Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm delaying a chocolate boarding and
Speaker 1: today we're going to be talking about a city of gold.
Speaker 1: But this one existed long before anybody had heard about
Speaker 1: El Dorado with its mythical streets paved in gold. There
Speaker 1: was this city in Mali, and that's this great West
Speaker 1: African empire that was supposedly so rich that slaves could
Speaker 1: carry staffs that were dusted in gold, and even the
Speaker 1: most common objects, like everyday things around your house would
Speaker 1: be made out of this precious metal that was so
Speaker 1: rare in most of the world. Yeah. But the interesting
Speaker 1: thing is for most of the Middle Ages, Europe and
Speaker 1: even paid much attention to Africa beyond its northern trading
Speaker 1: cities at all. But this gold, it really changed things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when a into the British historian Dr Basil Davidson,
Speaker 1: the rulers of Molly were quote rumored to have been
Speaker 1: the wealthiest men on the face of the earth. So
Speaker 1: I would say that would be worth checking out, even
Speaker 1: going across the desert for perhaps, I'd say so. And
Speaker 1: the most illustrious ruler of this empire was Mansa Musa,
Speaker 1: and he expanded territories, developed great cities, and most famously
Speaker 1: displayed his land's wealth and a procession of thousands across Africa.
Speaker 1: And he didn't do this to fight a battle. He
Speaker 1: did it to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. So, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this city of gold, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this ruler who made this
Speaker 1: famous pilgrimage. So who was mons and Musa and where
Speaker 1: did he come from. He came from the Sahel, which
Speaker 1: is this band of land that separates the Sahara from
Speaker 1: the forests of southern Africa. And it's always been an important,
Speaker 1: banned important part of the world because of the trade
Speaker 1: that crosses it. And that really started in about seven
Speaker 1: fifty a d. And lasted until the sixteenth and seventeenth
Speaker 1: centuries when finally ships replaced overland caravans of camels. You
Speaker 1: could do your trading a lot easier by boats. Yes,
Speaker 1: And the first great kingdom of this area was that
Speaker 1: of Ghana. And that's different from the modern nation of
Speaker 1: Ghana that we know today. Yeah, it's not even really
Speaker 1: in the same spot nearby, but not exactly the same.
Speaker 1: But while this kingdom splintered apart, Islamic proselytizing converted much
Speaker 1: of the region to Islam, including ruling families. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: one of these families, the Kayita, started up a new
Speaker 1: kingdom that replaced this empire of Ghana. That was the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of Moli and it's first major leader, the leader
Speaker 1: who brought the family to great power with Scindiata. And
Speaker 1: there's kind of a fun story about the sky from
Speaker 1: the oral tradition. Supposedly he was a really st long child,
Speaker 1: but kind of clumsy on his feet. But there was
Speaker 1: a rule kind of like a king Arthur and the
Speaker 1: stone sort of snory. But there was a challenge. Whoever
Speaker 1: could knock down a fruit from this special tree in
Speaker 1: town and then swallow the pit of that fruit would
Speaker 1: become king. And so this strong, that clumsy boy gave
Speaker 1: it a shot. And most people would try to knock
Speaker 1: down the fruit by throwing rocks or some sort of
Speaker 1: object at it, and it wouldn't work. Cyndiata picked up
Speaker 1: a man and threw him at the fruit, knocked it down,
Speaker 1: swallowed the fruit hole and for good measure. He plucked
Speaker 1: the tree out of the ground and replanted it in
Speaker 1: his mother's yard so other people couldn't steal the fruit. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a hard story to beat about becoming king. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I would make him king. Yeah, it's worth it.
Speaker 1: So the Empire of Molly thrived because of its placement
Speaker 1: near the Niger River. This kingdom had a lock on
Speaker 1: all the gold that traveled north. But it wasn't just gold.
Speaker 1: There was also trade in copper, slaves, and salt. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So imagine mostly gold and slaves coming from the south
Speaker 1: and salt coming from the desert, and all of it
Speaker 1: going through this kingdom where they can tax the merchants
Speaker 1: heavily and make a big profit. Um. But we shouldn't
Speaker 1: think of it as two cohesive an empire because it
Speaker 1: had really distinct regions where different people live, they spoke
Speaker 1: different languages. Um, it's not an empire how you might
Speaker 1: think of an empire today. Um. And according to Timba
Speaker 1: to the Sahara's Fabled City of Gold, which was a
Speaker 1: book I referenced for this episode. After Cindiata's death, there
Speaker 1: were there's kind of turmoil. There was a series of emperors,
Speaker 1: one was insane and murdered by his courtiers. That's never
Speaker 1: good um, and power is kind of juggled around until
Speaker 1: somehow it falls on this man of the servant class
Speaker 1: named Sakura, and power changed hands a few times again
Speaker 1: after him, and settled on Abu Baquir the second, the
Speaker 1: immediate predecessor of Manta Musa. Yeah and Montsa Musa. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about him more at length later.
Speaker 1: But he proved to be a very able administrator. He
Speaker 1: expanded the territory a lot, it's reputation, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: a shoe in for becoming king, and at least the
Speaker 1: timing of his ascension is kind of a fluke. As
Speaker 1: he later told the Son of the Sultan and Cairo,
Speaker 1: the only reason he earned his throne was because Abubakir
Speaker 1: refused to believe that the ocean was infinite. So basically,
Speaker 1: this guy was obsessed with what was across the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: stare out at the ocean, just dying that there might
Speaker 1: be lands over there that he was not the emperor
Speaker 1: of right, So he finally launched an expedition of four
Speaker 1: hundred ships into this unknown Atlantic ocean, and only one
Speaker 1: came back, but the men spoke of a river on
Speaker 1: the ocean, so that must have been enough for him.
Speaker 1: He was in trigued of a river being in the ocean,
Speaker 1: which I don't know if that's like a current or something.
Speaker 1: Perhaps he was interested, and so he ordered two thousand
Speaker 1: news ships, a thousand with men, a thousand with supplies,
Speaker 1: and those time he led the fleet out and told
Speaker 1: Mansa Musa here in charge until I come back. Unsurprised
Speaker 1: and famous last words. Yeah, he never came back. And um,
Speaker 1: if you want to compare this to some other transatlantic travel,
Speaker 1: this is thirteen ten or thirteen twelve, So it's kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating to imagine what if he did make it.
Speaker 1: I think you have like a good comic book or
Speaker 1: something possibility of Um. Fortunately from Mansa Musa he's a
Speaker 1: lot more content with what he has and expanding the
Speaker 1: territory and land, not sailing off into the great unknown ocean. Yes,
Speaker 1: so his empire became one of the world's largest at
Speaker 1: the time. A lot of people said it supposedly took
Speaker 1: a year to travel from one end to the other,
Speaker 1: but that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Actually,
Speaker 1: fourteenth century traveler ibn Batuta said that it took him
Speaker 1: about four months to travel from northern Molly to Nani
Speaker 1: in the south, so still a very sizeable empire um
Speaker 1: And in the seventeenth year of his reign, Montsa Musa
Speaker 1: embarked on the most famous journey of his lifetime. What
Speaker 1: is the reason why we're talking about him today on
Speaker 1: the podcast, Probably that's his pilgrimage to Mecca. And basically
Speaker 1: this pilgrimage let the whole world knew how wealthy his
Speaker 1: kingdom was and what was beyond the desert. And he
Speaker 1: traveled from his capital of Nanni to Wallata, to Twat
Speaker 1: to Cairo, and from there he went on to Mecca.
Speaker 1: And he had a caravan of sixty thousand men, twelve
Speaker 1: thousand slaves dressed in brocade and the finest Persian silk.
Speaker 1: One wife. He brought his senior wife with him her
Speaker 1: retinue of five hundred slaves, and then he himself rode
Speaker 1: on horseback with five hundred gold staff slaves that we
Speaker 1: mentioned in the beginning riding in front of him. And
Speaker 1: his entourage's baggage was carried by eighty camels, and they
Speaker 1: each carried three hundred pounds of gold. So I mean,
Speaker 1: just imagine something like this passing through your tiny little
Speaker 1: desert town. I know, that's a lot of baggage, would
Speaker 1: be unbelievable, especially considering he only brought one wife. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so along his way he gave generously, and he spent lavishly,
Speaker 1: and his party was noted for their good behavior and
Speaker 1: he was noted for his own piousness. In Cairo, it
Speaker 1: took a major convincing to make mont AMusA pay a
Speaker 1: formal visit to the mom Luke Sultan, since he didn't
Speaker 1: wish to break away from his religious observances. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: basically took someone saying, you really have to go meet
Speaker 1: with the Sultan or you're going to be in trouble.
Speaker 1: And according to the chronicler all Umari, he said, I
Speaker 1: came for the pilgrimage and nothing else. I do not
Speaker 1: wish to mix anything else with my pilgrimage. But probably
Speaker 1: the most amazing detail of this pilgrimage is that twelve
Speaker 1: years later all Umari found people still talking about the
Speaker 1: visit in Cairo and apparently, oh that this is kind
Speaker 1: of a disputed fact. Apparently he flooded the Cairo market
Speaker 1: with so much gold, just giving to every official he
Speaker 1: could find and spending buying everything he could find. He
Speaker 1: infused so much gold into the market that it basically
Speaker 1: crashed and remained deflated for years, I mean twelve years later.
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable. That's a long time. So the pilgrimage with
Speaker 1: all of its gold and all of these slaves and
Speaker 1: camels and other people attending the pilgrimage with him, that's
Speaker 1: really impressive in itself. But the truly amazing thing is
Speaker 1: the impression it leaves on all of the people who
Speaker 1: see him, and how quickly the word spreads not just
Speaker 1: through Africa and through the Middle East, but all the
Speaker 1: way into Southern Europe yep. And he's not just spreading
Speaker 1: the word about himself and his wealth, but he's spreading
Speaker 1: the word about his home to other West African rulers
Speaker 1: had made pilgridges before, but Mansa Musa's really advertised molly
Speaker 1: Muslim kingdoms in North Africa and European kingdoms. They all
Speaker 1: wanted to see the place that this wealth was coming from,
Speaker 1: the area that that had originated. Yeah, and Venetian and
Speaker 1: Genoy's trading firms that were based in Alexandria of course
Speaker 1: heard about this great king that was over in Cairo,
Speaker 1: and they started to spread the word around southern Europe.
Speaker 1: And by thirteen seventy five, which is you know, it's
Speaker 1: a long time later, but this is still of note,
Speaker 1: Mansa Musa had made it on to Charles the five
Speaker 1: of France's newly commissioned atlas. And if you look up
Speaker 1: Mansa Musa, the picture you get of him is going
Speaker 1: to be from this atlas. He's drawn holding a ball
Speaker 1: of gold, he's wearing a crown, and there's the caption
Speaker 1: so abundant is gold which is found in his country,
Speaker 1: that he is the richest and most noble king in
Speaker 1: all the land, and three cities in his empire listed
Speaker 1: on this atlas. So clearly he's made a big, big
Speaker 1: impression on people very far away from him, and a
Speaker 1: big name for his homeland. Even though he's a high roller,
Speaker 1: his riches aren't inexhaustible, though unfortunately it would be a
Speaker 1: better story if they were. It would be he over
Speaker 1: spends himself, as you so often do when you're traveling.
Speaker 1: You overspend yourself and then you have to get home
Speaker 1: and raise some money quickly, and so during the trip home,
Speaker 1: he had to borrow at really high rates due to
Speaker 1: all that's spending in Cairo and Mecca. Fortunately, though, while
Speaker 1: he was on his pilgrimage, one of his generals, like Mandia,
Speaker 1: had expanded his empire's territory, so he had a lot
Speaker 1: of new prospective sources of income. Um since he had
Speaker 1: just incorporated two very wealthy, very prominent city states, Gal
Speaker 1: and timbukto um So. Yeah, it's it's looking like all
Speaker 1: the borrowing isn't going to be too bad, I think
Speaker 1: looking up. So on the way home, Mansa Musa stops
Speaker 1: by Cairo not just to borrow money, but also to
Speaker 1: collect artisans Mason's iron workers and the poet and architect
Speaker 1: AbuI shock Sahili all twadjen al Granada before swinging through
Speaker 1: his newly claimed city states and taking a couple of
Speaker 1: princes as hostages on the way. Yeah, make sure the
Speaker 1: city states knew who were bought Who's boss um so
Speaker 1: in exchange for these really extravagant payments like hundreds of
Speaker 1: pounds of gold and slaves and food and riverland. The
Speaker 1: architect with the very long name builds a lot of
Speaker 1: great monuments to Mansa Musa. He builds a palace and
Speaker 1: a mosque and go and a now lost palace in
Speaker 1: Timbuctoo and one of one in Nanni. And most famously
Speaker 1: he builds a great mosque in Timbuctoo and um again,
Speaker 1: if you google timbuk two, this is probably the mosque
Speaker 1: you're going to see. It's the most famous landmark, i'd say,
Speaker 1: of the city. And it looks a lot like it
Speaker 1: did in thirteen thirty. It's the UNASCO site. It's very
Speaker 1: threatened by the desert and um just being neglected in
Speaker 1: terms of upkeep. Um. But it's a pretty impressive structure.
Speaker 1: And the rich building projects that Mansa Musa essentially kicks
Speaker 1: off start a trend because all the wealthy merchants in
Speaker 1: Timbuctoo wanted to sort of look like what the king
Speaker 1: is doing. And yeah, they start bringing in their own
Speaker 1: Egyptian workers and making their own elaborate homes, and we
Speaker 1: have guilds of masons formed and iron workers formed, and
Speaker 1: Timbuctoo becomes this really cosmopolitan city and their people from
Speaker 1: all these different cultures. In the fourteenth century, there are
Speaker 1: as many as fifteen thousand peep bowl which maybe it
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like a whole lot nowadays, but let's compare
Speaker 1: that to London's population at the same time, which was
Speaker 1: only twenty thousands, so pretty close. It's interesting. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a huge city with a lot going on, and
Speaker 1: Timbucto kept this sort of position as a cosmopolitan city
Speaker 1: even after Manson Musa died in thirty two, and gradually
Speaker 1: the states of the Empire of Molly began to break
Speaker 1: off after that, but Timbuctoo went on to become a
Speaker 1: major cultural and religious center of the world. And you know,
Speaker 1: it had been It had been a pretty major trading
Speaker 1: city before Montsa Musa took it under his wing. Um
Speaker 1: long long ago. It had been this little crossroads town.
Speaker 1: And I love the story if it's naming. It was
Speaker 1: a place where a tiregg woman named Buck two ran
Speaker 1: a rest stop on the edge of the desert near
Speaker 1: a Niger River tributary, and tin buck two means well
Speaker 1: of buck too, so there you go, wow um. But
Speaker 1: you know it had developed a lot since then, but
Speaker 1: it was under Mansa Musa that it started. The great
Speaker 1: libraries developed, the schools developed, and it became the meeting
Speaker 1: place for some of the best poets and scholars and
Speaker 1: artists in Africa in the Middle East, And I'd just
Speaker 1: like to give a little rundown of some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that people were working on at this time, just
Speaker 1: because it it seems um so much earlier than that
Speaker 1: you would think, yeah, than you would think. In the
Speaker 1: fifteenth century, mathematicians in Timbuctu knew about the rotation of
Speaker 1: the planets and the details of the eclipse, which were
Speaker 1: things that Galileo and Copernicus calculated a lot later, And
Speaker 1: we've talked about both of them in recent episodes, so
Speaker 1: it's interesting to get a little pre Galileo Copernicus background
Speaker 1: on astronomy here. Yeah, definitely. They also kind of tooled
Speaker 1: around a bit with some ideas from India, including creating
Speaker 1: Arabic numerals. Yeah, and their physic shans wrote about medicinal
Speaker 1: plants and nutrition and performed early operations on the human eye,
Speaker 1: which sounds kind of uncomfortable, but I guess you gotta
Speaker 1: start somewhere. And ethesist debated polygamy and tobacco. So I mean,
Speaker 1: just a very small slice of all of the ideas
Speaker 1: that we're floating around in Timbuctoo and of course, a
Speaker 1: lot of ideas on Islam too. It became a great
Speaker 1: center of Islamic study. Um. So finally, you know, the
Speaker 1: city did reach a decline at some point, even though
Speaker 1: it was long after the Empire of Molly fell, And
Speaker 1: that came when a Morok consultan invaded and killed the scholars,
Speaker 1: and that ended the um educational reputation of Timbuctoo somewhat,
Speaker 1: and its commercial success ended not too long after that,
Speaker 1: when the ocean trade routes opened up and nobody had
Speaker 1: any reason to go all the way to Timbuctoo anymore.
Speaker 1: But luckily, none of it didn't all go away. There
Speaker 1: are many thousands of books that were stashed away, and
Speaker 1: they were hidden in caves and storage rooms, are buried
Speaker 1: in trunks, and in that way they were sort of
Speaker 1: protected from invaders, if not from the elements necessarily. And
Speaker 1: today there's a major effort to save these ancient books,
Speaker 1: which many of which were handwritten in classic Arabic on
Speaker 1: linen based paper, inks and dyes that were from desert plants,
Speaker 1: and they had covers that were the skins of goats
Speaker 1: and sheep. Yeah, and Yasco has been working on protecting
Speaker 1: a lot of these texts almost since Molly's independence in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, and there are numerous libraries that have
Speaker 1: been established in timbuc To, supported by not only NASCO,
Speaker 1: but the Ford Foundation or the professor Henry Lewis Gates Jr.
Speaker 1: Who has promoted the libraries and the text of Timbucto.
Speaker 1: A lot um people are really focusing on, for one thing,
Speaker 1: finding them, rounding them up, getting them out of the
Speaker 1: trunks they're buried in in the desert it and getting
Speaker 1: the dust off of them, but also digitizing the library
Speaker 1: so that they can be used around the world. You
Speaker 1: don't have to go to timbuc To to look at
Speaker 1: this important manuscript, right And I think you've mentioned that
Speaker 1: some of them are in pretty bad shape. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of them are rotten at this point. It's um
Speaker 1: obviously a dry climate, but Jinas isn't always good for books,
Speaker 1: and there's a rainy season, so you end up with
Speaker 1: insects and mold and mildew um, so a lot of them.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that they're they've survived this long um. According
Speaker 1: to Tell Tamari, who's a historian at the National Center
Speaker 1: for Scientific Research in Paris, what's in the books is
Speaker 1: likely going to shock the world if it's ever all compiled.
Speaker 1: Um Tell Tamari was quoted as saying, these discoveries are
Speaker 1: going to revolutionize what one thinks about West Africa. So
Speaker 1: there's really a rush to to get this onto computers
Speaker 1: or at least preserve before they disintegrate. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: like a really challenging effort, but a good one. If
Speaker 1: you want to learn a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: preservation effort in Timbukto, there's a really good Smithsonian article
Speaker 1: by Joshua Hammer just on how these libraries were formed.
Speaker 1: Um in what people are doing to try to save
Speaker 1: all these old manuscripts. Yep. And it would be good
Speaker 1: for them to do that too, because it's not that
Speaker 1: easy to visit Timbuctoo anymore, isn't. No, it's not. The U. S.
Speaker 1: State Department cautions against all travel in Northern Mali, including Timbucto,
Speaker 1: because of threats from the terrorists group a q i
Speaker 1: Am and tire unrest and banditry. Um. So yeah, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: going from here to Timbuctoo really is like an impossibility
Speaker 1: now unless you're seriously willing to um risk some major
Speaker 1: personal danger. Um. And that's unfortunate because it seems like
Speaker 1: there's so much they are still and of course the
Speaker 1: city is also being threatened by the desert itself, but
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to keep it at bay and
Speaker 1: protect the mosques and the monuments from just being swallowed
Speaker 1: up by the sand again. So I guess that's about
Speaker 1: all we have to say about tim Buck two and
Speaker 1: Monsa Musa today. But it was really interesting to learn
Speaker 1: about this king who um. I mean, I never really
Speaker 1: heard about him before. He's been suggested a few times, um,
Speaker 1: But it's it's interesting to learn about how the whole
Speaker 1: continent is partly opened up to another part of the world,
Speaker 1: and about tim Buck two, which I think has almost
Speaker 1: taken on kind of a mythical persona Tim Buck too.
Speaker 1: You say it when you're talking. You want to say,
Speaker 1: like something that's the farthest place you can imagine. It's
Speaker 1: just a catch phrase. I think probably a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't even realize it's a real city, let alone that. Um.
Speaker 1: That catchphrase would have been so wrong for most of
Speaker 1: its history, like the center of things, um. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. It was fun, and I think that brings
Speaker 1: us to snermail. We have one from Darlene, who says,
Speaker 1: a long time ago, that's along with lots of ohs.
Speaker 1: Back at U c l A, I took an astronomy
Speaker 1: class with the head of the department, a brilliant and
Speaker 1: shameless punster who had written many books, including the one
Speaker 1: assigned as a textbook, Quell Surprise in parentheses. During our
Speaker 1: study of Tico Brahy. The assigned reading included the puzzling
Speaker 1: phrase Tico brahe did not die in Vain spelled h
Speaker 1: b e N. This made sense when we learned that
Speaker 1: the town and question isn't pronounced then, as in your
Speaker 1: podcast is pronounced vain. I think you can figure it out.
Speaker 1: She says, thanks as always for an enjoyable peak at
Speaker 1: corners of history that I did indeed missing class. I
Speaker 1: think that might be one of the best correction emails
Speaker 1: I've ever gotten. Yeah, we I'm glad to know that
Speaker 1: it is pronounced a ban and so what a fun
Speaker 1: little puzzle to throw it a clever professor at astronomy enthusiast.
Speaker 1: We have another one on Tico brow here, also kind
Speaker 1: of a fun correction, and it's from Anne in New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: and she wrote, November has a nothing to do with
Speaker 1: celebrating the ability to grow a mustache. It started out
Speaker 1: as an awareness campaign for prostate cancer, which affects more
Speaker 1: men in their lifetimes than breast cancer affects women, which
Speaker 1: gets little awareness. I believe November is an umbrella for
Speaker 1: overall awareness of men's health issues. So that's my little soapbox.
Speaker 1: Um And I was looking into November after getting a
Speaker 1: few days emails a little bit, and I think it
Speaker 1: started with this group of Australian men in a bar,
Speaker 1: of course, who decided to grow mustaches. And it was
Speaker 1: later that they decided, well, we could actually seriously raise
Speaker 1: some money by our mustache growing enterprising young fellows, and
Speaker 1: um yeah. From there it became a prostate cancer fundraiser
Speaker 1: and um, I think depression fundraising and just general men's
Speaker 1: health issues. So kind of a fun fact about mustache
Speaker 1: growing and tico and um but I think that's wicked cool.
Speaker 1: I want to uh celebrate November next year now that
Speaker 1: I know what it's really all about. Good luck with that,
Speaker 1: maybe with a false mustache. Um well, I think that
Speaker 1: about wraps it up. We have, fortunately for you an
Speaker 1: article on this the Hell. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the part of Africa we
Speaker 1: were talking about. You can also email us if you
Speaker 1: have suggestions for more African history topics at History podcast
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. We're on Twitter, misst
Speaker 1: in history, and we're on Facebook. If you want to
Speaker 1: check out that article, it's called why is this the
Speaker 1: Hell Shifting? You can find it by searching forth the
Speaker 1: Hell on our home page at www dot how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Or more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Visit how stuff works dot com. To learn
Speaker 1: more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in
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