Koumbi Saleh
Koumbi Saleh ( Arabic كومبي صالح, DMG Kūmbī Ṣāliḥ ) also Kumbi Saleh; was most likely the capital of the Black African Empire of Ghana . The excavation site is located in the southeast of Mauritania .
location
The settlement mound is located at the transition from the West African Sahara to the south adjoining Sudan zone about 20 kilometers north of the Mali border. The access road branches off in Timbedgha from the main road between Ayoun el Atrous and Néma and leads 70 kilometers to the south. Kumbi Saleh is located around 120 kilometers southwest of Néma.
history
A Gana empire is first mentioned in Arabic sources around 800. The two chronicles from Timbuktu , which reproduce oral traditions from the 17th century, mention the capital of Ghana under two different names: madīnat Ghāna "City of Ghana" ( Ta'rikh al-Sudan ) and Qunbi ( Ta'rikh al-Fattash ) . The Ghana capital is described differently by Arab geographers like al-Bakrī , so it is also conceivable that it was in different places between the southeast region of today's Mauritania and the area of Timbuktu in Tendirma .
According to estimates by R. Mauny, it is said to have housed 20,000 inhabitants in the 11th century. Divided into two large districts, the northern quarter with twelve mosques was mainly inhabited by Muslim traders from North Africa. This was the city's trading center, while the previously undiscovered southern part, known as al-ghāba ("the forest"), is said to have been the location of the royal palace. Residential areas stretched between the two districts ten kilometers away.
In the early 13th century, King Soumaoro Kanté Sosso of the Tekrur region is said to have used the city as a base for his army. The city was later abandoned. From 1914 onwards, several excavation campaigns took place under French leadership.
literature
- Sophie Berthier: Recherches archéologiques sur la capitale de l'empire de Ghana. Etude d'un secteur, d'habitat à Koumbi Saleh, Mauritanie. Campagnes II-III-IV-V (1975-1976), (1980-1981) (= Cambridge Monographs in African Archeology. 41 = BAR. International Series. 680). Archaeopress, Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-86054-868-6 .
- Nehemia Levtzion, JFP Hopkins (ed.): Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (= Fontes historiae Africanae. Series Arabica. 4). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1981, ISBN 0-521-22422-5 .
- Raymond Mauny: Tableau géographique de l'ouest africain au Moyen-Âge d'après les sources écrites, la tradition et l'archéologie (= Mémoires de l'Institut français d'Afrique noire. 61, ZDB -ID 974092-2 ). IFAN, Dakar 1961.
- Raymond Mauny, Paul Thomassey: Campagne de fouilles à Koumbi Saleh. In: Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire. Vol. 13, No. 2, 1951, pp. 438-462 .
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 15 ° 45 ′ 55.8 " N , 7 ° 58 ′ 7.3" W.