Search Results: Kingdom of Kanem

The Kingdom of Kanem (aka Kanim) was an ancient African state located in modern-day Chad, which flourished from the 9th to 14th century CE. With its heartland in the centre of the African continent on the eastern shores of Lake Chad, the...

Hausaland, sometimes referred to as the Hausa Kingdoms, was a group of small independent city-states in northern central Africa between the Niger River and Lake Chad which flourished from the 15th to 18th century CE. The origins of the Hausa...

Following the conquest of North Africa by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century CE, Islam spread throughout West Africa via merchants, traders, scholars, and missionaries, that is largely through peaceful means whereby African rulers either tolerated...

Timbuktu (Timbuctoo) is a city in Mali, West Africa which was an important trade centre of the Mali Empire which flourished between the 13th and 15th centuries CE. The city, founded c. 1100 CE, gained wealth from access to and control of...

The Mao oasis in Chad, Africa, site of the ancient Kingdom of Kanem (9-14th century CE).

West Africa was one of the world's greatest producers of gold in the Middle Ages. Trade in the metal went back to antiquity but when the camel caravans of the Sahara linked North Africa to the savannah interior, the trade really took off...

A lithograph of the Dendal in Kukawa, c. 1857 from Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (Volume 2) by Heinrich Barth (1821 - 1865 CE). Kukawa was founded by Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi (1776 - 1837 CE) who supplanted the...

Drawing of a group of warriors from the Bornu Empire. Drawing taken from "The earth and its inhabitants, Vol. III, West Africa" by Elisee Reclus (1830 -1905 CE) 1892 CE. From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell...

Salt from the Sahara desert was one of the major trade goods of ancient West Africa where very little naturally occurring deposits of the mineral could be found. Transported via camel caravans and by boat along such rivers as the Niger and...

The camel caravans which crossed the great dunes of the Sahara desert began in antiquity but reached their golden period from the 9th century CE onwards. In their heyday caravans consisted of thousands of camels travelling from North Africa...