlier than the trading that went on between east and west Africa, the kingdom of Ghana acted as guards for the traders from the north, and the traders from the south. Ghana was in the middle. Ghana was a great military power in ancient times. They had an army of 200,000 fighting men. People in the north had salt mines. People in the south had gold mines. Ghana had an army that could protect the traders.Ghana charged a fee for their protection in gold and in salt and in other goods. This arrangement worked well for everyone. Ghana became rich.The people in Ghana were very happy. They worked hard, but they were safe and protected. They benefited from the wealth that poured into the empire. The king and nobles lived in the best houses, but they too were comfortable.They had plenty to eat. The Niger River ran through ancient Ghana. The river provided water for bathing and washing. There were ample fish and waterfowl to eat. The people also farmed. They grew sweet potatoes and other vegetables. No one went hungry in ancient Ghana.They were creative people. Their artists wove cotton fabrics. They designed these fabrics by painting wet mud on woven cloth, and then placing the fabric in the sun to dry. This created a permanent design in the cloth. It was very clever and very unique.The people of Ghana were peace loving. Their laws were gentle. People were important. The king had a council of elders to advise him. There were district leaders all over the kingdom to make sure people were treated fairly.Ghana was so good at protection and trade that the kingdoms to the north and south of Ghana, along with Ghana herself, became known as the Gold Coast. Word of their wealth spread across Africa. Traders braved the Sahara Desert, bringing with them silks and spices to trade for gold. The kingdom of Ghana again acted as the protection for traders. The more traders braved the?Trans-Sahara Trade Route, the more the kingdom of Ghana flourished.Kingdom of MaliMali started as a small province in the kingdom of Ghana. In time, Mali took over.Sundiata was Mali's young king. He was a great leader and very clever. Rather than simply trade with the people to the north and to the south, Sundiata expanded Mali so that Mali actually controlled some of the gold mines and some of the salt mines.His son continued to expand Mali, when he took over as king.But it was Sundiata's grandson,?Mansa Musa, who has fascinated people for hundreds of years. Mansa Musa loved knowledge. He built a university in Timbuktu, one of the cities on the?Trans-Sahara Trade Route. He established religious freedom. As for himself, he converted to Islam, and traveled extensively. His pilgrimage to Mecca was talked about throughout the world. Mansa Musa- According to the Huffington Post.You've probably never heard of him, but Mansa Musa is the richest person ever. The 14th century emperor from West Africa?was worth a staggering $400 billion, after adjusting for inflation,?as calculated by Celebrity Net Worth. To put that number into perspective -- if that's even possible -- Net Worth's calculations mean Musa's fortune far outstrips that of the?current world's richest man Carlos Slim Helu and family. According to Forbes, the Mexican telecom giant's net worth is $69 billion.?Slim edges out the world's second wealthiest man, Bill Gates, who is worth $61 billion, according to Forbes.Songhai EmpireSonghai was a fishing village in the Mali Empire. Like all villages, they were allowed to have their own local government. Mali wanted them to pay taxes like all the villages in the empire. But Songhai refused. They were fiercely independent. Mali let them get away with it because they wanted the fish that Songhai could provide. Songhai did a great job catching and trading fish.Slowly, Songhai developed a strong army and a central government. The nobles were Muslim. The common people believed in the old gods. The lifestyle of the nobles and the common people began to change. The nobles became rich and comfortable. The common people were poor and did all the work.As Mali weakened, Songhai started to take charge of West Africa.The first king of the new Songhai Empire was Sonni Ali the Great. Sonni Ali was a strong leader. He wanted to expand the Songhai Empire as rapidly as possible. To do so, he sent warriors, in canoes, up and down the waterways, to take over small towns and villages. The villages were glad to see them. They wanted someone in charge who had a strong army to protect them.As Songhai grew, Sonni Ali sent warriors to take over landlocked cities, such as the city of Timbuktu. It was not long until Songhai had grown into the largest kingdom in West Africa. At one point, Songhai stretched 2,000 miles along the west African coast. They soon controlled all the gold mines in the south, and all the salt mines in the north. That gave them incredible power with the traders from the other side of the Sahara.Songhai had all the gold and salt they needed. They had luxury goods. The nobles had everything except books. If you wanted to crack a great trade with Songhai, you needed to haul books across the Sahara Desert.Songhai was very active in the slave trade. Anyone could be captured and sold to the slave traders.Axum (Aksum) KingdomLocated in the northeast region of contemporary?Ethiopia, the city of Axum sits on a high plateau next to the Red Sea. With the city’s ascendance centuries before the birth of Christ and its position next to the Red Sea, Axum became a major center for international trade. Known for its monumental obelisk and as an early center of Christianity in?Africa, Axum became one of the holiest of cities of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.Despite Axum’s current state of poverty, it was once a city distinguished by prestigious power. The ancient civilization whose roots date back to 100 B.C.E. was once wealthy from the trading of ivory, exotic animal skins, and gold with other countries. Axum’s political rulers used its newly found power, gained from trading, to build a centralized state that tightly controlled its people.By the third century A.D. Axum had established its own currency. It began its manufacturing of coins, the first city in Africa to do so, by using its depiction of leaders and the cross of Christianity as a representation of its holy stature. In 320 A.D. Ezana became the King of Axum. Under his rule, Ezana embraced Christianity in 327 A.D. and made it the dominant religion of Axum.? Ezana made the cross the official symbol of his conversion. In 340 A.D. the Christian Cathedral of St. Mary of Zion was constructed in the city. Axum became the first state in Africa to adopt Christianity as its official faith and at the time was among only a handful of Christian states in the world.? Roman Emperor Constantine embraced the faith in 312 A.D. Other small Christian states were scattered around the eastern Mediterranean region.Along with the faith and the new currency came the establishment of a new language, Geez. It became the official language of Axum and included a written script. The usage of Geez today has declined.? It is now utilized exclusively by the religious leaders of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.Axum began to experience a decline during the seventh century with the rise of?Islam?which spread west from the?Arabian Peninsula.? As northeastern African states converted to Islam they reorganzied the traditional Red Sea trading routes which resulted in the exclusion of Christian Axum from regional trade and also cutting it off from the rest of the Christian world. The Christian kingdom of Axum maintained its religious hegemony by denying the Axumite Muslims the right to build mosques in the city. Nonetheless over the next 14 centuries Axumite Christians and Axumite Muslims resided together under various Ethiopian rulers who proclaimed loyalty to the city’s Orthodox Christian roots.Throughout its reign Axum’s political leaders built monuments, the most important of which was the obelisk of Axum constructed by Ezana to pay tribute to the kingdom’s new faith.? The obelisk was stolen by the?Italian?army in 1937 during its occupation of Ethiopia. On April 25, 2005 the obelisk was finally returned to Axum after nearly seven decades and was restored to its original pedestal.Swahili City StatesSwahili City States?were trading states along the east coast of Africa, from?Kenya?to?Mozambique. The Swahili City States provided and connected African raw material to the rest of the Indian Ocean world--Arabia, India, Persia, China and vice-versa.The earliest Swahili culture developed in the Tana Valley and the Lamu Islands, from indigenous Bantu speaking population, around the sixth century. By the 10th century, Islam was beginning to take root as it was reported that Kanbalu was run by Muslims. Trading opportunities saw the arrival of Arab, Persian, and Indian merchants. In 916, Al-Masudi visited the Swahili coast or "Land of the Zanj." By 1200, Kilwa became the most important Swahili town by tapping into the gold trade of the Zimbabwe Plateau and Limpopo Valley. Its importance is illustrated by the fact that the Chinese Admiral Zhen He visited the Sultan of Kilwa in 1415. ?Sofala was later found to exploit the gold trade, further south.The Portuguese arrived along the Swahili Coast in 1498. By 1503, they were bent on conquest in the name of Christianity and attacked Zanzibar. By 1503, they attacked Kilwa, Mombasa, and Barawa. The Portuguese were never able to gain control of the Swahili City States, and its trading networks. In 1698, the Swahili States received assistance from the Imam of Oman. By 1729, the Portuguese threat was removed. The Swahilis never recovered their glorious trading past.Cities, Towns, and Architecture Forty Swahili towns existed, between Mogadishu and Sofala. The most important were Mogadishu, Pate, Mombasa, Malindi, Zanzibar, and Kilwa. Each town had a mosque. Very few stone structures existed. The population consisted of muslim and slave population. The well to do and old families lived in the northern part of the town, while migrants and the less well to do lived in the southen part. Some towns were run by royalty, others were run by an oligarchy called?waungwana.One of the earliest examples of monumental Swahili Architecture is the trade emporium, palace of Husuni Kubwa, lying west of Kilwa, built about 1245. As with many other early Swahili buildings, coral was the main construction material, and the roof was constructed by attaching coral to timbers. It contained fluted conical vaults and domes, one hundred rooms with courtyards, terraces, and a sunken swimming pool. CommerceThe Swahili used the dhow for ocean going trade in distant lands. The Swahili provided the Asian and Mediterranean world gold, ivory, furs, slaves, tortoise shell, and rhinoceros horns for Persian rugs, Chinese Porcelin, and other luxurious items. They manufactured cotton cloth, glass and shell beads, for trade with the east african interior. Although the Fatimid dinar was the currency of international trade, the Swahili minted their own coins in silver and copper. The Swahili had an extensive trade network; this included the Red Sea to Egypt, Oman on the Arabian Peninsula, Shiraz in Persia, Goa and Cambay in India, and China.QuizWrite the name of the African Kingdom that the statement describes:What ancient African kingdom’s nobles considered themselves Egyptians?What West African kingdom made a fortune protecting gold-salt trade routes?What kingdom’s ruler is considered by some to be the richest man to ever live?What empire started as a small fishing village in West Africa?What east African kingdom was one of the first places to widely embrace Christianity?What east African empire thrived in facilitating trade all the way from China to Europe via the Indian Ocean?Which West African kingdom was very active in the slave trade?What two natural minerals did the West African kingdoms trade the most?Which kingdom relied the most on the Nile River?Which two east African kingdoms relied heavily on trade from Asia via the Red Sea and Indian Ocean? ................
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