Great Zimbabwe's stone city
A capital of dry-stone walls — up to eleven metres high, laid without mortar — housed a kingdom that controlled gold and ivory trade to the Swahili coast.
Humanity
115 events across three thousand years — chosen to be multi-regional and honest about uncertainty. Follow a thread to trace one capability through time, or filter by region and kind.
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Timbuktu's Sankore circle copies and writes
At Saharan trade crossroads, Timbuktu's mosques and the Sankore circle sustained a book trade and scholarship in law, astronomy and medicine; hundreds of thousands of manuscripts survive.
Mansa Musa's hajj puts Mali on the map
The Mali emperor's pilgrimage to Mecca, with a caravan of gold and followers, was so lavish that it depressed gold prices in Egypt for years.
Ibn Khaldun writes the Muqaddimah
Writing in Qalat Ibn Salama, Ibn Khaldun analyzed how states rise and fall through asabiyya — group solidarity — economics, climate and cohesion.
Chronology
Great Zimbabwe's stone city
A capital of dry-stone walls — up to eleven metres high, laid without mortar — housed a kingdom that controlled gold and ivory trade to the Swahili coast.
Timbuktu's Sankore circle copies and writes
At Saharan trade crossroads, Timbuktu's mosques and the Sankore circle sustained a book trade and scholarship in law, astronomy and medicine; hundreds of thousands of manuscripts survive.
Mansa Musa's hajj puts Mali on the map
The Mali emperor's pilgrimage to Mecca, with a caravan of gold and followers, was so lavish that it depressed gold prices in Egypt for years.
Ibn Khaldun writes the Muqaddimah
Writing in Qalat Ibn Salama, Ibn Khaldun analyzed how states rise and fall through asabiyya — group solidarity — economics, climate and cohesion.