Timbuktu: The Stripping has Began

 
It seems that no African heritage barely begins enjoying its belated share of limelight without outsiders [as in people who have no stake in the heritage at hand whatsoever] scrambling hysterically to strip it off its glory, and place credit where it is undue. Timbuktu has not fared any better. The glory of this historical complex has largely been put on the sidelines for quite some time now in the so-called "West", save to hear few metaphoric utterances on occasions of the namesake "Timbuktu", as some fairly remote exotic location, where one is bound to be lost. Again, an example of something positive given a negative spin by folks in the "West". Well, things have turned around a bit recently, with renewed interests in the manuscripts, which until now were in danger of gathering dust and kept in storage in Timbuktu university (madrasa) concerns. This comes in at a time, as reported by various news outlets, when a new museum—sponsored by African and international organizations—is scheduled to be open to the public late in the year. With this renewed interest, so are efforts to strip the historical complex off of its self-earned glory gaining momentum. Just to give an example of this, consider the following piece from a Time online posting, which too makes a note of the aforementioned new museum:

Sitting at a junction of the Sahara's historic commercial routes on a lazy bend of the Niger River, Timbuktu used to be a hectic crossroads where gold traders heading north met herders and salt merchants trekking south across the desert. The city's lucrative trade fueled Mali's empires as well as a rich ethnic blend of black Africans and Mediterranean people, and an intellectual ferment with dozens of Koranic schools. Refugees from the Inquisition in Spain brought their libraries with them, and soon began writing and buying more books. Timbuktu's literary output was enormous, and included works covering the history of Africa and southern Europe, religion, mathematics, medicine and law. There were manuscripts detailing the movement of the stars, possible cures for malaria and remedies for menstrual pain. "I have here my family's whole history," says Ismael Diadié Haidara, whose ancestors carried their books to Timbuktu from Toledo, Spain when they fled religious persecution in 1467, and later wrote and purchased thousands more. "Families which were exiled, which had no country, had their libraries. It was people's security. They could say, 'This is where we come from.' "

On the one hand, the Time extract acknowledges Timbuktu had to have, and in fact, earned its rise to significance, having been the beneficiary of what the article describes "lucrative trade"; its fame was not handed out to it by outsiders as charity—it was hard-earned. And then, on the other hand, the article immediately dives into the idea that "Refugees from the Inquisition in Spain brought their libraries with them, and soon began writing and buying more books." This sleight of hand has the effect of downplaying the home-grown intelligentsia base, that grew in tandem with the rise of the complex, into an international learning center, and overplaying the role of immigrants, in this case European "refugees"; it elicits a misguided notion, albeit in an underhanded way, that these refugees essentially turned the place into a learning center. Hence, the obscuring of the hard-earned and home-grown labor that led to the creation of this heritage is already underway, when the bearers of this heritage have hardly even began to celebrate the new limelight. Sure enough, as an example that the present author can recount from interaction on a social networking site, the article has been greeted with efforts to place due credit to Arabs [compare that to the effort by the Time article to overstate European role], not in one occasion, but at least a couple now. These two cultural-hacking camps place due credit anywhere but where it is actually due: Timbuktu!

The Arab diffusion-cultism attempts to create Timbuktu as a "goodwill charity case" from Arabs. One segment of the associated ideologues gives a one-sided role of being the "giver" in an unequal "trade relationship" of some sort to the "good-natured" Arabs, and the one-sided role of simply "takers" to the "primitive" illiterate locals of Timbuktu. In fact, it has even been bluntly said within this ideological circle, that "they were taught to read and write by Arabs". The underlying message here is that the Arabs "descended on" so-called primitive natives, whom no surprise—were illiterate. Never mind that complexes that had reached international significance had long been in the region prior to the arrival of Arabs, let alone Islam. Never mind that no place has experimented with developing more scripts independently than western Africa, let alone the entire continent. Forget about the fact that Arabic script itself is a handed-down adaptation of a script that has its origins on the African continent! It is a very simple-minded approach to complex historic processes that only rookies at history-telling will take. It doesn't consider the fact that Arabic text was essentially a non-issue in the preceding regional power [to ancient Mali]; the lack of Arab presence obviously did not stop say, ancient Ghana rising to significance in the region, so much so that travelers to the area took note, courtesy of Ray A. Kea (2004):

Al-Bakri gives a description (1068) of the royal capital:

The city of Ghana consists of two towns situated on a plain. One of these towns, which is inhabited by Muslims, is large and possesses twelve mosques, in one of which they assemble for the Friday prayer. There are salaried imams and muezzins, as well as jurists and scholars. In the environs are wells with sweet water, from which they drink and with which they grow vegetables. The king’s town is six miles distant from this one and bears the name Al-Ghaba. Between these two towns there are continuous habitations. The houses of the inhabitants are of stone and acacia wood. The king has a palace and a number of domed buildings all surrounded with an enclosure like a city wall. In the king’s town, and not far from his court of justice, is a mosque where the Muslims who arrive at his court pray. Around the king’s town are domed buildings and groves and thickets where the sorcerers of these people, men in charge of the religious cult, live…. The king’s interpreters, the official in charge of his treasury and the majority of his ministers are Muslims (Levtzion and Hopkins 2000: 80).

While the presence of Muslims, as noted above, was visible in the late periods of Ghana, it had already built itself the reputation as a regional power [as the excerpt below will demonstrate] and a wealthy one. The urban foundations of the elements described had all been in place, which is what allowed for accommodation of new converts to Muslims, with the building of mosques and appointing Muslim sections of the society in administrative posts. These were all possible, because the necessary infrastructure had already been in place, prior to any meaningful embrace of the newly arrived religion, Islam. In addition, Ray A Kea writes:

The Andalusian geographer al-Bakri (d.1094) states that the 11th century rulers of Ghana/Wagadu commanded an army of 200,000 men, 40,000 of whom were archers. It was essentially cavalry-based and the archers were in all likelihood mounted (Levtzion and Hopkins 2001: 81; also Ciss1998: 93, 104; de Grunne 1980). It ensured the centralization of political power and hence the centralization of surplus. Even if the geographer overstated the army’s numerical strength, the numbers nevertheless indicate a demographic order of magnitude that does not refute the archaeological evidence, which, in fact, suggests strong population densities in the Ghana/Wagadu heartland between the 9th and 14th centuries. A further point needs to be made. The maintenance of a cavalry force (military specialists) would have rested on the regular supply of grain for the horses and iron, brass, leather, and other items for the horsemen's equipment (bits, reins, saddles, etc.). These elements, representing secondary distributions of the surplus, required an urban-based commercial economy tied to subordinated communities of food producing and craft specialists.
 
In fact, Islam was not even adopted by Ghanaian elites who remained true to their local theological traditions for much of its history; it is only in the waning period, does one see any signs of Islam coming into the picture. Fact of the matter is, unlike the situation by around the height of the Malian complex, there was no political or social incentive for adopting either Arabic or Islam, and this would have depended on the relationship the complex had with its main traders, who were largely coastal northern Africans and Sahelian nomadic middle men. Yet, one can hardly be familiar with ancient Ghanaian archaeological record and come to the conclusion that they were illiterate primitives. In ancient Mali's case though, that aforementioned political and social incentive did exist, and so, Arabic as a regional lingua franca was expediently adopted, along with associated scripture, which was introduced to the Malians by their coastal northern African neighbors, not Arabs themselves, in contrast to what the aforementioned ideologues like to say. In fact, as a testament to this geopolitical expediency, the Malian intelligentsia had further locally modified the script into several Malian-specific distinctive forms from the coastal northwest African version introduced to them—with each variant serving a strategically specific social apparatus.

As one website puts it:

The Western style, influenced by the Hijazi script as used in North Africa evolved into the script known as Maghribi, or North African, beginning in the 11th century in North Africa, Spain, and Sicily. Western style script still is used in North Africa. From North Africa [NOT Arabia], this script crossed the Sahara Desert, came to Timbuktu, and spread throughout West Africa where scholars and scribes further developed the script. An exhibit of pages from these manuscripts is available at: Link

Furthermore...

The most commonly used form of script in these Timbuktu manuscripts is Saharan, named for the desert that borders the city. Another form of Arabic script used in Timbuktu is Sudani, which refers to the belt of open farmlands that extends from East Africa to the lands just south of Timbuktu in West Africa. The third West African form of Arabic writing is Suqi–literally the market script. Suqi letters are noticeably square compared to the more elongated forms of Maghribi, Sudani, and Saharan.

Three different scripts were locally developed from the Maghrebian-derived version! These developments don't speak of a "primitive" people blindly going by the guidance of some "master race" of Arabs, who were not involved here nonetheless.

On some winding points here, the site also notes:

Other individuals traveled to Timbuktu to acquire knowledge. It was a city famous for the education of important scholars whose reputations were pan-Islamic. Timbuktu’s most famous and long lasting contribution to Islamic–and world–civilization is its scholarship and the books that were written and copied there beginning from at least the 14th century. The brilliance of the University of Timbuktu was without equal in all of sub-Saharan Africa and was known throughout the Islamic world...

The texts and documents included in Islamic Manuscripts from Mali are the products of a tradition of book production reaching back almost 1,000 years. Although this practice is anchored in the methods of Islamic book production, it possesses features particular to West Africa. The bindings of manuscripts from Timbuktu, and West Africa in general, are unique in the Islamic world. Their decoration with incised markings is in a style characteristic of the area. Further, pages are not attached in any way to the binding–a practice different from all other Islamic manuscripts....

Well how about that? Locally-developed practices of book-making, the only one of its kind found anywhere in the Islamic world.

Continuing on with our reading...

While many books were authored and copied in Timbuktu [Take note: not just "copied", but "authored"], its resident scholars also imported books from other parts of the Islamic world. Therefore, manuscripts found in Timbuktu are often written in Naskh, the most common book hand found in Arabic manuscripts from Egypt, Syria, and neighboring lands. Naskh developed from the Eastern style of the original Kufic script.

These works, whose subjects cover every topic of human endeavor, are indicative of the high level of civilization attained by West Africans during the Middle Ages and early modern period. They are also an important element of the culture of Mali, and West Africa in general, which survived the colonial experience. - Link

The overriding message here, is that Timbuktu's legacy as a learning center is testament to the greatness of Timbuktu, not the greatness of the Arabian peninsula. So, if one were to use the rationale of ideologues of the "Arab diffusion" theory cultism, then since resident scholars of Timbuktu had apparently exchanged ideas with folks from afar, credit of Timbuktu's greatness will have to be parceled out to not only so-called "Arabs", but also Jews, Maghrebians, Egyptians, Persians, southern Europeans, neighboring western Africans, and the list goes on, of the era. Of course, that is not what Timbuktu's reputation as a historic learning center should highlight; rather, it ought to highlight ancient Mali's own home-grown achievement in attaining that global recognition, which brings us back to an earlier point about earning international recognition of significance: Timbuktu earned its reputation as a place of wealth and learning, as any other location would have to go through, to achieve the same. Accomplishment of this feat was therefore not a case of some charity handout from Arabian Arabs, as the aforementioned ideologues would have one believe.

So, worth repeating from the lines immediately cited above, are the following keywords:

Timbuktu’s most famous and long lasting contribution to Islamic–and world–civilization...

Keywords and interpretation: "Timbuktu's", not "Arabs'", contribution to the "Islamic-and world-civilization", and not just Western Sudan, is this:.

its scholarship and the books that were written and copied there beginning from at least the 14th century. The brilliance of the University of Timbuktu was without equal in all of sub-Saharan Africa and was known throughout the Islamic world.

Let's face it; had the coastal Maghrebians been using another form of script other than modified Arabic, guess what? Then, ancient Mali ruling elites, traders and intelligentsia would have likely also used some other script rather than Arabic-derivatives. Given this state of affairs, it is highly misleading to suggest that without Arabic script, the western African region would not have attained high learning and literacy, or that it could not have attained reputation as a learning center. Locally-modified Arabic script forms of Maghrebian type served as lingua franca scripture, facilitating effective trade and social relationships between the discrete groups of coastal northwest Africans, Saharan and/or Sahelian nomadic middle men and the Malian complex residents, and even between the complex ethnic mix that made up the Malian cosmopolitan landscape. To paint this as some simple model of Arabs [who were not even the major players here in the political and trade network] coming in and teaching people to read and write, is at best, a very simple-minded one dimensional way of thinking. The Western Sudanic folks took on the northern African versions of Arabic on their own terms; not a case of some foreign "saints" coming in and teaching some uncultured people how to read and write, as the aforementioned ideological elements advocate. Proof of this, to reiterate, can be intuitive from the fact that grand empires thrived in the region long before either Islam or Arabic-script of any form was embraced by any sections of society! It is more than conceivable, in the case of ancient Ghana, that intelligentsia, political and trade circles used some Saharan lingua franca as a trade language, along with associated script. Evidence of this can be seen from the fact that the Tamasheq communities of this very region have retained the usage of Tifinagh—a Saharan-developed form of "ancient Libyan" script, which itself is said to have partially been inspired by Phoenician letter systems.

For what its worth, below is the presentation of a fairly quick, and hence, by no means comprehensive list of African writing systems—from west to east, and north to south. Africans have experimented with several more, some of which have unfortunately not been preserved through to this day, while others are well hidden from the view of outsiders to what some call "secret societies". In some cases, even the exact age of these writing systems are uncertain; some are reckoned to have been around in remote periods of antiquity. Not too long ago, another form of script—dubbed as "written sub-Saharan language"—was uncovered in Sudan, assessed to be as old as ca. 2,300 years or so. Why this script is singled out as that of a "sub-Saharan" language has not been made clear in news articles like that of the BBC post, being that it has been uncovered in Sudan, also home to the Meroitic text, which has not openly been afforded the same description. One can only surmise that this has something to do with the fact that analysts involved "still don't understand" it, and it is therefore imagined to have come from further south (?) At any rate, a link to the BBC article on the finding is provided in the list below:

Independently invented African scripts?

Eastern Africa:

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics

Hieratic script

Demotic script

Proto-Sinaitic script

Meroitic script

proto-Ge'ez script [questionably called ESA] and Amharic script

Western African script record:

Ancient Sahara

Tifinagh

Nsibidi script

Bassa Script

Adinkra signs

And more can be found here:

African Writing Systems

And here: African Writing Systems-2

Other African scripts record, the so-called "written sub-Saharan script":

ca. 2300 year old identified "sub-Saharan Script"

And now...

Independently invented Arabian scripts?

None. Just Proto-Sinaitic script modifications, and possibly direct developments imported from the Nile Valley, where the oldest examples of highly cursive Arabic script have been uncovered on papyri.

The aforementioned ideological elements will even go as far as to stare right at the Timbuktu manuscripts, a body of intellectualism and learning of, which to borrow from an earlier citation, subjects that cover every topic of human endeavor, and are indicative of the high level of civilization attained by West Africans during the Middle Ages and early modern period; they are also an important element of the culture of Mali, and West Africa in general, which survived the colonial experience, and yet still maintain that the whole affair is something that is not to be considered as "home-grown science". This is maintained of a region that is home to head-scratching mathematical concepts surrounding Sirius [as we shall soon briefly touch on] and this:  

Other individuals traveled to Timbuktu to acquire knowledge. It was a city famous for the education of important scholars whose reputations were pan-Islamic. Timbuktu’s most famous and long lasting contribution to Islamic–and world–civilization is its scholarship and the books that were written and copied there beginning from at least the 14th century. The brilliance of the University of Timbuktu was without equal in all of sub-Saharan Africa and was known throughout the Islamic world..

Notice that books were not just "copied", but they were actually also "authored" therein. How does an area become a cosmopolitan learning center for "subjects that cover every topic of human endeavor", and yet be devoid of "home-grown science"? This is something that the aforementioned ideological elements do not obviously think through. If it is simply all about just compiling "foreign-grown" work, then what is the whole point of people traveling to this "learning center" that could possibly otherwise be considered to be in "the middle of nowhere", just to "acquire knowledge"? Why not simply import the work directly from its source, or yet, go right to that source? Surely, if Timbuktu scholars could import books from afar, then should others not be just as capable of doing the same? Cosmopolitan learning centers don't just pop up in cultural backwaters, now do they! Remember, in the first citation posted here, we were told that: Timbuktu's literary output was enormous, and included works covering the history of Africa and southern Europe, religion, mathematics, medicine and law. There were manuscripts detailing the movement of the stars, possible cures for malaria and remedies for menstrual pain. 

Speaking of the movement of stars, let's revisit that aforementioned issue of Dogon astronomy. Citing a posting on Wikipedia, we are informed as follows:

Certain researchers investigating the Dogon have reported that they seem to possess advanced astronomical knowledge, the nature and source of which has subsequently become embroiled in controversy. From 1931 to 1956 the French anthropologist Marcel Griaule studied the Dogon. This included field missions ranging from several days to two months in 1931, 1935, 1937 and 1938[17] and then annually from 1946 until 1956.[18] In late 1946 Griaule spent a consecutive thirty-three days in conversations with the Dogon wiseman Ogotemmêli, the source of much of Griaule and Dieterlen's future publications.[19] They reported that the Dogon believe that the brightest star in the sky, Sirius (sigi tolo or 'star of the Sigui'[20]), has two companion stars, pō tolo (the Digitaria star), and ęmmę ya tolo, (the female Sorghum star), respectively the first and second companions of Sirius A.[21] Sirius, in the Dogon system, formed one of the foci for the orbit of a tiny star, the companionate Digitaria star. When Digitaria is closest to Sirius, that star brightens: when it is farthest from Sirius, it gives off a twinkling effect that suggests to the observer several stars. The orbit cycle takes 60 years. [22]They also claimed that the Dogon appeared to know of the rings of Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter.[23]

Griaule and Dieterlen were puzzled by this Sudanese star system, and prefaced their analysis with the following remark:-

The problem of knowing how, with no instruments at their disposal, men could know the movements and certain characteristics of virtually invisible stars has not been settled, nor even posed.[24]

In 1976 Robert K. G. Temple wrote a book arguing that the Dogon's system reveals precise knowledge of cosmological facts only known by the development of modern astronomy, since they appear to know, from Griaule and Dieterlen's account, that Sirius was part of a binary star system, whose second star, Sirius B, a white dwarf, was however completely invisible to the human eye, (just as Digitaria is the smallest grain known to the Dogon), and that it took 50 years to complete its orbit. The existence of Sirius B had only been inferred to exist through mathematical calculations undertaken by Friedrich Bessel in 1844. Temple then argued that the Dogon's information, if traced back to ancient Egyptian sources and myth, indicated an extraterrestrial transmission of knowledge of the stars.[25] Neither Griaule nor Dieterlen had ever made such bold claims about a putative esoteric source for the Dogon's knowledge.

More recently, doubts have been raised about the validity of Griaule and Dieterlein's work.[26][27] In a 1991 article in Current Anthropology anthropologist Walter van Beek concluded after his research among the Dogon that,

"Though they do speak about sigu tolo [which is what Griaule claimed the Dogon called Sirius] they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus that, through a different position, appears as sigu tolo. All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule"[28] 

Griaule's daughter Genevieve Calame-Griaule responded in a latter issue suggesting that van Beek may have been "sent by the political and administrative authorities to test the Dogon's Muslim orthodoxy" and argues that van Beek did not go "through the appropriate steps for acquiring knowledge."[29]

Robert Todd Carroll states that a more likely source of the knowledge of the Sirius star system is from contemporary, terrestrial sources who provided information to interested members of the tribes, or confabulation of new myths by credulous and biased Afrocentric scholars.[30] James Oberg also criticizes the idea that the Dogon tribes drew their knowledge from extraterrestrials, citing instead their extensive contacts with Western explorers, travelers and missionaries as well as members of the French Army, with whom some members of the Dogon served during World War I.[31] James Clifford however notes that Griaule sought informants best qualified to speak of traditional lore, and deeply mistrusted converts to Christianity, Islam, or people with too much contact with whites. [32] Oberg also points out the number of errors contained in the Dogon myths, including the number of moons possessed by Jupiter, that Saturn was the furthest planet from the sun, and the only planet with rings.

Now the reader should keep in mind that Wikipedia citing here is undertaken with a critical eye, as inaccurate information from the site has been identified here before. However, in this case, the material is cited on the understanding that it is fully referenced with footnotes, and hence, making such information fully open to independent verification by the reader, should he/she deem it necessary. That said, let's analyze the above mentioned briefly:

As one can see, the news of Dogon astronomy by two "Western" researchers was first followed up with goofy explanations of how they might have attained this, starting with Robert Temple. After all, how could a "primitive" bunch, with no "Western"-verified documentation of special instruments, be able to come to such advance understanding about a certain element of the universe? As the Wikipedia posting notes, not even Griaule or Dieterlen, the news-bearers of the Dogon understanding, were bold enough to openly come to such conclusions, as that of the extraterrestrial education of the Dogon. Walter van Beek on the other hand pays some community of Dogons a visit, presumably for the sole purpose of verifying Griaule's and Dieterlen's news of Dogon Sirius revelations. An interesting feature of van Beek's findings though, is that it seems to suggest that Dogon only learned of the stars from Griaule himself, some 60 years apart the time van Beek made his visit, which would mean and in contradiction to Griaule's and Dieterlen's revelations of Dogon understanding, that Dogon supposedly had no prior knowledge of Sirius or likely, the other celestial bodies. Yet, this was at a time when even "Westerners" could not figure out the "precise cosmological facts" that Griaule had obtained from the Dogons, having made four separate visits to the latter, followed by a decades long annual visit! One would think that for one, if Griaule had made such a scientific breakthrough, that he would be scrambling to get recognition for it himself, and not some unknown "rural" Africans, about whom they held steadfast prejudices in Europe that very few [Europeans] would have been willing to break away from. And then there is the matter of great detail that Griaule notes of local Dogon lexical names for the stars; did Griaule come up with those names and teach the Dogons said lexicon as well? Going by van Beek, one would have to assume so. The van Beek piece noticeably speaks of only Sigu tolo, which according to Griaule's report, identifies Sirius; yet, Griaule's clearly details not one, but multiple different stars by their Dogon names, none of which can be found in the van Beek piece. These are namely Sigu tolo [Sirius],  and its two companions stars: Po tolo [Digitaria star] and Emmę ya tolo [the female Sorghum star]. The van Beek piece does not tell the reader what was to made be of these companion stars. Furthermore, van Beek's finding has a curious feature: he tells us that Sigu tolo appeared to have varying identities among the Dogon, and yet, proceeds to tell us that they supposedly claimed to have gotten this information from a single individual, Griaule himself! Conventional wisdom should tell us that if that were so, shouldn't the likelihood of the stories being consistent with one another be just as great. If a single source tells two individuals the same story, should the stories of those two individuals therefore not be expected to be that very same story? At very least, what Griaule's daughter, Genevieve Calame-Griaule, said in response to van Beek's charges is likely what is at work here, that "van Beek did not go "through the appropriate steps for acquiring knowledge."" Griaule's visits to the Dogons was extensive. Was the same true for van Beek? Then there is that issue of trust, in acquiring information from Dogon, that James Clifford makes a note of. Clifford informs us that Griaule was very selective about whom he was acquiring information from, perhaps just as careful as the Dogons were likely to be, in sharing their secrets to outsiders; to repeat: Griaule sought informants best qualified to speak of traditional lore, and deeply mistrusted converts to Christianity, Islam, or people with too much contact with whites. In closing this case study, we are also informed that as superb and as advanced as the Dogon astronomical observations were, they still had a few shortcomings worth pointing out; to reiterate info already cited above, according to James Oberg, whom while not going as far as Temple with the "extraterrestrial" thing, explains off the Dogon intellectual ingenuity as information supposedly "generously" donated by "Western explorers, travelers and missionaries as well as members of the French Army", the number of moons that the Dogons associated with Jupiter were off or erroneous, and so was their estimation of the distance of Saturn from the sun and its description as the lone planet with rings. The funny thing though about James Oberg's explaining away off Dogon knowledge, is that it comes back to full circle with the fact that this was information that the general European public was supposed to have been ignorant of at the time of Griaule's visit; so, how can the ordinary European public [as explorers, missioners or foot-soldiers], whom one would expect to have been in an even worse off intellectual position than European professional astronomers, be expected to teach the Dogon something that they themselves were clueless of? In the end, what does all this tell us? The commotion following Griaule and Dieterlein's reports about Dogon knowledge simply highlights the rigidly held prejudices that Europeans have had about these Africans. "Primitive" people are not supposed to outdo the "advanced" Europeans, or beat them to something as complex as the astronomical specifics described here. The commotion and the conflicting rationalizations of how the Dogon could have attained this impressive knowledge goes to show that European folks have not been able to shake off these long held prejudices. The "anomalous" Dogon intuition simply upsets these prejudices and European-created sense of "racial" stratigraphy.

Then there is another ideological element which sought to answer the Dogon question, as we shall see with other such examples pertaining to Malians, by placing their origins in the Nile Valley, in historic times. All of these rationalizations wittingly or unwittingly converge on a common theme: that "true" western Africans are simply incapable of intellectual creativeness by themselves. It has to be taught to them, or people simply invaded the region en mass with said creativeness.

Amongst the aforementioned Arabic ideological sect elements, the following line of thinking was pushed forth in the heat of debate, from personal recounting: "The math was not developed independently." Given what was just pointed out above, it is clear that this line of argument simply underlies ignorance and the lack of motivation to do basic research. It's premise erroneously assumes that "Algebra" is an "independent Arab invention", and also predicated on the idea that since Timbuktu scholars adopted this form of math, that they were necessarily incapable of their own home-grown mathematical abstract thinking, and that Algebra is the only math known to these scholars. As it turns out, the very personality [some Arab individual going by a pseudonym] who came up with that line of thinking, was not well versed in the actual history of Algebra as a mathematical discipline. For one, he confused the compiler of the first published material with that namesake [i.e. "Algebra"], Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi—a Persian, for an Arab. Now, had this individual done his homework, it would have been clear to him that Persians are very adamant about not being called "Arabs".

Even Persia's Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a beneficiary of "earlier traditions, most notably Indian mathematics", according the very source used by the Arab personality in question—i.e. Wikipedia. This is how that source put it:

While the word algebra comes from the Arabic language (al-jabr, literally restoration) and much of its methods from Arabic/Islamic mathematics, its roots can be traced to earlier traditions, most notably ancient Indian mathematics, which had a direct influence on Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi; (c. 780-850). He learned Indian mathematics and introduced it to the Muslim world through his famous arithmetic text, Kitab al-jam’wal tafriq bi hisab al-Hindi (Book on Addition and Subtraction after the Method of the Indians).[1][2] ...

The roots of algebra can be traced to the ancient Babylonians,[4] who developed an advanced arithmetical system with which they were able to do calculations in an algorithmic fashion. The Babylonians developed formulas to calculate solutions for problems typically solved today by using linear equations, quadratic equations, and indeterminate linear equations. By contrast, most Egyptians of this era, as well as Greek and Chinese mathematicians in the first millennium BC, usually solved such equations by geometric methods, such as those described in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, Euclid's Elements, and The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. The geometric work of the Greeks, typified in the Elements, provided the framework for generalizing formulae beyond the solution of particular problems into more general systems of stating and solving equations, though this would not be realized until the medieval Muslim mathematicians.

The Hellenistic mathematicians Hero of Alexandria and Diophantus [5] as well as Indian mathematicians such as Brahmagupta continued the traditions of Egypt and Babylon, though Diophantus' Arithmetica and Brahmagupta's Brahmasphutasiddhanta are on a higher level.

Even the very word "al-Jabr" [from which we get the name "Algebra"], as we can see above, should have been a dead giveaway. It reads: "restoration"—restoration of what? Earlier mathematical traditions, of course, albeit with modifications where necessary! The aforementioned exemplary ideological personality, for what its worth, was hard-pressed to come up with a purely or independently-conceived mathematics by an actual Arab scholar, even as he audaciously points fingers at Timbuktu intelligentsia and charge it with having no home-grown mathematical concept of its very own.

As was the case with Timbuktu scholars, this Persian intellectual simply used Arabic, because it was the dominating regional lingua franca between the different nationalities that became part of the African-interior, Mediterranean confines and "Near Eastern" trade-ring. This was accompanied by the African reinforcement for spreading Islam into southwestern Europe—another testament to just how indebted Islam should be to the African initiative of extending the reach of the religion. Now of course, to get northern Africans to embrace Islam in the first place, engendered long bitter armed conflicts first in the "Near East" and then coastal northern African territories; thereafter, coastal northwest Africa was influential in spreading the religion southward, albeit on western Sudanic terms, as it relates to empires like ancient Ghana or Mali. This doesn't mean that there weren't occasional attempts to force Islamic expansionism on the Sudanic folks, and one sees this at the waning periods of ancient Ghanaian power in the region, i.e. of course, when the complex was reportedly increasingly embroiled with infighting, compounded by natural calamities like drought. Just how accurate is this assessment though? Pekka Masonen and Humphrey J. Fisher (1996) give us a fairly detailed insight on "conquest theories" surrounding the al Murabitun (Almoravids) and the Sudanic folks, in particular—ancient Ghana, in their work "Not quite Venus from the Wave: The Almoravid Conquest of Ghana in the Modern Historiography of Western Africa"; here, we will limit the discussion to a few sections of that work:

In 1974, in an article far too little known, Mahamadou Coulibaly was perhaps the first scholar to attempt an inclusive study of the conquest hypothesis. He began by emphasizing, quite rightly, that al-Zuhr—the source for the conversion of Ghana in 1076—made no reference to any military victory. There is no evidence for the destruction of Ghana, its dismemberment, or any substantive political or military domination of Ghana by Muslim proselytes...

Coulibaly also introduced a new element into the discussion by using the results of the archeological excavations in Tegdaoust (the putative site of Awdaghust) and Kumbi Saleh (the putative site of Ghana) as arguments against the conquest. He correctly pointed out that no indisputable remains of Almoravid presence have been found at either site.

Interesting; but reading on:

In the same year Farias returned to the fray in a review article of Nehernia Levtzion's Ancient Ghana and Mali. Farias argued against the hypothesis in both general and specific terms. He pointed out that it is too much of an oversimplification to think that the relationship between the sedentary Sudanese and the pastoral Berbers would have been constantly violent--as some of the fourteenth-century Arabic and nineteenth-century European sources suggested. Quite the contrary, he stressed the cooperative and symbiotic aspects of their relationship. More specifically, Farias rejected Levtzion's interpretation of the Wagadu legend in oral tradition, with its killing of the sacred snake. This killing might appear to correspond all too well with the idea of a bloody Almoravid conquest of Ghana, the snake myth thus automatically and rashly treated as actual historical evidence. But, said Farias, "the interpretation of the mythical killing as a dramatic representation of an event is not easy to accept." 

Indeed, "not easy to accept", especially in the face of no corroborative evidence on the archeological end, or even primary texts dating to the period. Reading on, however... 

In the case of the Almoravids and Ghana, this meant that Farias—like Semonin before him—rejected the idea of the destruction of Ghana by the Almoravids in 1076, as manifested by Delafosse. Instead of conquest, Farias preferred to use the term "influence." John Hunwick pursued this line, arguing that the Almoravids did not actually conquer Ghana, but had great influence on its affairs, helping a Muslim faction of the ruling house rise to power.

The evolution in ideas from rejection of the conquest hypothesis to its replacement with "influence" in some circles is noticeable, as intended by Masonen and Fisher through their presentation and references. No doubt absence of compelling evidence has played a role in this evolution, in addition to any prevailing political climate within which these writers give us their piece of mind, that allowed for the emancipation of such investigative thought. "influence" still seems to suggest, albeit tacitly, that some level of coercion or pressure was necessary to account for why ancient Ghanaian ruling circles and folks suddenly converted in the waning periods of the complex, in particular during that seemingly magic year of "1076"; coercion noticeable enough to "influence" the said conversion but not great enough to lead to a violent confrontation between the al Murabitun (Almoravid) and the kingdom of Ghana. Going further...
 

This idea (Hunwick's version of "helping a Muslim faction of the ruling house to rise to power") had been introduced in 1970 by Jean Devisse, who speculated that the relationship between the new ruler of Ghana and the Muslim population might have changed for the worse after the death in 455/1063 of Basi who had been famous for his friendship with Muslims, eventually causing an Almoravid intervention. Similar thoughts have been expressed also by Daniel F. McCall and Dierk Lange. All this suggests that several scholars were prepared to give up the Delafossean conquest hypothesis, which they realized was indefensible—or at least weak and all but undocumented and the formulation of the "influence hypothesis" was an attempt to give a more reasonable answer to the question: why did the ruler and people of Ghana adopt Islam in 1076?

Good question! And we will seek the answer to it in the next segment of this topic. Please go here: Link

Before the Ruins

African architectural heritage, not too unlike the manner in which it is biologically and culturally diverse, was and is quite varied. There was no one style of urban framework. Of course, as the saying goes, a superficial issue such as "beauty" is in the eye of the beholder, and so, a subjective issue. Architects though, are more likely than regular observers of different trade, to look beyond the exterior of architecture, and appreciate the work in its completeness—from inside and out, which entails its basic foundations, the material composition of building material, the question of cosmetic value vs. functional value [not to leave out the immediacy of material availability and economic viability] and where they intertwine, to urban layout. It is easy to criticize work from a distance when one is not the preparer of the work at hand. The first pictures that come to mind of many regular folks when African architectural heritage is uttered, is anything from the grand pyramids of Egypt, the mud-molded grand mosques of Timbuktu, the rock-carved churches of Lalibela, to the stonework of the Great Zimbabwe. Today, when Africa is uttered in "Western" entertainment media circles, the average "Western" viewer who has not ventured into this part of the world, simply think of images of simple village life, as generally invoked by media concerns like Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, or National Geographic, and associated architectural stereotyping, is one of simple mud huts with straw roofs. These same views generally think of the continent as one big gigantic country, with no nation-states or variety, let alone signs of urbanization and cosmopolitanism. Reactionary "Western" venues even project the illusion that African territories were generally devoid of signs of "modern" looking urban setups when European colonial enterprises intruded there, and that these same brutal totalitarian colonial regimes went onto move these territories towards the path of complex urban setup and socio-economic framework. Quite to the contrary, and what is often omitted in these romanticized imagery of colonial totalitarianism, is that little regard was given to the concerns of the conquered, let alone the fruits of years of their hard work; rather, concerted implementation of destroying these very things was undertaken, comparatively overnight. Architecture that could have served as preservation of and testament to pre-colonial Africa urban heritage were subject to premeditated colonial terrorism and wanton destruction. For examples, look no further than the following imagery; click on all images for greater resolution...

We'll start here with running several images of distinctive Akan western African architectural work, and treatment they got from British colonial intruders, as they provide examples of what happened to urban centers on the continent, in the hands of European imperialist intruders. Below, gives an idea of the integrity of the a 17th century Akan mausoleum before its destruction in the hands of the brute British colonial force:

This was what became of it, after wanton British destruction:

The destruction from another angle:

 

What follows, are examples of culmination of peoples' sweat and labor put in place since the 17th century before the British decided to intrude and treat it with utter British terror campaign and destruction—visual aids that put to lie the reactionary Euro-centric revisionist claims regarding lack of bustling urban cities on the continent prior to European colonial involvement:

 

What happened to examples of these sorts of constructive work, when subjected to handy British "work":

It is funny how European colonial terror destroyed everything in its path, only to subsequently have the cult avenues of reactionary "white" nationalism propagate the above-mentioned notion that European intruders met up with non-functioning societies, with no signs of city life, who needed to be "rescued"; the remedy to this, was supposedly the callous destruction of societies' years of hard work and necessities of life, and then say that, that which was destroyed never existed. 

Other images of both constructive work, and their subsequent destruction in certain cases...

 

  

 

Apparent here, is some British fellow with a big white hat on, radiating a body language of coziness, and likely posing to be shot next to a fenced Akan urban setting.

 

  

 

  

 

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

A cleaned up Besease temple on the right hand side, as compared to the one on the left.

To the left (above, depending viewer's screen size), is the building show above earlier; the destruction meted out by the brute british is even more apparent here.

Such destruction was part and parcel of elaborate propaganda campaign of brute colonial totalitarianism, to lend legs to the big lie that colonialism was supposedly a goodwill, albeit unrequested, gesture of "civilizing" the others; destroying the very "civilized" things these Europeans would later attempt to proclaim themselves as the "agents of introduction". If any example is needed, then consider the following for instance, as cited on a Wikipedia site:

On May 15, 1817 the Englishman Thomas Bowdich entered Kumasi. He remained there for several months, was impressed and on his return to England wrote a book, Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, which was disbelieved as it **contradicted** prevailing prejudices.

The effects of the propaganda of lies were such, that the few objective observers of European societies were simply not believed for candidly reporting what they saw firsthand.

Many more images like this can be found here—courtesy of Flickr poster: Link

Now, the more familiar images on the net and subjects of forum discussions:

 

  

 Relic of ancient Ghanaian complex, photo and sketch of foundations at Koumbi Saleh.

More snapshots of ancient Ghana remains, foundation vestiges, and the relatively more preserved structures...



From R. A. Kea's (2004) Expansions And Contractions: World-Historical Change And The Western Sudan World-System, we are told:

The depth of Koumbi Saleh’s occupation levels, amounting to tens of meters, represents not only the different stages of successive construction and re-construction of the city but also an antiquity that can probably be traced back to the second half of the first millennium b.c. The lowest levels of the tumulus have yet to be excavated (Thomassey and Mauny 1951; Thomassey and Mauny 1956; Mauny 1967: 72–74, 470–73, 480–82; Mauny 1970:149–50; Vallées du Niger 1993:110; Berthier 1997).

And then, a few passages later...

Beyond the cemeteries are the remains of many constructions. They include a series of stone watchtowers, which extend for a distance of eight kilometers beyond the city’s fortifications, as well as many clusters of habitations that are probably the ruins of settlements that housed artisans, peasants, herders, royal servants, and soldiers, and also cemeteries,and tumuli. These ruins **have not been systematically excavated**, hence their dates of construction are not precisely known. Potsherds and artifacts collected on these settlement sites resemble objects recovered from the Koumbi Saleh tell, suggesting that the chronologies of the hinterland settlements and structures and the city are consonant and that they shared the same material culture.

...Beyond the cemetery, there are several large structures that archaeologists believe were used to store agricultural produce for the needs of the city’s resident population, merchant caravans, and transhumant camel pastoralists. The produce was most likely imported from the SV, although some probably came from the MNV. Beyond the produce storage facilities are the ruins of numerous settlements; however, since they have not been excavated, little is known about their functions and inhabitants.

The above fits in right with an earlier point made on this site, about "Western" research teams blindsided by biased fixation on areas where they presume to be more directly pertinent to European's remote and not-so-remote origins, be it population origins or that of culture; in Africa, these areas are eastern Africa, that has earned a reputation as a hub of human paleontology and northeastern Africa, home to world's first known centralized polity spanning a wide territory, as well as to human movements that would lead to demic diffusions of important social necessities into Europe, like farming and literacy. Areas like western Africa, are therefore subconsciously or what not, given the backseat, in "Western" enthusiasm in digging further for pieces of humanity's history. We see the same trend in molecular genetics. So, while it may sound like a broken record, the governments and locals of these areas have to take initiative to protect the material remnants of their history, dig for more, write or re-write it as it should be and pass it onto the future generation.

  

A section of a ca. 1000 year old Eredo rampart [Nigeria].

Apparently, many complexes presided in the 'western Sudan' in antiquity, and it seems that as new complexes supplanted declining ones, considerable sections of preexisting landscape were reorganized, including replacement with the then new urbanization and infrastructure setups, thereby understandably obscuring the broader infrastructure setup of the outgoing complex, save for scattered relics here and there. It is no wonder then, the more immediate signs of older layers of social shifts are readily seen trails like ramparts, architecture-foundations, and as one source puts it,...

"The flood plain of the Middle Niger of West Africa is line with hundreds of ancient tells rivaling those of Asia both in area and in clues to the emergence of city life...the Middle Niger is dominated by numerous monumental tumuli (McIntosh 1991:203)" - R.J. McIntosh

There are several very specific examples of how different stratigraphy or layers of urbanization (occupation) in Ray A. Kea's (2004) Expansions And Contractions: World-Historical Change And The Western Sudan World-System, with regards to, for example, ancient Ghanaian complex.

There was a time in history, the world was very close to having lost the grand ancient pyramids of Egypt—i.e. instantly vanish from history, when there was a decision at a high level of the then local authority to have them destroyed to make way for "modernization"; had that happened, there would be some tongues wagging today, about how they could not have ever existed [but presumably just myths designed to uplift young African minds]—consider it a possibility.

 

Mosque in Mopi, Mali. An elaborate example of Sudano-Sahel architecture tradition, going back to ancient Mali, in this case.

Below is an artist's rendition [reportedly of Heinrich Barth's recounting of his and associates' ca. 1853 trip to the place; source of the work that is reputed to make note of this imagery: Heinrich Barth, Reisen und Entdeckungen. Gotha 1858, vol. 4 ] of what the ancient Mali urban setting likely appeared to an observer from outside the walls of the city:

Speaking of walls, it was customary for many ancient African cities or urban centers to mark their sovereignty with extensive walls—commonly referred to as ramparts. An example of this has already been posted above—the Eredo rampart, although what is visible in that image, is part of the ditch which accompanied the construction of the wall. Below, we have examples of walls themselves, again in Nigeria; the ancient Kano City walls:

  

 This is what the UNESCO site tells us about these relics:

Description

Ancient Kano City Wall is a 14km radius earth structure, while associated sites are made up of these features, Dala Hills, Kurmi Market and Emir's Palace.

The ancient Kano city wals were built in order to provide security to the growing population. The foundation for the construction of the wall was laid by Sakri Gijimasu from 1095 - 1134 and was completed in the middle of 14th Century during the reign of Zamnagawa. In the 16th century, the walls were further extended to their present position. The gates are as old as the walls and were used to control movement of people in and out of the city. Though, most of them are largely in ruins.

Dala Hill is an archaeological site of an ancient settlement dating back to the 10th century AD. It is the source of the evolution of Kano City and a vital reference point in the development of Hausa Kingdoms, societies and cultures which greatly influenced the early indigenous civilizations in the savannah zone of the Western African sub region.

Kurmi Market is one of the oldest and largest local market in Africa. It used to serve as an international market where North African and some European goods were exchanged for domestic goods through trans-Saharan trade. The market was, and still is, laid out' in lanes. Each lane consists of traders, who trade in identical good, e,g leatherwork, textiles, iron and brass work, spices etc.

Emir's Palace was built by Muhammadu Rumfa who ruled Kano from 1463 to 1499. The palace has 3 gates namely Kofar Kwaru, Kofar Fatalawa and Kofar Kudu. The palace is divided into 3 sections. At the south are the Administrative buildings with rooms (Soran Zauna Lafiya, Soron Giwa and Soron Bello and Rumfar Kasa). The central part houses members of the emir's family and at the northern parts are the stables and the servants' rooms.

Snapshots of the aforementioned Emir Palace complex—displaying both the renovated and the less renovated sections of the complex:

Captions for the images above - from top to bottom and left to right: top two images; are of the Soron Gabjeje gateway, top-2nd row images - left to right; the first is an unidentified structure of the palace complex, the 4th image next to it, is that of one of the entrance structures of the complex, the 3rd row images - left to right; the first image appears to be one of a renovated reception room, and next to it, is the image of guests posing in front of a section of the palace, 4th row images; palace personnel posing for photo and next to it, courtesy of archnet.org, is the image of Round crenellations of royal mosque wall in the palace complex, 5th row images - left to right; South elevation of royal mosque in first court, and North gate of first court with royal mosque to west, 6th row images - left to right; South façade of the Soron Giwa audience hall, and Inner reception courtyard with Soron Giwa at left and Soron Ingila at back left, 7th row images - left to right; Original 15th century gate Kofar Fatalwa, and Free standing reception hall, note grooved motifs in dark plaster, 8th row images - left to right; Front elevation of free standing reception hall, and 15th century northern wall, still with moat, 9th row images - left to right; both are images of Northern wall with 15th century Kofar Fatalwa at left and modern gate at far right.

Below, is a citation of a brief history on the palace complex from one website:

Notes
The Emir's Palace at Kano, which today continues to define the axis of the city, was built in the fifteenth century by Sarkin Rumfa (also Rimfa). Rumfa transformed the fabric of Kano, and was said to be the author of twelve innovations in Kano, including the palace and the Kurmi market, according to the Kano Chronicle. However, before the erection of the Gidan, or Dakin, Rumfa (sic. House of Rumfa), there existed a palace, the south gate of which now serves as the passage from the Sarkin's private courtyard to the royal graveyard. The 33-acre palace continues to house about 1,000 people in some of the most desirable housing in Kano.

The palace grounds occupy the highest space in Kano. The entire palace complex is embraced by a wall of 20 to 30 feet high from the outside the height of which never exceeds more than 15 feet from the inside. Visitors at the turn of the twentieth century commented on the wall's durability, which was said to have been 15 feet thick in some places. It is tapered inward and surmounted by rounded crenellations. The exterior wall, similar to the exteriors of the buildings inside the complex, is modestly decorated with shallow arched grooves traced in the mud plaster. The eleven mile wall was once surrounded by a moat with a parapeted bridge to the main south gate.

The main entry gate of the complex, Kofar Kudu, is located in the southern façade of the wall. This gate that has bronze detailing, is recessed from the line of the wall. Within the walls of the recession are studded loopholes, as once a mantelet was hung in front of the gate. Legend has it that this southern gate was sealed by Muhammad Rumfa in the 1480s, soon after the completion of Gidan Rumfa, on the advice of the town's official Islamic scholar, or malam, who prophesized that as long as the southern gate was sealed, the Rumfa dynasty would remain in power. Not until just before 1806 was the mantelet ostensibly removed, and the Rumfa dynasty then fell from power. The palace compound used to contain grazing land for the royal cattle as well as the houses of the palace retainers, public reception rooms, and the apartments of the Sarkin himself.

After entering through the confines of the outer wall of the palace complex, one is confronted on the same axis by the impressive and more recent Soron Gabjeje gateway. The graceful two-story height of the doorway of the gate is buttressed by two sturdy gatehouses. The thick tapered sides of the gatehouses visually hug the slender central passage. Though the defining feature of the passage is the central steeped arch interrupted by a thin-railed passage, the side buttresses complement the center through the replication of vertically elongated windows. These side gatehouses also mimic the central roofline crenellations and corner pinnacles, which in Hausa architecture define the intersection of interior and exterior walls. Numerous other gates set up a hierarchy of accessible space through a series of courtyards. One such gate, which leads into the Soron Giwa (or Hall of the Elephants), is said to demarcate the space for the pasturing of the royal elephants. Like the Soron Gabjeje, each gate is set in an impressive gatehouse called a zaure (plural, zauruka). Many of the gates, which originally were circular entrance vestibules, have taken on a rectangular shape, such as the Soron Gabjeje gateway. This early twentieth century transformation from round to rectangular rooms is a larger trend in Hausa architecture.

The Soron Gabjeje is the first court of the palace complex. The north gate of the Soron Gabjeje, which leads to the reception rooms, is much more modest. Entering through it into the next courtyard, one enters a passage that is flanked on the east by the royal audience chamber. At the end of this passageway is yet another gateway, the Soron Giwa, which leads into a private royal courtyard. Crossing this passage leads one to the outer room of the Sarkin's private apartments.

This processional access of the palace resembles an elongated version of a typical Kano house, where entry through a zaure (in this case the Soron Gabjeje) leads to the semi-private kofa gida courtyard which is bounded to the north and east by reception spaces. As in a traditional Kano house, one proceeds from this space into the private apartments which shelter the family's private cikin gida. In the case of the palace, the main reception rooms, the Soron Ingila to the northeast of the courtyard, and the Soron Giwa to the northwest of the courtyard, were built of clay with a door on each side, and were connected by narrow dark passages.

The most elaborately decorated parts of the palace are these two royal audience chambers. The Soron Ingila interior reaches a height of between six and eight meters. The room is divided in two by high domed bays created by five arches each. These intersecting arches comprised of coupled corbels, are a unique element of Hausa architecture called bakan gizos. The main audience chamber is comprised of 20 such corbels forming ten bakan gizos. These structures are covered with azaras, heavy rigid timbers that are resistant to termites and decay, laid in two directions. These are then covered with layers of azaras set horizontally until they reach the height of the dome's apex. These azara's are usually plastered into the wall, which is made of tubali, or sun dried bricks. The plaster reveals the azara's coffering which defines rectilinear shapes on the wall surfaces. In the ceiling these beams are often left exposed to reveal their linear patterning. Inlaid enamel bowls stud the intersection of the arches. The massive doors to the room are comprised of planks bound together by iron bars fastened by nails and then ornamented with circular brass heads.

Practically the entire ceiling and walls are decorated with grooved patterns and bold paint. The ceiling, the beams and the floor are stained a deep black by the varnish from a locust bean shell. The walls are plastered with a mixture that includes mica, giving the walls a silvery sheen. This plaster is burnished with a stone to give the raised sections of the grooves this soft gleam rather than a glittery effect. Mica is non-static and therefore does not attract dust as well as repelling spiders and hornets from building their webs and nests inside the dark buildings.

The palace undergoes constant restoration and has been replastered multiple times throughout the centuries. More recently, yellow dye has been introduced to the micaceous clay giving the sheen more of a gold than silver tint. Also more recently, restoration craftsmen have gummed mica flakes onto the yellow base.

The soffits of the arches and the ceiling panels in between are decorated with brightly painted sculpturally molded abstract designs. The abstract designs are coupled with more figural features, including a picture of an ablution jug, or santali, near the doorway. In another reception building, designated for the signing of the Sarkin's visitor book in the mid-twentieth century, one can find a representation of a sword painted onto the wall. These more bold designs are probably from the 1930s and 1940s and are more representative of an increasingly popular deeply incised style from southern Hausaland. Along with the attention to constant maintenance and repair, craftsmen have maintained stylistic license in applying new patterns and colors.

The northernmost section of the palace opens onto a public space, through the Kofar Fatalwa, still very much in its fifteenth century form. The dendal, or public plaza, runs on an east-west axis and aligns the Friday Mosque, or Masallacin Jumma'a, with the north-south axis of the Emir's palace. - Courtesy of archnet.org

The following is an undated sketch of the City of Kano architecture found on a Princeton University web page, displaying a complete structure on one side, with what appears to be the foundation beneath it, and then several styles of barbed-wire roofing ornaments, and a rendering of a building entrance section:

Though the complex had been around by ca. 15th century, below is a 19th century rendition of the city of Kano, dated to 1850; the artwork—entitled "Stahlstich von Kano", according to a Wikipedia posting—is reportedly stored at the "Meyer's Universum":

The above, the original, appears to have been replicated elsewhere—also posted on the aforementioned Princeton University web page, seemingly with the observer of the latter extrapolating in areas where necessary; compare the images:

Relatively monotonic in its shading themes compared to the original, aside from a few scenic differences, and hence, more sketch-like than the original rendition. The replica displays a few straw-roofed cylindrical structures amidst a network of rectangular structures, with a stream in the anterior view.

Other monuments in Nigeria:

Tower/minaret of uncertain date, here is the Gobarau tower in Katsina, Nigeria. It is generally believe to go back to the 14th century. Others reckon it was around by the 16th century...

 

 Another tower; this one is the minaret of the Great Mosque of Kano, dating back to the 15th century:

Both towers have unmistakable elements of the Sudano-Sahelian architectural tradition about them. With regards to the Great Mosque of Kano, it fared the same fate that we've come across here time and again: destruction under the watch of colonial intruders. Here is an interesting piece about the mosque, courtesy of archnet.org library:

Notes
There is very little documentation of the original Great Mosque of Kano, which was destroyed in the 1950s, though it was said to have been the most impressive in West Africa. The mosque was probably predated by a low-profile rectangular mosque sanctuary built in the fourteenth century. The subsequent great mosque is attributed to a collaboration between Sarkin Muhammed Rumfa (c. 1463-1499) and the Egyptian Cabd al-Rahman. It was the first mud mosque of the soro, or tower, type in Nigeria.

By the late fifteenth century, there was a high frequency of commercial and religious contact between the Songhay in present day Mali and the Hausa states of northern Nigeria and the Maghreb. According to the Kano Chronicle, Cabd al-Rahman came to Kano from Egypt to confirm Islam's hegemony and build a friday mosque with a minaret, in lieu of the sacred tree which rose above the modest pre-extant mosque.

However, upon its construction, the minaret-like tower took on the functions of a mosque, and minarets did not establish a foothold in local design until the period of revived orthodoxy during the West African jihad. The tower, which borrowed terms from the Maghribi and Songhay words for minaret or tower, is described as a sawma' (from the Maghribi) or a sumiya (from the Songhay). What distinguished the Great Mosque of Kano from either of these regional types however is the singular monolithic tower, without external division such as the steps or ramps that mark the Songhay Tomb of Askia, which is said to resemble a southern Algerian shrine. Instead, dum boards, used for re-enforcement, create an internal staircase. The tips of these boards do not project from the exterior as do the toron of Songhay architecture.

The Great Mosque of Kano is said to have been shifted to a new site in 1582 by Muhammed Zaki, and rebuilt yet again due to disrepair sometime between 1855 and 1883 by Sarkin Kano Abdullahi dan Dabo. This mosque, the one that was lauded and remarked as impressive, was perhaps not structurally different from the first mosque built by Sarkin Rumfa. Its 20 meter tall tower was surmounted with pinnacled buttresses and surrounded by a high wall. After its destruction in the 1950s, the British Government sponsored the building of a new mosque in gratitude of the Nigerian role in WWII. This new central mosque has no outstanding similitude to any indigenous Nigerian architecture.

 Below, are other familiar relics circling the net:

Note the common theme, with regards to African urban traditions and spoken of here, about the propaganda of lies, destruction and looting by colonial intruders:

The conical tower and stone outer walls of the Great Enclosure of Great Zimbabwe, the largest single ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa. Great Zimbabwe, believed built by a Shona population between the 11th and 15th centuries, was an important trading center at its height. In the late 19th century, Europeans pillaged the site, and until Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, genuine archaeological scholarship about the site's history was censored by the [colonial] government. Only recently has the sacred natural water fountain on the site been reopened and the local community permitted access to it. Photos: Neville Agnew. - courtesy of getty.edu

Relics from the archeological successor-complex to Great Zimbabwe:

Notes courtesy of getty.edu: The hill complex entrance to Khami National Monument in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Situated between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, Khami, the capital of the Torwa state, prospered as a trading post and missionary stop from the mid-15th to mid-17th centuries. Chinese and Portuguese ceramics and Spanish silver have been found among Khami's granite walls. Today, vegetation damage, burrowing animals, and trespassers foraging for firewood and building stones threaten the site.

Apparently, Great Zimbabwe and its successor complex thereof were part of a trade network that extended as far east as India and China.

Near the center of the continent, was the so-called "Vili kingdom", Loango, in what is today Congo; the following is presumably how it appeared to European observers when they arrived in the 17th century:

 

Image caption: Loango city on the Atlantic coast, in a 17th century print from Olfert Dapper’s, Description de lÁfrique (French, German, and original 1665 Dutch editions are evident in the inscriptions). Founded in the 12th century as one of a cluster of Equatorial African kingdoms, Loango was in full engagement with Europeans and global trade by the 16th century. Scenes include: king's palace; wives' compound; crier's tower; royal wine house; royal dining house; public audience court; royal garden; and wives' garden.

Another rendering of the capital in what is now Congo; this one is reportedly the work of Thomas Astley, dating to 1745, making it a later rendition than the above example:

 

On the eastern corner of the continent, Kenya, lies the ruins of a mosque—the Great Mosque of Gedi—dating back to ca. 15th century or so,...

More from Gedi; this one a palace in ruins:

From left to right, image captions courtesy of archnet.org: View of sunken audience court looking east with the main gate in the background, and View to southwest of the anteroom of the main quarters from audience court.

An excerpt from archnet.org on the monument:

The palace was built in the early fifteenth century in the mysteriously undocumented Arab-African city of Gedi, which was abandoned in the sixteenth century. It is still uncertain whether the royal family inhabiting the palace may have been related to, or in competition with, the sheikh of nearby Malindi. The palace covers an area of about a quarter acre in the northwest quadrant of the city and, like many of the houses in Gedi, is constructed almost entirely of red earth mixed in with the coral rag and lime dug from its site. Palm frond roofing, or makuti, originally covered most of its rooms, until its walls were reinforced at a later date to support a permanent lime concrete roof.

The palace is made up of multiple courts connected by series' of rooms, all enclosed within a walled precinct. It is divided into two main sections, comprising the main quarters of the palace to the south and the slightly smaller annex, built later, to the north. The courts that cover two-thirds of the palace served as receiving spaces, and were sunken so as to allow for the enjoyment of longer cooling shadows.

Who could forget the famous rock-carved churches of Lalibela, dating back to late 12th and early 13th centuries; below is the Bete Giyorgis rock-carved church:

 
In Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania, here is the so-called nine bay "Small Domed Mosque":

Image captions courtesy of archnet.org: Top left image; East façade of mosque, note central dome with octagonal pillar flanked by barrell vaults on each side.- small domed mosque, 2nd image; West façade of mosque with mihrab projection at left, and 3rd image; South façade of mosque showing interior of south barrel vault.

Notes
To the southwest of the Great Mosque of Kilwa was the nine bay Small Domed Mosque, which was built in the mid-fifteenth century and is now only partially standing. Though built two-hundred years later, the Small Domed Mosque mimics the Great Mosque's thirteenth century vault and dome addition. The nine bays are arranged in a square, three bays long and three aisles wide. The central bay is larger than the rest through a lengthening of the middle bays and a widening of the central aisle...

There are many elements in the Small Domed Mosque similar to those of the Great Mosque. The height of the column capitals, each one-third of a cubit or 16 cm high, are the same in both mosques. Hereafter the similarities are proportional. The Small Domed Mosque's columns are of a lesser girth of 55 cm2. The height of the two story columns are appropriately scaled down to 138 centimeters from base to capital and 147 centimeters from capital to cornice at the second tier.

It is postulated that the decoration on the mihrab is from a date later than the fifteenth century. These defining features consist of chamfered grooved capitals flanking the mihrab rising out of adjacent pillars and supporting an arch. From this frame, the mihrab is rebated back from the wall, within which runs a painted floral stringcourse, likely added in the eighteenth century. Interlaced carved coral bosses, bordered with a pattern of an interlocked s-shaped motif, occur on the spandrels to the sides of the arch. Above the mihrab, two bowls are inset into either side of a rectangular plaque. These features represent the development of the early classic mihrab in East Africa.

The Small Domed Mosque and its nearby contemporary, the Jangwani Mosque, are the only two examples of a nine-domed mosque in this area.

Since we are pressed for space, some finer details about the mosque have been omitted here, but for full notes, visit archnet.org.

The Great Mosque of Kilwa mentioned above:




Image captions courtesy of archnet.org: Top to bottom and left to right - 1st image; East façade of South hall with projecting wing to the left.- Great mosque, 2nd image on the top right; West façade from the south. Note barrel vault behind the line of domes, 3rd image; Doors and windows of the west façade of the south extension, 4th image to the right; Interior vaults of south hall looking northeast, 5th image; Dressed coral arch within the south hall. Note groined squinches to the left and right, and 6th image to the right on the very bottom; Wall niche in the northern wall of the southern hall.

Courtesy of archnet.org, a few notes on the Great Mosque of Kilwa...

Notes
The Great Mosque of Kilwa is the earliest remaining mosque structure on the East African coast, though it is predated by elements from the Kizimkazi Mosque in Zanzibar. The Great Mosque, which now stands at the edge of modern Kilwa, was built in at least two distinct stages, which can be seen in the marked difference between the small northern prayer hall built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the subsequent fourteenth century southern enlargement. Furthermore, segments of a tenth century foundation predate both sections of the existing mosque layout. The Great Mosque of Kilwa, which is entirely roofed by domes and vaults, has since its construction been widely acknowledged as one of the first mosques built without a courtyard.

The Mosque has four notable sections, and archnet.org reveals them as follows...

Northern Prayer Hall
The original prayer hall was built in the eleventh or twelfth century and was subsequently modified in the thirteenth century. It was composed of 16 bays divided by nine pillars holding a flat roof of coral plaster. The original pillars were octagonal columns each carved from a single coral stone and measuring 140 centimeters tall and 40 centimeters square. Coral stone has a lime content that hardens with water and saturates the porous coral to create concrete. This sanctuary measured about 7.8 meters side and 12 meters along the qibla axis. The east and western side wall each had three arched doors that were embellished in the thirteenth century with recessed spandrels.

With the thirteenth century modifications the columns were replaced with those made of timber and a more elaborate roof support structure, including transverse beams and side pilasters, was installed. According to the Kilwa Chronicle, the beams and columns were installed in wood because stone carving craftsmanship in Kilwa had declined. The coral blocks of the ceiling were also plastered with concrete upon which an interlocking circular pattern was engraved. The original walls of the mosque were lined with a second wall of square cut coral blocks set in a thick mortar.

The later mihrab in the northern prayer hall likely dates from the fifteenth century because of its stylistic elements. Its high arch, surrounded by a boldly framed architrave, is rebated by chamfered pilasters. The recessed apse has a fluted semi-dome and multiple string courses. To the east of this mihrab are four dressed blocks of coral stone projecting from the wall in a shelf and probably indicating a minbar.

Northern Ablution Area
To the west of this prayer hall was an ablution court joined to the mosque via an anteroom. This sunken courtyard contained a tank, a well, and a washroom, as well as large round sandstone blocks set in the floor to exfoliate the feet after washing. From the south side of this court, a stairway leads to the roof. The northwest corner of the anteroom leads to a small vaulted chamber that may have served as a private room for the imam. From this room an unroofed passageway runs along the north exterior of the mosque behind the qibla wall. This passageway was partially divided and may have been used or intended for the placement of graves as was common in the coastal tradition.

Southern extension and the Great Dome 

In the early fourteenth century, Sultan al-Hasan ibn Sulaiman, the builder of the palace of Husuni Kubwa, built an extension from the east wall of the northern prayer hall, which wrapped around forming a large open court. A very narrow barrel vaulted corridor, consisting of 30 bays complete with dressed coral panels and supported by coral columns ran directly southward. This extension juts out slightly to the east, creating a wing that deviates from the otherwise orthogonal plan. Within the space where the wall splays, two small irregular rooms were preceded by a small porch containing a tank filled with smooth quartz pebbles, a sandstone foot-rubber and a bench. Behind this small assembly of rooms is a somewhat larger plainly vaulted room. This long room leads into a square room four meters across which carries the great dome. 

This dome, noted in the Kilwa Chronicle, is thought to be the first true dome on Africa's east coast. It was supported on squinches and decorated with dressed coral panels. After his visit in 1331, Ibn Battuta remarked on the splendor of the dome, which was, until the nineteenth century, the largest dome on the East African coast. Beyond the Great Dome is a string of ablution rooms with a well. Latrines and water tanks were added, partially enclosing a large open space between it and the northern prayer hall.

Southern Enclosure

According to the Kilwa Chronicle, after the death of ibn Sulaiman in 1333 the mosque fell into ruin. Not until the early fifteenth century, under the reign of Sultan Sulaiman ibn Muhammad, was the mosque reconstructed and the southern fully court enclosed. Sometime between 1421 and 1442, the southern hall was roofed with barrel vaults with domes placed atop alternate bays. This extension made the Great Mosque at Kilwa the largest covered mosque on the east coast of Africa.

The southern enclosure utilized the pre-extant enclosure walls to the north, south and east and created a new 20 meters long western wall which squared off the space. The enclosure was then divided into 30 bays, six aisles long and five aisles wide from east to west. The bays lining the perimeter of the enclosure as well as the bays in the central north-south aisle are surmounted by domes, the most northern and southern of which were shallower than the rest. The two domes serving as entrance bays along the eastern side are internally fluted. The more southern of these fluted domes enters from the great dome. The remaining eight bays, which flank the central axis, are barrel vaulted. Due to the slightly irregular angles of the southern court a few of the bays are shortened by 20 centimeters. 

As with the other vaults from Kilwa, the Great Mosque's vaults and domes are constructed out of lime coral concrete. These domes are about 20 to 30 centimeters thick and shaped into hemispheres supported by groined squinches between which run pointed arches. These arches are supported by two-tiered columns which are octagonal at their base and become squared half way up. The octagonal segments of the columns have rectangular coral panels on the alternating faces. Along the walls the arches are supported by engaged columns or corbelled brackets. The capitals of the columns were made from single coral blocks and carved with concave carved angle brackets. On the western face of the enclosure, windows and doors alternate in the bays between the embedded columns.

A large room with a corbelled roof was built at the far southwest corner of the southern hall. Two doors lead from the south wall onto a narrow lane separating the Great Mosque from the Great House complex.

A final addition of a second mihrab was added at a much later date. The mihrab for the larger congregation using the south hall is located at the northernmost end of the central axis and juts into the northern prayer hall.

Turning attention back to western Africa,...

Ancient city in Chinguetti, with the minaret of the Great Mosque in direct view:

Ancient town of Wadane:

Ancient town of Walata, which was at one point part of ancient Ghanaian complex:

 

As the last few images show, contrary to opinionated noises in some socializing avenues of the net, western Africans did build out of stone bricks, as part of the variety of architecture in the region, which continued through to the common era; that they didn't do so in other occasions, simply has to do with the question of what is more immediately and hence economically viable—lack of intellectual insight is a non-factor. In fact, one of earliest examples of surviving structures in the region, is also found in the Tichitt-Walata region, in the form of a network stone-brick structures (stonemasonry)—a common theme in both that general region and regions further south [think 'Great Zimbabwe', for example]:

Some of the gossip-folks implicated above, of course ignore developments such as these, and look to the ancient Nile Valley monuments like the Great Pyramids as some sort of measuring yardstick for the rest of continent; while ignoring these material records of the region, such individuals proceed to ask what people in ancient western Africa were doing, since according to them, they don't know of anything that hints to what was going on in the part of the continent in the time frames at hand. Well of course, they are bound to be ignorant, even according to their own rationale, precisely because they don't avail themselves of the necessary motivation to dig for information, and hence, squash unnecessary ignorance. The great pyramids are doubtlessly an impressive feat, but even these are the outgrowth of Saharan traditions. Africans are not monolithic and not every culture thereof is therefore going to visually express themselves through grand pyramids. So, why other parts of the continent are expected to replicate such, is anyone's guess but those folks who seek to downplay architecture traditions "not as grand" as the pyramids. That said, earlier on this site, the following was noted about the Tichitt-Walata stone structures:

Between 4000 BC and 1000 BC: At Tichitt-Walata—"Before 2000 BC, what is today the southern Sahara was inhabited by significant numbers of herders and farmers. On the rocky promontories of the Tichitt-Walata (Birou) and Tagant Plateaus in modern day Mauritania, they built what are considered among the earliest known civilizations in western Africa. Composed of more than 400 stone masonry settlements, with clear street layouts, some settlements had massive surrounding walls while others were less fortified. In a deteriorating environment, where arable land and pasturage were at a premium, the population grew and relatively large-scale political organizations emerged - factors which no doubt explain the homogeneity of architecture, settlement patterns, and material culture (e.g., lithic and ceramic traditions). This agro-pastoral society traded in jewelry and semi-precious stones from distant parts of the Sahara and Sahel, while crafts, hunting, and fishing were also important economic pursuits...Their elites built funerary monuments for themselves over a period extending from 4000 to 1000 BC." [sources: see Ray A. Kea, and Mauny, R. (1971), “The Western Sudan” in Shinnie: 66-87. Monteil, Charles (1953), “La Légende du Ouagadou et l’Origine des Soninke” in Mélanges Ethnologiques (Dakar: Bulletin del’Institut Francais del’Afrique Noir)]

This same general area would subsequently host parts of the ancient Ghanaian complex; again, as cited here before:

—200 BC to the 2nd A.D. The Ghana/Wagadu Heartland

The historical importance of the Tichitt-Tagant complex and the Mema district derives from the development of the Ghana/Wagadu state organization in the area, probably between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century A.D. Together with the Hodh and Awkar districts, they formed the kingdom’s heartland for more than a thousand years (see fig 7) (cf. Robert-Chaleix 1989: 264). With a few exceptions, the first millennium A.D. was a time of fairly continuous and political consolidation of the system in its struggles with Kawkaw/Gao formation, on the one hand, and the Anbiya/Sanhaja formation in the WS, on the other.… - by Ray A. Kea, Department of History, University of California at Riverside, 2004

Obviously, the subject of African architectural traditions is simply far too extensive to be justly covered in one space here, i.e. if one were to give more examples and the fine details of their underlying architectural specificities, which as we've seen from the mere few select examples touched upon here, can be quite insightful; so, we will wind down here, with an example of how African architectural tradition, utilizing sun-dried bricks of mud—a readily accessible material in the Sahara-Sahel zones, the use of which has either been scorned at and/or dismissed as "too simplistic" by some untrained observers, can be exported afar, with perhaps some people of the latter areas being in the little-know to without even being aware of the fact: It is what has been dubbed as the "Nubian vault". Here is the idea: [The concept] makes it possible to build houses with vaulted roofs (on top of which a traditional flat roof terrace can be constructed) using basic, readily available local materials and simple, easily learnt, procedures.

Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy studied the concept, applied it, and subsequently took it other areas of the continent and places afar:

Today there are two centers in France inspired by Fathy. Both work with owner-builders in West Africa and the Middle East: CRATerre (Centre de Recherche en Architectures de Terre) of Grenoble and the Development Workshop of Lauzerte have helped introduce the Nubian technique of mud-brick dome and vault construction among villagers in Mali, Niger and Iran. In Egypt, Fathy's ideas can be found in the work of architects, planners and cultural developers in numerous institutions. - Courtesy of saudiaramcoworld.com

Application in the U.S....

"The allure of elegant earthen architecture can be life-changing. At least that was the case for urbane New Yorker Simone Swan, who in the 1970s became fascinated with the ideas and designs of renowned Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy. Then the 40-something executive head of the Houston-based Menil Foundation, Swan moved to Cairo to study with Fathy. She became his most passionate advocate, and transplanted his adobe building techniques to the Southwestern United States." - Catherine Wanek, motherearthnews.com 

There is nothing new, of course, about this phenomenon of the export of African architectural traditions to locations outside of the continent; it goes back to as far as Dynastic Egypt in recorded history, when architectural designs spilled over to ancient Greece and subsequently, Rome. One can critique aspects of the variety in African architectural tradition all he/she wants purely on superficial grounds, but it does not take away from the richness and dynamism of this heritage, that rivals the greatest examples elsewhere. In fact, the continent has hosted the earliest attested to examples of moves towards urbanization found anywhere, going back to ever since even before modern humans appeared (clickable); Africa is therefore the last place that Africa-haters should be harping on about, about needing to learn the concept of urbanization and/or the corresponding architecture from outsiders. It is after all, also home to the world's first and one that remained tallest monuments in the world until well into the common era—the Great Pyramids, outgrowths of Saharan traditions and an example of African ingenuity.

*This post will be continuously be built on as time goes by.
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*References:

—Flickr-affiliated site of http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/besease

—Flickr-affiliated site of http://www.flickr.com/photos/junio/378564856/in/photostream/

—Archnet.org site: http://www.archnet.org/

—saudiaramcoworld.com

—motherearthnews.com

—whc.unesco.org

—libweb5.princeton.edu

—www.getty.edu

— *Others, as cited.