Tomb of Askia in Gao (c. 1495): Songhai's Pyramid of Mud

The Tomb of Askia is a pyramid of sun-dried mud brick about 17 metres high that stands in Gao, on the Niger River in present-day Mali. Built for Askia Muhammad, ruler of the Songhai Empire, and traditionally dated to around 1495, it marks the capital of what was then the largest empire in West Africa. Today it is one of the finest surviving examples of the Sudano-Sahelian building tradition and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Gao, capital of Songhai

Gao lies on the east bank of the Niger where the river curves south after its great bend towards the Sahara. Known to Arab geographers as Kawkaw, it was a trading town from at least the 9th century, a meeting place for camel caravans from North Africa and boats on the river. Its rulers adopted Islam early, and royal tombstones from the 12th century have been found nearby.

In the 15th century Gao became the capital of the Songhai Empire. Under Sunni Ali, who seized Timbuktu in 1468, and then under Askia Muhammad, Songhai grew to control the trade in gold, salt and other goods across a vast area of the western Sahel. The wealth of this trade paid for the tomb.

Building the tomb

According to UNESCO, the tomb was built by Askia Muhammad in 1495, in his capital. Local tradition connects the building with his pilgrimage to Mecca, which he made around 1496-1498, and says that the materials or the plan were brought back from the holy cities. Because the main written sources, the Timbuktu chronicles, were compiled in the 17th century and say little about the building, its exact date cannot be confirmed.

The tomb was not only a burial place. It stood at the heart of a religious complex that served the Muslim community of Gao. The idea of a ruler’s monument built during his own lifetime fits Askia Muhammad’s wider effort to present himself as a pious Islamic sovereign.

Askia Muhammad was deposed by his son Musa in 1528 and died at Gao in 1538, when he was buried in the tomb he had built.

Architecture

The tomb is a stepped pyramid, roughly square at the base, built of mud bricks and covered with a smooth mud plaster. Its sides narrow towards the top and bristle with wooden beams, called toron in some West African languages, that project from the walls. These beams help hold the structure together and serve as permanent scaffolding for maintenance.

The complex around it includes two flat-roofed mosque buildings, a cemetery and a large open-air assembly ground used for Friday and festival prayers. UNESCO describes the tomb as the largest pre-colonial architectural monument in the region.

The style belongs to the wider Sudano-Sahelian tradition seen in the mosques of Timbuktu and Djenne. The Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu, built in the time of the Mali Empire, uses similar materials and methods. Mud building suited the dry climate and available resources, and it allowed tall, solid structures to be built without stone.

Thick mud walls also keep interiors cool in the intense heat of the Sahel, and the material can be repaired easily with soil from the riverbanks. Builders in the region traditionally mixed earth with water and organic material, shaped it into bricks dried in the sun, and laid them with mud mortar before finishing the surfaces by hand.

Maintenance and change

Mud architecture needs regular care. Rain during the wet season gradually washes away the outer plaster, so the surfaces must be renewed. At Gao, as in other Sahelian towns, this has traditionally been done by the local community, which climbs the projecting beams to apply fresh mud.

The complex has changed over time. The mosque buildings were extended in the second half of the 20th century, and the surroundings of the site have been altered by the growth of the modern town. Historic photographs, such as those taken by the Swiss aviator Walter Mittelholzer in 1930-31, show how the tomb looked in the colonial period.

After the Askias

Askia Muhammad’s descendants ruled Songhai from Gao for most of the 16th century, and the tomb stood at the centre of their capital. The city was then one of the largest in West Africa. Leo Africanus, who visited the region around 1510, described Gao as a large town full of rich merchants, with a royal palace and a busy market, though he thought most of its houses were poorly built.

The empire’s fortunes changed in 1591, when a Moroccan army crossed the Sahara and defeated the Songhai forces at the Battle of Tondibi. The Moroccans occupied Gao and Timbuktu and made Timbuktu the seat of their governors, known as pashas. Gao lost its role as an imperial capital and declined over the following centuries, although it remained a trading town on the Niger.

The tomb survived this decline because it remained a respected religious site. Its mud construction meant that its survival depended on generations of local people who kept repairing it. When the German explorer Heinrich Barth passed through Gao in 1854 on his long journey across the Sahara and the Sahel, he described the remains of the old capital and its royal tomb, by then standing in a much reduced town.

In the colonial period Gao became part of French West Africa, and the tomb attracted the attention of European travellers, photographers and scholars. After Mali became independent in 1960, the monument became a symbol of national history and of the great Sahelian empires that preceded the modern state.

World Heritage status

UNESCO inscribed the Tomb of Askia on the World Heritage List in 2004. It was recognised as an outstanding example of the monumental mud-building traditions of the West African Sahel and as testimony to the power and wealth of the Songhai Empire, which flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries through its control of trans-Saharan trade.

In 2012, after armed groups seized northern Mali, UNESCO added the tomb to the List of World Heritage in Danger, alongside Timbuktu. Shrines and mausoleums in Timbuktu were destroyed during that conflict, but the Tomb of Askia was not demolished. Insecurity in the region has continued to make maintenance and monitoring difficult.

Myths and facts

Myth: it is a copy of the Egyptian pyramids. The tomb’s pyramid shape and its link to the pilgrimage have led some people to connect it with Egypt, but its form and building methods belong to the local Sudano-Sahelian tradition, not to ancient Egyptian stone pyramids.

Myth: it was built as an ordinary mosque. The pyramid is a tomb. Prayers take place in the separate mosque buildings and on the assembly ground beside it.

Fact: it is still in use. The complex remains a living religious site for the people of Gao, not only a historic monument.

Timeline

• 9th century: Arab geographers describe Gao (Kawkaw) as a trading centre.
• 1493, April: Askia Muhammad takes power in Songhai after defeating Sunni Baru.
• c. 1495: Traditional date for the building of the tomb.
• c. 1496-1498: Askia Muhammad’s pilgrimage to Mecca.
• 1538: Askia Muhammad dies and is buried in the tomb.
• 1591: A Moroccan army defeats Songhai at the Battle of Tondibi and occupies Gao.
• 2004: The Tomb of Askia is inscribed on the World Heritage List.
• 2012: The site is placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Why it matters

The Tomb of Askia is a rare surviving monument of the Songhai Empire and a reminder that medieval West Africa produced major architecture. It shows how local building traditions, Islamic faith and the wealth of trans-Saharan trade came together in one of the great cities of the Sahel.