Search Results: Ife

A cast brass manilla from Nigeria, used as a currency in the kingdom of Benin (13th-19th century CE) and other West African states. Width: 6 cms. (British Museum, London)

A map indicating the approximate territory inhabited by the people of West Africa's Nok Culture (flourished 500 BCE - 200 CE) in modern-day Nigeria.

The Songhai Empire (aka Songhay, c. 1460 - c. 1591) covered what is today southern Mauritania and Mali. It replaced the Mali Empire (1240-1645) as the most important state in West Africa. Originating as a smaller kingdom along the eastern...

Following the conquest of North Africa by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century CE, Islam spread throughout West Africa via merchants, traders, scholars, and missionaries, that is largely through peaceful means whereby African rulers either tolerated...

A human-headed cat statue from modern-day Nigeria, Nok culture, 500 BCE to 200 CE. State Museum of Egyptian Art, Munich.

The Bantu migration from their origins in southern West Africa saw a gradual population movement sweep through the central, eastern, and southern parts of the continent starting in the mid-2nd millennium BCE and finally ending before 1500...

At its fullest extent, the Roman Empire stretched from around modern-day Aswan, Egypt at its southernmost point to Great Britain in the north but the influence of the Roman Empire went far beyond even the borders of its provinces as a result...

The government of ancient Egypt was a theocratic monarchy as the king ruled by a mandate from the gods, initially was seen as an intermediary between human beings and the divine, and was supposed to represent the gods' will through the laws...

This map illustrates the geopolitical situations and theaters of conflict in Africa during World War II. The continent saw various military campaigns and battles, notably in North and West Africa, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Madagascar...

The Portuguese Empire was established from the 15th century and eventually stretched from the Americas to Japan. Very often a string of coastal trading centres with defensive fortifications, there were larger territorial colonies like Brazil...