Thank You For Answering My Ask This Info Is So Cool - Blog Posts

Hi there! I read your post about Egypt and Cleopatra, and now I am really curious about the African Kingdoms you mentioned and was wondering if you could tell us more about them please, they sound really interesting.

Oh, there's SO much I could tell you, and there's so many African kingdoms that have been woefully understudied--and many more aside from the ones I mentioned. They all have their own rich histories, cultures, political intrigue, and it's an actual tragedy that they aren't discussed more. I'm still researching myself, so I'll just review some of my favorite things from each kingdom.

Aksumite/Axumite Empire: Located in modern-day Ethiopia, this empire existed from the 1st to 8th century CE, though its prime was from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE. The Axumites converted to Christianity of their own free will over 1,000 years before colonialism and as a result have ancient churches, some made of stone and carved from the earth itself. They also were the first African kingdom to mint their own coins, and their capital city of Axum had, at its peak, 20,000 people living in it. Also, I love the Dungur palace. Here's a reconstruction of what it looked like:

LOOK AT IT.

Source: x

Kongo: Located in central Africa around modern-day Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. This kingdom had a rich social hierarchy, apparently had ambassadors to Europe, and some people practiced Catholicism, which led to their own branch of Christianity led by a woman named Beatriz Kimpa Vita in the 1600s who believed she had visions that informed her Jesus actually came from Kongo. Yeah.

Sources: x, x

Loango: A neighbor of Kongo, but one we know much less about due to Kongo having a long, well-documented history of interacting with Europe (see: the ambassadors), and Loango... does not. But we do know they also had a rich social hierarchy, and we have this map of their capital city.

Sources: x, x

Great Zimbabwe: From 1100- 1500, located in modern-day Zimbabwe, this was a city of the Zimbabwe empire that was either used for storing grain or as a royal residence. Either way, the ruins of said city look like this:

Here's a reconstruction:

Sources: x, x, x, x

Ghana/Mali/Songhai: These were three successive empires from West Africa, with Ghana being the first from the 7th to 13th centuries, Mali being the second from the 13th to 16th centuries, and Songhai being the last one from the 15th to 16th centuries. If you learn about a non-Egyptian African civilization at all in school, chances are it's the Ghana empire and its successive empires, and they're most famous for gold, Timbuktu (with its ancient mosques, library, and university), and Mansa Musa.

Sources: x, x, x, x, x

Ashanti/Asante Empire: Located in modern day Ghana, this kingdom lasted from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. This kingdom is most well-known for its role in the slave trade. The Ashanti had well-built roads and architecture, and a little fun tidbit about them is that, after the introduction of guns, they actually had a minor firearms industry.

Here's their capital, Kumasi:

Source: x, x

Swahili Coastline: The coastline was made up of MANY city-states that saw their prime in the 11th to 15th centuries--including Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa--that participated in the Indian Ocean trade route, and pottery from as far away as China has been found in these cities. Many of these cities also practiced Islam and had their own mosques. Kilwa is my personal favorite:

These cities were built of stone, but Kilwa's palace, in particular, was built of coral. Its architecture led to the city being described by Ibn Battuta as one of the most beautiful in the world, which is part of why it's so fascinating to me.

Source: x, x

Of course, this barely scratches the surface. There are many more kingdoms all over the continent and a variety from ancient and pre-medieval times that deserve much more love.

And this image doesn't even cover them all!

So yes, ancient and medieval Africa deserve much more love, more research and more hype, and hopefully one day soon they'll get just that.