SocietySub-Saharan Africa
The Ghana empire
The land of gold, known in Baghdad before it was known in Europe
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Its rulers kept the gold sources secret and traded by silent barter, in which the parties never met. Our chief source is al-Bakri in Córdoba, who never went there but interviewed merchants. Modern Ghana is not in the same area but took the name at independence in 1957 as a deliberate historical claim.
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The kingdom of Ghana lay where Mali and Mauritania are today and controlled the gold that went north across the Sahara. Arab travellers wrote that the king tethered his horse to a nugget of gold. Ghana was so rich that Europe could barely imagine it.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org