Where the Middle Ages Begin
An exceptionally well-preserved example of a medieval Swahili stonetown on the coast of East Africa will be excavated by an international team of archaeologists from the Universities of York, Bristol, Bournemouth and Rice this summer thanks to £500,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The dig at […]
Archaeological Investigations at Songo Mnara, Tanzania, 2009 By Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Jeffrey Fleisher Nyame Akuma: Bulletin of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists, Vol. 73 (2010) Introduction: Songo Mnara, in the Kilwa archipelago on the southern coast of Tanzania, is the setting for a new research project exploring the use of space across a Swahili urban […]
The development of urbanism in the northern Horn of Africa in ancient and medieval times By Rodolfo Fattovich The Development of Urbanism from a Global Perspective, edited by P.J.J.. Sinclair (Uppsala University, 1996) Introduction: The aim of this paper is to outline the development of urbanism in the northern Horn of Africa from prehistoric to […]
Ambassadors, Explorers, and Allies: A Study of African-European Diplomatic Relationships, 1400-1600 By Andrea Felber Seligman CUREJ – College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal (2007) Abstract: The thesis, “Ambassadors, Explorers, and Allies: a Study of African-European Diplomatic Relationships, 1400-1600,” examines the often overlooked close ties between parts of Africa and Europe in this era. While many in […]
An Important Waypoint on Passage of Navigation History: Zheng He’s Sailing to West Ocean By Jin Ding, Chaojian Shi and Adam Weintrit Paper given at the 7th International Navigational Symposium (2007) Abstract: Zheng He, a famous Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral of Ming Dynasty, sailed from China to many places throughout South Pacific, […]
Pre-Colonial Criminal Justice In West Africa: Eurocentric Thought Versus Africentric Evidence By David Dalgleish African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, Vol.1:1 (2005) Abstract: Through the process of Eurocentric pro-colonialist propaganda people have been, and continue to be, led to assume that the European colonialists brought criminal justice and law and order to Africa. This […]
Monogamy in Islam: The case of a Tunisian Marriage Contract By Dalenda Largueche Occasional Paper of the IAS School of Social Science (2010) Introduction: At the beginning of 1462, under the rule of the Emir hafside Abû ‘Amru ‘Uthmân (1435-1478), a judicial case involving a wife and her husband became so serious in the city of […]
The Western Sudan in the Middle Ages: Underdevelopment in the Empires of the Western Sudan By A. G. Hopkins Past and Present, Vol. 36:1 (1967) Introduction: Professor M. Malowist has made a bold attempt to interpret the causes of economic backwardness in the empires of Mali and Songhai, drawing on comparisons with eastern Europe in […]
Ibn al-Lihyani: sultan of Tunis and would-be Christian convert (1311–18) By Michael Lower Mediterranean Historical Review, Vol. 24:1 (2009) Abstract: The fifteenth century is often seen as a turning point in Iberian Christian relations with North Africa, with the crusading rhetoric of recovery, or recuperatio, giving way after 1492 to the language of conquest and conversion, […]
The Almohads: The Rise of an Islamic Empire By Allen J. Fromherz IB Tauris, 2010 ISBN: 9781845116514 How did an obscure Islamic visionary found an empire? The Almohad Empire at its zenith in the 12th century was the major power in the Mediterranean and North Africa, ruling a huge region from the Atlas Mountains to […]
The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta: Uncommon Tales of a Medieval Adventurer By David Waines I.B. Tauris, 2010 ISBN: 978 184511 805 1 Summary: Ibn Battuta was, without doubt, one of the world’s truly great travelers. Born in fourteenth-century Morocco, and a contemporary of Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta left an account in his own words of […]
Radiocarbon testing has revealed that a pair of illustrated gospels kept in a remote monastery in Ethiopia may have been made as early as the 4th century and are perhaps the oldest surviving illustrated Christian works in existence. The Garima Gospels were first reported on in the 1950s, but it has only been within the […]
The Norman conquest of Sicily detached the island from its North African framework, and a century of Latin Christian rule effectively transformed its society. But the island was not completely disconnected from the southern Mediterranean, as long term trade contacts, political links and military ambitions intervened to cast relations between the two sides.
A Chinese in the Nubian and Abyssinian Kingdoms (8th Century): The visit of Du Huan to Molin-guo and Laobosa By Wolbert Smidt Chroniques yéménites, Vol. 9 (2001) Abstract: This article focuses on the first Chinese whose presence in Africa is clearly documented. Due to the geographical curiosity of the T’ang dynasty, extracts of an 8th […]
Sijilmassa: The Rise and Fall of a Walled Oasis in Medieval Morocco By Dale R. Lightfoot and James A. Miller Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 8:1 (1996) Introduction: Sjilmassa, once a great oasis city that organized caravans for gold across the Sahara, lies today inruins along the Wadi Ziz in the Tafilalt […]
The Christian monarch had a dream. God spoke to him: Build churches of rock this will be a New Jerusalem.
The Norman conquest of Sicily, completed by 1091, shifted the largest Mediterranean island away from the sphere of influence of the eastern Maghrib, integrating it into a new Latin Christian framework.
Islamic archaeology in the Iberian peninsula and Morocco By Johnny De Meulemeester Antiquity, Vol.79:306 (2005) Abstract: The author reviews the development of Islamic archaeology in Spain, Portugal and Morocco through its publications and fieldwork, identifying research themes such as ceramic studies, fortified settlement and landscape archaeology, irrigation and urban archaeology. Features excavated in Spain or Portugal can […]
“The first dispensation of Christ is medicinal” : Augustine and Roman medical culture By Shelley Annette Reid PhD Dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2008 Abstract: This study examines the knowledge and use of medicine in the writings of Augustine. An initial overview of Roman medical culture highlights that ancient medicine was both a practical and intellectual activity, […]
Was Procopius recounting history or simply preserving a legend? Did he compose it originally or was it take from another source and inserted merely as a diversion from his main narrative?
The Arabs and the Perception of Ancient Europe By Daniela Amaldi Nations and Nationalities in Historical Perspective, edited by Gudmunður Hálfdanarson and Ann Katherine Isaacs (University of Pisa, 2001) Introduction: Arabic literary expression began in the 6th century A.D. with poems no longer than about a hundred verses, composed and transmitted orally on the Arabian peninsula. The written tradition, which continues […]
Witnesses of God: Exhortatory Preachers in Medieval al-Andalus and the Magreb By Linda G. Jones Al-Qanṭara: Revista de Estudios Arabes, Vol.28:1 (2007) Abstract: This article analyzes the rhetorical and ritual characteristics of pious exhortation (wa‘z ) as practiced in al-Andalus and the Maghreb, based on specimens from two homiletic sources. The texts are considered in light of hagiographical and […]
Enforcing cooperation among medieval merchants: The Maghribi traders revisited By David Harbord Unpublished, 2006 Abstract: We revisit Greif’s (1993) analysis of trade between the 11th-century Maghribi traders and present two different models which bring into play, in an essential way, historical features of the Maghribi’s organization which had no role in Greif’s own analysis. Our reformulation of […]
Western Africa To circa 1860 A.D.: A Provisional Historical Schema Based On Climate Period By George E. Brooks African Studies Program, Indiana University: Occasional Papers, 1985 Synopsis: Overview of climate changes and ecological zones and their relation to the history of West Africa. First several chapters relate to the medieval period. Click here to read/download this […]
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