"The Serpent is in Ouidah a superior and excellent Divinity. He looks after and into everything, everybody appeals to him for advice, for rain, for good weather or in case of sickness or war, for trade, for harvest, for weddings."
Reverend Father Labat, 1730.
Updated essay: The Nsibidi script ca. 600-1909 CE: a history of an African writing system
(New books and articles)
Compass - Compara...
2025-01-26 21:22:32 +0000 UTC View PostHi folks, I have been offline for the past three days attending the funeral of my father, who sadly passed away this Tuesday.
I was hoping to unlock this 3-year-old essay on the Nsibidi script&n...
2025-01-24 21:19:27 +0000 UTC View Post
The Koutammakou landscape in northern Togo and Benin has the unusual distinction of being one of the few UNESCO world heritage sites that are known more to tourists than to historians of Africa. Towering above this undulating landscape are hundreds of fortified multi-story houses re...
2025-01-19 12:01:08 +0000 UTC View PostEssay: A complete history of the Sudano-Sahelian architecture of west Africa
Making and Remaking Mosques in Senegal By Cleo Canto...
2025-01-12 23:24:59 +0000 UTC View Post
In 1996, the discovery of an elite necropolis at Kissi in Burkina Faso containing grave goods that included Roman items dated to the early 1st millennium CE provided the first definitive evidence for long-distance trade in luxury goods in pre-Islamic West Africa.
In the early 2000s, excavat...
2025-01-05 13:16:57 +0000 UTC View PostEssay: The Meroitic script and the documents of ancient Kush (ca. 300BC-450CE)
Among the ruins of the Roman town of Herculaneum which was buried after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79CE are two well-preserved frescos depicting several aithiopian priests as central figures in a ceremony dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis.
Across the Mediterranean an...
2024-12-22 12:44:23 +0000 UTC View PostEssay: The intellectual history of Ethiopia and Eritrea: Ge'ez manuscripts and scholars (ca. 200-1900CE)
The Traditional Teaching of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwa...
2024-12-15 21:02:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe grand dionysiac procession of the Greco-Egyptian ruler Ptolemy Philadelphus, which occured around the year 276 BC, includes an unusual scene depicting elephants dragging a chariot along with tribute bearers, some of whom came from the kingdom of Kush whose armies had lost the region of lower ...
2024-12-08 17:23:43 +0000 UTC View PostEssay:
Renewers of the Age: Holy Men a...
2024-12-01 21:52:15 +0000 UTC View Post
"Teaching students is hard work for little reward, because when students qualify, the teacher does not always get his pay." - Mtoro Mwinyi Bakari, 1903.
In 1903, one of the earliest foundational works on the anthropology of East African societies was writt...
2024-11-24 13:04:29 +0000 UTC View PostEssay: A history of Horses in the southern half of Africa ca. 1498-1900.
Riding High: Horses, Humans and History in South Africa by Sandra Scott Swa...
2024-11-17 20:18:03 +0000 UTC View Post
The region extending from the Atlantic coast of Congo to the western shores of Lake Tanganyika was home to what is arguably the largest contiguous cloth-producing region on the continent, known as the 'Central African textile belt'.
The Portuguese visitors to 16th-century Kongo described it...
2024-11-10 16:59:58 +0000 UTC View Postmy article: Acemoglu in Kongo: a critique of 'Why Nations Fail' and its wilful ignorance of African history.
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, a...
2024-11-03 19:50:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Among the vast corpus of celebrated artworks from Benin are a handful of sculptures depicting soldiers carrying muskets and a plaque decorated with a miniature cannon. These artworks, which may be the earliest images of firearms in Africa, were produced during one of the most pivotal moments in t...
2024-10-27 15:45:53 +0000 UTC View PostVeils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria By Elisha P. Renne
Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria By Michael J. Watts.
"I did not rest a moment during our
2024-10-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostMeroe: A Civilization of the Sudan by P. L. Shinnie
The Double Kingdom Under Taharqo: Studies in the History of Kush and Egypt, c. 690 – 664 BC by Jeremy W. Pope
Centuries before the Aksumite empire dominated the Red Sea region, the northern Horn of Africa was home to multiple complex societies which flourished in a region at the crossroads of many cultures linking North-East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
Scattered between the modern countries of...
2024-09-29 15:44:47 +0000 UTC View PostA Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea by Samantha Kelly
First Footsteps in East Africa: Or, An Explanation of Harar By Sir Richard ...
2024-09-22 19:29:27 +0000 UTC View Post"I wandered around the city and saw women in it catching men and I thought: this city is the city of madmen, this is the end of the world, this is where you have come to get lost, Amur."
Africans had been exploring and traveling across the old world as envoys, merc...
2024-09-15 13:20:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations Among the Mombasa Swahili by Marc J. Swartz
Fort Jesus and the Portuguese in Mombasa, 1593-1729 by Charles Ralph Boxer, Carlos de Azevedo
Three Swahili Women. Life Histori...
2024-09-08 20:10:32 +0000 UTC View PostA sneak peek into the AfricanHistoryExtra Patreon account, please subscribe to access all my posts.
2024-09-01 19:12:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe Swahili coast of East Africa was one of the world's leading exporters of gold since the middle ages, with about as much gold passing through the port town of Sofala every year in the 15th century as was owned by Mansa Musa --the wealthiest person in history.
The coastal town of Sofala, ...
2024-09-01 13:03:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa by Lynn Meskell
Mapungubwe and the Origins of the Zimbabwe Culture by Thomas N. Huffman
Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The Origin and Spread of social complexity in Southern Africa b...
2024-08-25 18:16:52 +0000 UTC View PostThe kingdom of Kongo, as it appears in 16th century accounts, was, along with Ethiopia, one of only two Christian states in Africa after the fall of medieval Nubia. However, Kongo's global recognition as Christian kingdom by the papacy in Rome and by the kings of Iberia, may obscure the continued...
2024-08-18 13:25:24 +0000 UTC View PostMetals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy By Shadreck Chirikure
Metals in Mandara Mountains Society and Culture edited by Nicholas David
A Comparison of Early and Later Iron Age Societies in the ...
2024-08-11 21:53:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Written in 1576, the chronicles of the kingdom of Bornu contain a curious account of an expedition conducted by King Idrīs Alooma beyond the southern banks of Lake Chad against a king of Wandara who had sought refuge in the mountain fortresses of northern Cameroon.
Beginning in 2002, arche...
2024-08-04 12:53:18 +0000 UTC View PostRural and Urban Islam in West Africa by Nehemia Levtzion, Humphrey J. Fisher
Les états de Kong (Côte d'Ivoire) By Louis Tauxier, Edmond Bernus
La ville de Bobo-Dioulasso au Burkina Faso by Katja Werthmann, Mamadou ...
2024-07-28 12:53:04 +0000 UTC View Post