Koumbi Saleh
Koumbi Saleh, or Kumbi Saleh, is the site of a ruined ancient and medieval city in south east Mauritania that may have been the capital of the Ghana Empire. It is also a commune with a population of 11,064 (census 2013). From the ninth century, Arab authors mention the Ghana Empire in connection with the trans-Saharan gold trade. Al-Bakri who wrote in eleventh century described the capital of Ghana as consisting of two towns apart, one inhabited by Muslim merchants, and the other by the king of Ghana. The discovery in 1913 of a 17th-century African chronicle that gave the name of the capital as Koumbi led French archaeologists to the ruins at Koumbi Saleh. Excavations at the site have revealed the ruins of a large Muslim town with houses built of stone and a congregational mosque but no inscription to unambiguously identify the site as that of capital of Ghana. Ruins of the king's town described by al-Bakri have not been found. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the site was occ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Communes Of Mauritania
Commune (administrative division), Communes (, ) are the third and lowest level of administrative subdivision of the Mauritania. There are 238 communes in Mauritania as of 2023. List External linksOfficial site Communes of Mauritania, Subdivisions of Mauritania Lists of administrative divisions, Mauritania, Communes Administrative divisions in Africa, Mauritania 3 Third-level administrative divisions by country, Communes, Mauritania Mauritania geography-related lists {{Mauritania-gov-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Maurice Delafosse
Maurice Delafosse (20 December 1870 – 13 November 1926) was a French ethnographer and colonial official who also worked in the field of the languages of Africa. In a review of his daughter's biography of him he was described as "one of the most outstanding French colonial administrators and ethnologists of his time." Career Delafosse was born on 20 December 1870 in the village of Sancergues in central France. He was the son of René Françoise Célestin Delafosse and Elise Marie Bidault and had five siblings. Delafosse is known for his contributions to West African history and African languages. He began his study of Arabic in 1890 at the École des langues orientales with the renowned orientalist, Octave Houdas. He traveled to Algeria in 1891 with the Frères armés du Sahara, a Catholic organization concerned with combating the Trans-Saharan slave trade. Shortly afterwards, he spent one year in the French military as a zouave, second class, before returning to his formal s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Schist
Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock generally derived from fine-grained sedimentary rock, like shale. It shows pronounced ''schistosity'' (named for the rock). This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes or plates. This texture (geology), texture reflects a high content of platy minerals, such as mica, talc, chlorite group, chlorite, or graphite. These are often interleaved with more granular minerals, such as feldspar or quartz. Schist typically forms during regional metamorphism accompanying the process of mountain building (orogeny) and usually reflects a medium Metamorphism#Metamorphic grades, grade of metamorphism. Schist can form from many different kinds of rocks, including sedimentary rocks such as mudstones and igneous rocks such as tuffs. Schist metamorphosed from mudstone is particularly common and is often very rich in mica (a ''mica schis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Australasia, but is now reserved for species mainly from Australia, with others from New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean. The genus name is Neo-Latin, borrowed from Koine Greek (), a term used in antiquity to describe a preparation extracted from '' Vachellia nilotica'', the original type species. Several species of ''Acacia'' have been introduced to various parts of the world, and two million hectares of commercial plantations have been established. Description Plants in the genus ''Acacia'' are shrubs or trees with bipinnate leaves, the mature leaves sometimes reduced to phyllodes or rarely absent. There are 2 small stipules at the base of the leaf, but sometimes fall off as the leaf matures. The flowers are borne in spik ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Nara, Mali
Nara ( Bambara: ߣߊߙߊ tr. Nara) is a town and rural commune in the Koulikoro Region of southwestern Mali. The town is the administrative center of the Nara Cercle. It is about , south of the international border with Mauritania and approximately , by road, northeast of the Malian capital, Bamako Bamako is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Mali, with a 2022 population of 4,227,569. It is located on the Niger River, near the rapids that divide the upper and middle Niger valleys in the southwestern part of the country. Bamak .... The rural commune covers an area of and includes the town and 16 surrounding villages.. In the 2009 census the commune had a population of 19,793. Climate References External links *. Communes of Koulikoro Region {{Koulikoro-geo-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Awdaghost
Aoudaghost also transliterated as Awadaghust, Awdughast, Awdaghusht, Awdaghost, and Awdhaghurst () is a former Berber town in Hodh El Gharbi, Mauritania. It was an important oasis town at the southern end of a trans-Saharan caravan route that is mentioned in a number of early Arabic manuscripts. The archaeological ruins at Tegdaoust in southern Mauritania are thought to be the remains of the medieval town. History The earliest mention of Aoudaghost is by al-Yaqubi in his ''Kitab al-Buldan'' completed in 889-890 in which he described the town as being controlled by a tribe of the Sanhaja and situated 50 stages south of Sijilmasa across the Sahara Desert. "It is the residence of their king who has no religion or law. He raids the land of the Sudan who have many kingdoms." In 962, the city conquered Awgham with an army of 100,000 camel cavalry. Over 20 kings of the Sudan paid Awdaghost tribute. From Ibn Hawqal writing in around 977 we learn that the distance from Aoudaghost to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Berbers
Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arab migrations to the Maghreb, Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connections are identified by their usage of Berber languages, most of them mutually unintelligible, which are part of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They are indigenous peoples, indigenous to the Maghreb region of North Africa, where they live in scattered communities across parts of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and to a lesser extent Tunisia, Mauritania, northern Mali and northern Niger. Smaller Berber communities are also found in Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa Oasis. Descended from Stone Age tribes of North Africa, accounts of the Imazighen were first mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Ancient Egyptian writings. From about 2000 BC, Berber languages spread westward from the Nile, Nile Valley across the northern Sahara int ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta (; 24 February 13041368/1369), was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of 30 years from 1325 to 1354, he visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his journeys, titled '' A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling'', commonly known as ''The Rihla''. Ibn Battuta travelled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around , surpassing Zheng He with about and Marco Polo with . Name "Ibn Battuta" is a patronymic, literally meaning 'son of a duckling'. His most common full name is given as Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta. In his travelogue, '' The Rihla'', he gives his full name as " Shams al-Din Abu ’Abdallah Muhammad ibn ’Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf Lawati al- Tanji ibn Battuta". Early life All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the au ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |