Gone Medieval - Medieval Africa

Episode Date: June 12, 2021

It’s no secret that Africa’s early history is documented quite differently from its European counterparts, relying instead on elements such as oral traditions and art. Anthropologist and historian, Luke Pepera, studies the true histories, mythologies, and cultures of Africa. He joins Matt in this episode to explore what these materials can tell us about Medieval Africa. They delve into the identities and societies of the continent, examining its international connections, trade transport, and wealth, and how all of this is reflected in the life of Mansa Musa. To hear more from Luke, check out this documentary on History Hit: https://access.historyhit.com/videos/africa-written-out-of-history Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Matt Lewis and on today's show I'm delighted to be joined by Luke Pepperer who's here to discuss medieval Africa. I have to confess that I come to my medieval history from a very Anglo-centric point of view and when I look for context it's rarely much further than southern Europe. So I'm coming to medieval African history from a place of ignorance here and looking to learn a lot from Luke as we go through these stories of medieval Africa today. So thank you very much for joining us, Luke.

Thank you for having me. I must be here, right? Great to have you here. And I guess one of the first questions I want to get into is when we think about medieval Africa, what are our sources for examining the history of Africa? Well, I think for Africa in general, the most important source is definitely the oral history. I mean, Africa has an traditionally been a illiterate culture, well, with the exception perhaps of ancient Egyptian civilization. But actually,

especially when you're talking about a lot of the societies of ancient Africa and of medieval Africa as well, oral history is the most important. It's important for finding out not only histories of the people who lived, how ordinary people lived,

but also where they came from. And, you know, mythologies, origin stories, migrations, movements, cultures, stories about kings and battles and gods, all that type of stuff is contained in the oral history. And in most African societies, you have classes of storytellers who are basically charged with keeping the stories of their people. So in West African societies, for example, and they even exist now today in places like Mali, you have the Grillo, who are a special class of stories.

storytellers who recorded the exploits of not only the people, but of kings as well, and some might even be assigned when, let's say a young king, for example, in Malian society during the time of the Malian Empire or of the Malian Empire, when a young prince was assigned a greo who would collect their stories and stories of their achievements and exploits and that kind of thing. And another also very important part is the archaeological record. So this is not only the archaeology of things like buildings and the architectural record, buildings and settlements and that kind of thing or tools to give an indication of what people were doing in the activities that we're engaged in, but also things like artwork, you know,

aspects of culture. Artwork is huge. Cultural practices, some of which are super ancient, are huge. So things like dancers and songs, the latter of which kind of fits into the oral tradition. But you have, for example, in places like the Eddip people of Modern Day Nigeria, and also the Yoraba people of Iphi as well, who were also in modern day, Nigeria, who were just insane, like excellent craftsmen

and in their art is told, you know, the story and the beliefs of the people. The bronze casting tradition was a huge part of talking about the beliefs and the stories of the people. And the last important thing is probably the written records of especially Arab travelers, who, because when you have the expansion of Islam and then you have Arabs or people from, you know, the Islamic world in Arabia, traveling and trading across not only North Africa, but also further south

into the forest regions, especially near the coasts and what we're talking about, for example, West Africa. And, you know, they're traveling there, they're trading there, that they're collecting the stories of merchants who've also traveled there and are writing them down. and those are really, really important resources for understanding some aspects of mainly of things like political development and economic development and just how things worked in society. And did they tend to collect the ancient older oral traditions and write them down? Or were they almost starting from scratch with creating a new record of Africa from an Islamic

point of view? I think for them, the most important things, at least for the Arab travelers and traders, the most important thing was definitely collecting knowledge about how the societies function. I think part of that was also pragmatic. You know, if you wanted to engage with these societies, you had to know a bit about them. And, you know, some of that information was useful for helping later travellers and later scholars and later traders engage with these cultures and interact with them. Where the recording of things like mythology and stories and that kind of stuff becomes

where people become much more concerned with that is actually during the clono, because that's when anthropology as a discipline comes into his own. It's sort of much later in the 19th and 20th century. So it's really European anthropologists who are really want to understand things like, you know, the mythology and how that relates to the way in which people think about the world and then how that in turn relates to the way in which people act in the world. But no, Arab travelers are definitely much more concerned with, okay, how does the society kind of work on a pragmatite level? A bit of the history, like who were the early kings. It's almost, or geared towards building up political trade and economic relationships as well

and helping other people to understand those aspects of Africa and societies. So is it fair to say that a lot of the written record of medieval Africa in terms of capturing that oral history is kind of a result of other people visiting Africa? So not much of it comes from within Africa. It's kind of an Islamic desire to interact with Africa, followed by a colonial Europe, European desire to interact with Africa. I mean, it's always just the nature of African societies, the world tradition is the most important. And the problem, I guess, of the oral tradition is very, very difficult to say how much the story has changed over generations.

The stories that are told now in Mali about the founder of the Mali empire, Sondiata Keta, you know, would be 800, 900 years old. So the Africans are definitely concerned with keeping a record. But, you know, the importance, and I think this goes for African cultures generally not only in the ancient. and medieval words, but also today, you know, history is about identity. I think if you think about history from either an Arab or a European point of view, it's almost like about a chronicle of the past. It's about, you know, recording and understanding events. And it's less to do perhaps with how people see themselves and fostering community and that

kind of thing, which is exactly what it's about in Africa. The reason, and it's part of why Africans haven't tended, I guess, to record. We don't really tend to record things exactly or specifically how they happened in terms of real on the ground events, real world events, because the point of history for us is about understanding, you know, who we are and how our community comes together. It's to do with all these very much more like sort of esoteric relationships to do with understanding of ourselves and understanding each other, but from an identity point of view. So I think my exposure to a lot of medieval history is going to be kind of monkish chronicles in this country. And they tend to take, you know, in this year this happened, the next year that happened, the next year the king died, the next year something else happened. And it can be kind of really dry and uninformative because there's no talking about events that surrounded that or anything that happened. So it sounds like maybe the African oral tradition is a bit more vibrant, but a bit more fluid, you know, less concerned with the facts and more with the feet.

and the sense of an attachment to your history? Definitely. I mean, I think also another part of is that with the European historical tradition as well for kings, you know, part of what their recording is so that, you know, almost that their achievement to them are kind of immortalised, you know, in history as well, and that their families are immortalised. And then you also have a certain kind of legitimacy. Because it might also, for example, to do with things like primogeniture,

the fact that you want to keep power on the same family, whereas in most African societies, It's like, for example, in the empire of Ghana, you know, succession is matrilineal. So the king's sister's son who inherits. And the reason for that is that though the king himself can never really know if a child is his. It's just the nature of the way, you know, sexual interaction works with the differences between men and women, is that when a woman obviously gives birth a child, there's no way you can deny the parentage of that child. So that's why it happens that way, so that you know that that child is related in some way, shape or form to the current ruler. But then I think also immortality in African societies is also much more to do with the material and the physical than it is to do with the literature.

I mean, if you compare, you have something maybe like the biotapstri, which is like art, or you have, like you say, the chronicles of the monks. Whereas in Africa, we'd have things like monuments, you know, you have things like the pyramids. have a lot of art and architecture, same thing with the Ben and Bronzes. But then I also, I think Africans as well being, just because we are quite an, you know, an ancient culture as well, we just realize the intransigence of things. I mean, it doesn't matter how accurate you are on recording, you know, certain events at some point, especially when you know that your society, because I think by the time even we get to the medieval era, African societies are close to being 4,000 years old, like at least civilizetian-speaking. If we're going to about 3,000, yeah, 3,000

disease was like 4,000, 5,000 years old. You know, we're thinking about it from that perspective, potentially even older. So you realize that after that much, when certain things have been forgotten, et cetera, is more about shoring up identity in the present than it is necessarily about trying to keep a record of yourself so that you all be remembered in hundreds or thousands of years hence, because we just understand that's not the nature of you, you know, at some point we all, you know, will be forgotten. We all, you know, we all move on, you know, people move on, that kind of thing. So it's not about trying to maintain that kind of immortality in the written record.

Maybe that runs in parallel to that matrilineal descent idea, because obviously in European monarchical cultures, it's all about the king having a son who will succeed him and his dynasty will ideally be on the throne forever. So presumably a lot of the kings in African society don't have that kind of weight on their shoulders because they'll be king and then it will go to a nephew, but it definitely won't be their son. So it may be their dynasty, but dynasty is something much broader than the fruit of your own loins. This is the thing. Dynasty is much broader, communities much broader as well. And this is part of the, and I think also maybe it's the nature of what the oral tradition is recording because actually a lot of the oral tradition, for example,

it's concerned with the people more generally. When they're talking about individuals, they're usually talking about the founders, Ashanti tradition, or like in a can tradition, you know, the tribe that I'm from, you know, a lot of what is recorded is about the individuals that are recorded. Something major, which helps to explain Ashanti origins. Either they migrated, you know, to a certain place or they conquered certain peoples or they, you know, they did like really, really major things which helps people to understand who they truly are. Helps the Ashanti to understand who they truly are. Same thing. Well, like the Empire, Malay. I mean, the story, for example, mainly concerns Sundiata Kata. So one of the main

stories in the Mali oral tradition is the epic of Sundiata, but that is about the founder of Mali. Yeah, so kind of named individuals are much more like anchors. They're like pins in the map around which you build the story. Exactly. So you don't record every, or even in like in the Yorabar tradition, you have, you know, kings like Oduwa of Ife. There were other important figures who were so revered in their own time that actually been elevated to the level of gods. So like Sango, Obatala,

these were all people who lived, who were real people. But, you know, they did something extraordinary, which is why you record. Because I think this is also part of the thing, maybe the difference in Europe is that, you know,

we have a record of a lot of monarchs who really didn't do much. And do we have a sense of how connected medieval Africa is both across the continent of Africa, also with other continents and cultures outside of Africa? This period, you know, this medieval sort of 1,000 to 1,500 AD, is probably the period in which Africa, with the exception perhaps of arguably the modern world, is when Africa is definitely the most connected, not only regionally, but also internationally.

A good place probably to begin is with the Trans-Haharan trade network. So this is something that all, first, probably talking about the Indian Ocean trade network. So this is East African countries who begin to be trading with North Africa and with the Arab world across the Indian Ocean and then as well across the Indian Ocean to India and then China as well. But in the period where you have not only the Silk Road trade, which becomes a huge part of the international trade at this time, but just before you get into the medieval period, you have the unification of North Africa by the Rashidun Caliphate.

So this is like the formation of like the big Caliphate, like the huge Islamic Empire, which just controls like huge, it just because of like most of Arabia and just and Persia, later on controls Persia and then huge swathes of North Africa as well. And when they come into Paris well, their elite desire luxury items in order to stamp their prestige and show off, the demand just increases hugely. That demand makes African societies wealthier as well and leads to the development of more complex society and more complex trade relationships. Essentially, to summarize, I mean, Africa, the African states are connected, not only regionally. So East African states are connected, no need to African states in the interior,

which themselves are connected to African states on the west coast. So East African states were places like Kilwa, this is like modern day Kenya and modern day Mozambique, which are hugely important because they have access not only to North Africa and the Arab world and then also to India and China. They grow hugely wealthy. And then you have the West African states. And another important thing to mention is the domestication of the camel in around the fourth century also, again, leads to an explosion in Transaharan trade because it's,

before people are using horses, but obviously camels are much better equipped to the environment. So this is how actually states like Ghana become important, because Ghana lies in between the gold-rich forest regions and society slightly further off, which is sort of just below the Sahara. Those communities have a huge demand for gold, which is coming from the south. So caravans are moving, are collecting gold from the south. and moving across to the north, and then caravans from the north, which have salt, are moving down south.

So you have this, you know, this interchange. And then gold, as well as being transported further afield. I mean, it's reaching places like Europe where it's used in jewelry and it's used in paintings. Like a lot of the gold leaf and the gold decorations in European paintings at this time are actually gold, which is brought from modern day Marley and Mauritania. It's actually where it's coming from.

And then probably one of the. more interesting stories as well to end on is he have travelers like Zheng He, who was this Chinese traveler who reaches Africa in the late 1410s. It's about 1417. So he's basically sent on a diplomatic mission initially to the states around China, sort of in the Indian Ocean, but he goes further afield and he reaches East Africa and he brings back things like ivory. And he takes back a giraffe as well. Initially, he receives a giraffe from the Sultan of Bengal, and he takes the giraffe back to his emperor, the Yong'al emperor, he's the Ming Dynasty emperor. And in China, the giraffe is kind of revered as a mythical animal, the equivalent of like a Chinese unicorn. So he sent

to Africa itself, because he hadn't actually gone there previously. So he sent to Africa to bring back more of these creatures, as well as to see what other treasures are there. He trades in exchange for things like pottery and Chinese ceramics, which are still actually being found to this day. He takes back with him giraffes and some East African ambassadors who spent some time in China before being taken back. So there is actually direct contact in this period between China and Africa and East Africa. But so Africa is literally connected to the North Africa, so the Arab world, India, China, Europe and the Mediterranean. And the Mediterranean. And it's a crucial part of those trade networks because it's so resource rich.

The most important things for the intensification of that trade are the Islamic unification of North Africa, those conquests that take place around the 7th and 8th century, and then also the domestication of the camel, which allows for better and much more efficient trans-Saharan trade. Okay, Tristan, you got 50 seconds. go right so dan's given me a few seconds to sell the ancients podcast what is the ancients i hear you say well it's like dan's show except just ancient history we've got the groundbreaking new archaeological discoveries this seems to be the oldest known dated depiction of the animal world as far as we can tell anywhere in the world we've got the big names it's one of those great things pompe it's

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Spread the word. Resource rich was definitely what I was going to say, because I think especially gold, salt, desirable things like that, I think if you look at African history from the position we're in now, it's easy to see that being about exploitation of the continent. Whereas in the medieval period, it seems much more like it's desirable. So they're building trade links with places like Europe for the gold in the north.

But India and China, you know, China is quite an open nation during this period as well, keen to interact with the rest of the world. So Africa becomes kind of almost a hub for all of this trade going in every which direction, rather than it being about the exploitation that we probably think about today. That's exactly right. You actually see from a lot of the writings of Arab travelers, whatever they visit places like the East African states. I mean, some of the, you know, the East African states were just incredibly beautiful, just buildings made of like stone and coral and just exceptionally wealthy. And, you know, in a lot of these writings, the out travelers are saying, you know, some of these African cities, whether it is early Benin or whether it is Kumbesale, which is the capital of Ghana, whether it's places like Timbuktu or Gao,

or Kilwa, they're saying, these are some of the most beautiful cities in the world. And even one Arab historian describes the king of Ghana as being the richest king in the world. And in fact, he has so much gold, for example, that he has to, in order to stop

the price depreciating, he basically bans other people from other people in his kingdom from having gold nuggets. And he's allowed, they can only trade in gold dust, and he has access to all the nuggets. And that's just because if you're released it ordinarily, there'd just be so much at the price it would depreciate. But Africans even themselves aren't that interested in gold,

except as a currency for which they can trade things like salt, which is important. Not only for nutrition and diet, but also for things like preservation. So it sounds like the arrival of Islam was a really key turning point in the history, at least of North Africa. So it helped to solidify the trade routes and build lots of those links. How did Islam interact with existing religions in Africa when it arrived. For the most part, actually quite peacefully, when Islam traders are coming to states in places like West Africa, for example, they're not only tolerated themselves,

but they also tolerate the animist beliefs of the indigenous people. Aspects like, you know, the belief that every creature has like a soul and everything in the universe is connected and there can be interactions between people of this world and the next one and everything is contained in this, you know, huge network of relationships, of spiritual relationships. You know, another thing to remember is that in medieval Africa as well, I mean, those who are more likely to adopt religions like Islam, these big continental or regional religions are

the elites. You know, the normal people actually tend to keep their own beliefs. They don't actually tend to convert. It's really the elites only. And this is, in a big, this is a big part, you know, a diplomatic tool. Even in Ghana, in the 12th century, the empire of Ghana, is that you have the capital, Kumbisal, is actually made up of two distinct cities. So there's actually an entire Muslim city, which has like 12 mosques.

And this is actually where all the traders, like, well, the, you know, the Muslim Arab traders live and go to and, you know, interact, etc. And you have the indigenous, you know, the Ghana people, the Sunniqa, have. believe they're called, who go to the city and they are trading with the Islamic traders. But then also you have this whole other city, which is where the king's palaces, which is called El Gaba, and is where the machinery, the main machinery of the state is. These cities are only separated by like 10 kilometers. So they're linked, but they're very, very separate.

And the Islamic quarter was actually basically, or the Islamic city was basically the trading city. and the other city was basically the royal city. Islam, technologically speaking, it's actually really, really important. And in that time, in sort of the medieval era, Islam had some of the finest scholars and writers, you know, and theorists and lawyers and all that type of stuff. So being connected to Islam is not only about trade, it's literally about, you know, making your states in general better. It's actually one of the key reasons Mansomu goes on his pilgrimage is because he knows that in Mecca,

he's going to see and meet important and competent lawyers and that kind of thing. And he actually is part of his plan actually is to bring back lawyers from Mecca to help him further develop Mali and scholars as well to help him develop, you know, the university there. So he wouldn't have been able to do actually a lot of their stuff that he did if he wasn't connected to Islam and to the important Muslim states that were some of the most powerful and riches and most technologically advanced in the world, you know, especially at that time. So Matsumice was quite an interesting guy in his own right, isn't he? He was ruler of Mali. He's born in about 1280. It's interesting even how he becomes the ruler of Mali because I think it was his uncle wants to sail across the Atlantic.

So his uncle tries to sail across the Atlantic. And basically before he goes, he makes him his regent. Initially, his uncle had basically sent a fleet across the Indian Ocean. But, it failed, like it, you know, it didn't come back or maybe like one or two ships come back. So he decided he was going to send a bigger fleet, which he himself was going to go with and try and reach the lands across the Atlantic Ocean. But he never comes back. So Mansomusa becomes by default emperor because he was basically made emperor before he left because he didn't come back. He stays emperor. And he becomes so famous and well known because he goes on a big pilgrimage to Mecca. Is it true? That's because he accidentally killed his mom? It's quite an interest and actually that he, you know, he accidentally kills his mother and he goes to the diviner and says,

what do I need to do to make this right? And the diviner says, you know, you have to take this pilgrimage as a form of penance. But I think another thing that's key to mention is that this trip is also a diplomatic trip as well. So I'd find it difficult that after killing his mom and deciding to go on this trip and penance, he's like, yeah, might as well also, you know, make a bit of cash out. You know what I mean? It just doesn't, it doesn't sit right with me. Exactly. It doesn't really sit right with me, especially because in Mali as well, I mean, in African societies in Germany, you know, matriarchs are important, probably the most respected part of like a family. Is there a possibility that that's almost looking to make up a religious motivation for

it was essentially a political decision? That's possible. I think that's very possible. Whether or not it was his first haj or if it was just one which he knew was going to be so much bigger than the others because he was going as well with a different purpose of mine. Because part of this trip is about showing off the wealth and the power of Mali. It's about building diplomatic and political and economic ties. That's what the trip is about. So I think it actually, maybe you're right as that if that was too transparent, then for especially various, very pious Muslims, it wouldn't have been seen as, you know,

a legitimate reason to make such a holy pilgrimage. So that's very possible, yeah. you know, when he gets to Egypt and he meets, you know, the Sultan there. Initially, he doesn't actually want to meet him. He doesn't want to, he's camping outside the city. He's invited in. He's creating a hubbub. The Sultan of Egypt basically wants to find out what's going on.

When he realizes that there's this other monarch, he basically invites him in Manasamusa not to be rude agrees. He goes into the city. But he doesn't actually want to meet the Sultan himself because he knows that you'll have to bow down to him. and he doesn't want to bow down to him because, you know, again, part of the strippers about showing off the wealth and prestige of money

doesn't make sense then to go to someone's territory and then have to sort of subjugate yourself. After he meets with the Sultan, he's very, very happy for his people, for example, to walk around Cairo, the walk around the city, and they're just buying up the entire place. That's when so much gold was spent. And the Egyptian merchants are hiking up their prices,

like five times, ten times. And that's what leads to the devaluation of the currency, that mass inflation. because the Malians, when they get there, spend so much gold. And Mansamusa himself spends so much gold buying Egyptian wares, that there's just so much gold now circulating in Egypt that it doesn't become valuable anymore. You know, so many people have it.

And then what he intends to do is that he says, okay, I'll borrow the gold back until I get back to Mali. So he borrows the gold, and again, the Egyptian merchants, in order to make a bit more of a profit, but they hike up their interest rates. And when he gets back to Mali, He pays off the entire debt in one lump sum. So again, he basically bankrupts the economy again because there's just so much gold again.

You messed up the Egyptian economy for 10 years with it, you know, in the space of like a few months, just with those two payments. I did read somewhere that he was thought to have been perhaps the richest man ever to have lived in history. But then again, he also had to contend with the ethnic groups and the tribes who were living in the forest region, who actually had access to the god, which again, he had to appease them by not forcibly converting them to Islam and that kind of stuff. This is the funny thing. Manticomusican probably is indirectly responsible for what happens afterwards in terms of

the stage of colonialism, not because he does anything himself, but the pilgrimage is such a big feat, such a big achievement that it puts Africa on the map, both literally and figuratively, puts Africa on Abraham Crest's map, which I believe is done in like the 1370s. But it's very soon after that that Europeans basically start trying to reach the coast of Africa. Because now there's a story, confirm stories about this settlement, this society, so wealthy in gold. So you have actually a lot of, you know, you have a few ships that are trying to reach West African coast. Some of them actually fail and are shipwrecked. And then you have the first sort of Europeans reaching the African coast first and probably at least the West African coast first and about the 14,

30s, but it is basically in trying to find that gold that Europeans start making inroads into Africa. So he's sort of indirectly motivated that greed which led to a lot of the later dynamics, which has, you know, have affected Africa to this day. Yeah. So do you think it's maybe fair to say that if we think there might have been a more political than religious aspect to Mansomu's decision to go on is harsh, that, He's gone there, seemingly his interactions with the sort of Egypt,

suggests that maybe he's gone there to see what is out there for Mali. So in terms of those legal structures that you're talking about, bringing back lawyers and things like that, is he going on an almost fact-finding mission to see what's out there that he could bring back to Mali to improve Mali? And what he actually accidentally does is highlight the wealth of Mali that then turns some fairly jealous eyes on Mali. You know, for him it's actually about improving the society itself,

Marley in society itself, which is why when he comes back, he develops the cultural aspects of Mali, starts with, you know, the universities and starts with education. He starts with those kinds of things. But he releases news of the wealth of Mali, and he kind of promotes that. But that's so that people, after hearing about that wealth, will see Mali as a place that they want to be in, which they do. Like a lot of Islamic scholars come, you know, Muslim scholars come to Mali, you know, mainly into the university and because it has more books than anywhere else and because, you know, the patronage is very generous and that kind of thing. That's actually why a lot of people are coming, so some do. But then also it coincides as well with slightly

later on with, you know, better navigation technologies and better shipbuilding and those kinds of things. So it's sort of, I think the timing is a part in the later events, you know, why certain later events happen. So if there was one archaeological site in Africa that you could visit, where would you like to go? What would you want to find there? One site that I would be really, really keen to go to, actually, is the site of Great Zimbabwe. It's basically the site in southern Africa, and it's these huge, like, stone circles, like stone settlements. And you have some which are sort of on hills and some which are lower down. And the walls are literally like 10 feet tall. And they always create these stone passageways

through which you can kind of weave and the elites built their own stone sentiment, the great enclosure I believe is called at the top you know, I like the top of the hill and then all these other slightly smaller stone sentiments were slightly down

and it's just, and I think it's just the technology and the know-how to create structures like that there's just always astounded me and I really wanted to see it firsthand because you know, I mean, these are just hugely heavy stones which are just put one on top of, you know, almost one on top of the other.

But the site that I wish I could go to, which unfortunately doesn't exist, be the wars of Benin. So the Benin kingdom. This was slightly later after the reign of Aware, the Great. So we're getting more into kind of the, into like the 17th century, because it's a bit after his reign. But he basically builds these huge wars, which made up the main, you know, the main part of the kingdom of Benin.

And they were raised to the ground. I think some deteriorated sort of by themselves, some were raised to the ground after the punitive expedition in 18907. You can see like some pictures of them, which gives an idea of the scale or at least some artist renderings. But apparently put together, they were longer than like the Great Wall of China. And I would love to have seen, you know, I wish there still existed so you could see those. But then again, another aspect of, you know, African, African history as well. And it's partly, I think it's also partly maybe a curse of being an ancient culture is that again, realizing the intransigence of things.

So even when it comes to things like architecture, art, treasures and that kind of stuff, it's only worth kind of preserving or continuing to understand if it fits into people's, you know, identity. I think and identity is important because community is important. I mean, for most African, you know, for African people and, you know, I think throughout most of history and prehistory and even today, community is the most important thing. So things which help to foster community. And I think, you know, for human, I mean, this is for human beings generally, but I think Africans have a very deep and intuitive understanding of that. So anything which helps to foster, and this is not just sort of immediate family, but anything that helps to foster close to communities or, you know, the Nash,

communities or region communities are important, believing a common story, mythologies, understanding of origins, you know, understanding of ethnic identity, those kinds of things, understanding of beliefs and having common understanding of beliefs are important for fostering community. But they help form identity and they help people form identity in relation, not only to the massage, but in relation to other peoples. Which I guess brings us right back to that idea that it's the story that matters more than the person's name. Recording the king is less important than recording the story of what people contribute. That's exactly it.

And, you know, the Great Zimbabwe is one big example of that. Also, some of the mosques in Mali, for example, some of the buildings of Mali. You know, some actually built during some buildings built during Manse's time, which still stand, which he might have himself, you know, invented, you know. That kind of, you feel that direct connection with the past, definitely when you interact with objects and buildings like that. It's been such an intriguing topic. I think we've barely scratched the surface of medieval Africa.

I definitely feel like I've learned a lot and I hope the listeners have too. So thank you, Luke, for that incredible guide through the story of medieval Africa. If you found it interesting and you'd like to hear more on Gone Medieval, then subscribe wherever you get your podcast from and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. And while I have you, I'll suggest giving a listen to an episode of the Ancients podcast, also from History Hit, entitled Women and Power in Ancient Egypt, in which Tristan speaks to Kara Cooney about six of the female pharaohs

who helped shape ancient Egypt. Anyway, I'd better let you all go. I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with history hit.