Page 81 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

Empir E s of m E di E v al w E st africa

shade to many people. He saw one with a hollow trunk that was used as
a weaver’s studio.

The ciTy plan of ghana’S capiTal
There is a good deal of confusion and doubt in identifying the ruins of
Ghana’s capital. In the Soninke oral tradition, the city associated with
the hero Diabi Cissé and the guardian serpent Bida is called “Kumbi.”
The Arab geographer al-Bakri does not mention the name Kumbi. He
and other Arab writers call both the city and its king “Ghana,” and the
region “Awkar.”
Al-Bakri said the capital had wells with good drinking water and
water for cultivating vegetables. The travelers he spoke to led him to
believe that the city was made up of two towns: a Muslim town and the
king’s town. Before sub-Saharan populations became almost entirely
Muslim, it was not unusual for Muslims to have their own neighbor-
hood with their mosques, special food shops, and other necessities. It
is surprising, though, that al-Bakri claims the two towns were six miles
apart. None of the ruins throughout the Sahel have revealed an urban
center that had separate towns six miles apart.
Looking for a likely place to dig for the capital, archaeologists
chose a place still known to local Soninke people as Kumbi Saleh. It
is about 20 miles north of the border that southern Mauritania shares
with western Mali. This site revealed an urban center that had two
sections—although they were not six miles apart. There are also other
ways in which al-Bakri’s description is not the same as what archaeolo-
gists found at Kumbi Saleh.
Some archaeologists and other scholars believe this site is the
“Kumbi” of Soninke oral tradition and the capital described by al-Bakri.
But others are not so sure. An intensive search around the stone ruins
of the site has failed to clearly reveal either the royal quarter or the
kings’ tombs that al-Bakri described. There is no river anywhere near
the site, even though some scholars argue that Ghana’s capital was near
water because the Arab geographer al-Idrisi (1099–1166) said the city of
Ghana consisted of two towns on opposite banks of a river.
The ruins known today as Kumbi Saleh reveal that it was a large
town that covered about one square mile. Some of its features do
resemble al-Bakri’s description. Al-Bakri said the houses were made of
stone and acacia wood, and that is what archaeologists have found in

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