Ghana Empire

A medieval West African empire centered in what is now southeastern Mauritania and western Mali. From about the sixth to thirteenth centuries, it prospered through trans-Saharan trade.

Trans-Saharan trade: A network of caravan routes that connected North and West Africa across the Sahara. Caravans carried salt north and gold south through routes the empire taxed and protected.
Wagadu: The Soninke name for the polity commonly called the Ghana Empire. Wagadu is the name used in Soninke tradition for the empire’s homeland and state.
Tunka Manin: An eleventh-century ruler of the Ghana Empire described by the geographer al-Bakri. Al-Bakri’s account of his court offers a rare glimpse of royal authority.
Mali Empire: A medieval West African empire that became a major power in the thirteenth century. Mali emerged as Ghana’s power declined and extended imperial rule in the region.
Gold trade in medieval West Africa: The exchange of West African gold through regional and trans-Saharan commercial networks. Gold from southern trading regions helped make the empire a commercial power.
Mande peoples: A group of related peoples in West Africa whose languages belong to the Mande family. The Soninke belong to the broader Mande-speaking world.
Abd al-Rahman al-Sadi: A seventeenth-century Timbuktu scholar and author of Tarikh al-Sudan. His chronicle transmitted later accounts of Ghana and its place in regional history.
Songhai Empire: A West African empire that grew around the Niger bend and reached its height in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Songhai later became the dominant empire in a region shaped by Ghana’s earlier networks.
Salt trade in the Sahara: The extraction and exchange of Saharan salt, especially from deposits such as Taghaza. Salt was a valued import exchanged for gold and other goods.
Kaya Maghan: A Soninke royal title traditionally glossed as “king of gold.” The title reflects traditions linking royal authority with the region’s gold wealth.

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