Middle Ages
Tomb of Askia in Gao (c. 1495): Songhai's Pyramid of Mud
The tomb became the burial place of Askia Muhammad and a landmark of Sudano-Sahelian mud architecture, inscribed by UNESCO in 2004.
Region
Africa
Early Modern
Benin Bronze Plaques: Brass Art of the Oba's Palace, 1500-1650
Several hundred cast brass plaques recorded the court, rituals and foreign contacts of the Benin Kingdom; most were taken by British forces in 1897 and are now in museums abroad.
Early Modern
Funj Sultanate of Sennar (1504-1821): Kingdom on the Blue Nile
A Muslim kingdom dominated the middle Nile for three centuries before falling to the Ottoman-Egyptian army of Muhammad Ali in 1821.
Early Modern
Afonso I of Kongo: Christian King and Critic of the Slave Trade
Afonso made Catholicism the state religion of Kongo and tried to regulate the slave trade, but Portuguese demand for captives continued to grow during and after his reign.
Early Modern
Piri Reis Map (1513): The Ottoman Map of the Atlantic World
A surviving fragment of an Ottoman world map that preserves early European knowledge of the Americas, possibly including a lost map by Columbus.
Early Modern
Hayreddin Barbarossa: Corsair and Ottoman Grand Admiral
Barbarossa made Algiers an Ottoman province and, as grand admiral, made the Ottoman navy the leading force in the Mediterranean.
Early Modern
Ottoman Conquest of Egypt (1517): Selim I Ends the Mamluks
The Mamluk Sultanate was destroyed; Syria, Egypt and the Hejaz became Ottoman provinces.
Early Modern
Middle Passage: The Atlantic Crossing of Enslaved Africans
An estimated 12.5 million Africans were forced aboard slave ships, of whom about 10.7 million survived the crossing to the Americas.
Early Modern
Leo Africanus and the Description of Africa (1526)
The Description of Africa became the main European source on North and West Africa, including Timbuktu, for about two centuries.
Early Modern
Battle of Shimbra Kure (1529): Ahmad Gran Defeats Ethiopia
Victory for the Adal Sultanate; the Ethiopian army was defeated and the way opened for the Adal conquest of much of the Ethiopian highlands from 1531.
Early Modern
Battle of Wayna Daga (1543): Ethiopia and Portugal Defeat Adal
Decisive Ethiopian-Portuguese victory; Imam Ahmad was killed, his army scattered and the Adal occupation of the Ethiopian highlands collapsed.
Early Modern
Battle of Djerba (1560): Piyale Pasha Routs a Spanish Fleet
Decisive Ottoman victory; roughly half the Christian fleet was lost, the Djerba garrison was captured, and Ottoman naval power in the Mediterranean reached its peak.