"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."...
2025-02-02 13:36:40 +0000 UTC View PostUpdated essay: The Nsibidi script ca. 600-1909 CE: a history of an African writing system
(New books and artic...
2025-01-26 21:22:32 +0000 UTC View PostHi 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 2025-01-24 21:19:27 +0000 UTC View Post
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 landsca...
2025-01-19 12:01:08 +0000 UTC View PostEssay: A complete history of the Sudano-Sahelian architecture of west Africa
Making and Remak...
2025-01-12 23:24:59 +0000 UTC View Post
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-Isla...
2025-01-05 13:16:57 +0000 UTC View PostEssay: The Meroitic script and the documents of ancient Kush (ca. 300BC-450CE)
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 Egypti...
2024-12-22 12:44:23 +0000 UTC View PostEssay: The intellectual history of Ethiopia and Eritrea: Ge'ez manuscripts and scholars (ca. 200-1900CE)
The Tr...
2024-12-15 21:02:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe 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 ...
2024-12-08 17:23:43 +0000 UTC View PostEssay:
2024-12-01 21:52:15 +0000 UTC View Post
"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 th...
2024-11-24 13:04:29 +0000 UTC View PostEssay: A history of Horses in the southern half of Africa ca. 1498-1900.
Riding High: Horses, Humans and History...
2024-11-17 20:18:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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 Port...
2024-11-10 16:59:58 +0000 UTC View Postmy article: Acemoglu in Kongo: a critique of 'Why Nations Fail' and its wilful ignorance of African history.
Why...
2024-11-03 19:50:31 +0000 UTC View Post
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 pr...
2024-10-27 15:45:53 +0000 UTC View PostVeils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria By Elisha P. Renne
Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria By Michael J. Watts.
"I did not rest a moment during our
2024-10-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostMeroe: 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
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 Peninsul...
2024-09-29 15:44:47 +0000 UTC View PostA Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly
First Footsteps in East Africa: Or, An ...
2024-09-22 19:29:27 +0000 UTC View Post"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 ...
2024-09-15 13:20:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe 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 Azeve...
2024-09-08 20:10:32 +0000 UTC View PostA sneak peek into the AfricanHistoryExtra Patreon account, please subscribe to access all my posts.
2024-09-01 19:12:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe 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 per...
2024-09-01 13:03:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe 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 an...
2024-08-25 18:16:52 +0000 UTC View PostThe 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...
2024-08-18 13:25:24 +0000 UTC View PostMetals 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 Compar...
2024-08-11 21:53:36 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2024-08-04 12:53:18 +0000 UTC View PostRural 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 Burki...
2024-07-28 12:53:04 +0000 UTC View Post