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Kerma (also known as Dukki Gel) was the capital city of the Kerma culture, which was located in present-day Sudan at least 5500 years ago. 1 Kerma is one of the largest archaeological sites in ancient Nubia. It has produced decades of extensive excavations and research, including thousands of graves and tombs and the residential quarters of the main city surrounding the Western/Lower Deffufa. Around 3000 BC, a cultural tradition began around Kerma. It was a large urban…

Dhar Tichitt is a Neolithic archaeological site located in the southwestern region of the Sahara Desert, in Mauritania. It is one of several settlement locations along the sandstone cliffs in the area. The cliffs were inhabited by pastoralists starting at around 4000 BP and lasted to around 2300 BP before present (BP) 1 . About 500 stone settlements are found in the region. In addition to herding livestock, its inhabitants fished and grew millet. The climate of the Dhar…

Oualata or Walata (Arabic: ولاته‎) (also Biru in 17th century chronicles) is a small oasis town in southeast Mauritania, located at the eastern end of the Aoukar basin. Oualata was important as a caravan city in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the southern terminus of a trans-Saharan trade route and now it is a World Heritage Site. Oualata is believed to have been first settled by an agro-pastoral people akin to the Mandé Soninke people who lived along the rocky…

Napata was a city-state of ancient Nubia on the west bank of the Nile at the site of modern Karima, Sudan. Napata was founded by Thutmose III in the 15th century BC after his conquest of Nubia. The nearby Jebel Barkal was taken to mark the southern border of the New Kingdom of Egypt. In 1075 BC, the High Priest of Amun at Thebes, capital of Egypt, became powerful enough to limit the power of Pharaoh Smendes of the post-Ramesside Twenty-first Dynasty over Upper Egypt. This was…

Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal (Arabic: جبل بركل‎) is a very small mountain located some 400 km north of Khartoum, in Karima town in Northern State in Sudan, on a large bend of the Nile River, in the region called Nubia. The mountain is 98 m tall, has a flat top, and apparently was used as a landmark by the traders in the important route between central Africa, Arabia, and Egypt, as the point where it was easier to cross the great river. In 2003, the mountain, together with the…

Ouadane or Wādān (Arabic: وادان‎) is a small town in the desert region of central Mauritania, situated on the southern edge of the Adrar Plateau, 93 km northeast of Chinguetti. The town was a staging post in the trans-Saharan trade and for caravans transporting slabs of salt from the mines at Idjil. A Portuguese trading post was established in 1487, but was probably soon abandoned. The town declined from the sixteenth century and most of it now lies in ruins. The old town, a…

Meroë is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan. This city was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush for several centuries. The Kushitic Kingdom of Meroë gave its name to the Island of Meroë, which was the modern region of Butana, a region bounded by the Nile (from the Atbarah River to Khartoum), the Atbarah and the Blue Nile. The city of Meroë was on the edge of Butana and there were two other Meroitic…

El-Kurru was one of the royal cemeteries used by the Nubian royal family. Reisner excavated the royal pyramids. Most of the pyramids date to the early part of the Kushite period, from Alara of Nubia (795–752 BC) to King Nastasen (335–315 BC). The area is divided into three parts by two wadis. The central section seems to be the oldest and contains several tumulus type tombs that predate the Kingdom of Napata. The highest part of the cemetery contains four tumulus tombs (Tum…

Kawa is a site in Sudan, located between the Third and Fourth Cataracts of the Nile on the east bank of the river, across from Dongola. In ancient times it was the site of several temples to the Egyptian god Amun, built by the Egyptian rulers Amenhotep III and Tutankhamun, and by Taharqa and other Kushite kings. At least three Ancient Egyptian granitic gneiss statues of Amun in the form of a ram protecting King Taharqa were displayed at the Temple of Amun at Kawa in Nubia…

Ile-Ife was a powerful Yoruba kingdom dated to the 4th century BC. Yorubaland is the cultural region of the Yoruba people in West Africa. It spans the modern-day countries of Nigeria, Togo, and Benin. From the 12th to the 15th centuries, Ife flourished as a powerful, cosmopolitan and wealthy city-state in West Africa. The cities were fortresses, with high walls and gates. Ife was an influential centre of trade connected to extensive local and long-distance trade networks…

Naqa or Naga'a (Arabic: ٱلـنَّـقْـعَـة‎, translit. An-Naqʿah) is a ruined ancient city of the Kushitic Kingdom of Meroë in modern-day Sudan. The ancient city lies about 170 km (110 mi) north-east of Khartoum, and about 50 km (31 mi) east of the Nile River located at approximately MGRS 36QWC290629877. Naqa is one of the largest ruined sites in the country and indicates an important ancient city once stood in the location. It was one of the centers of the Kingdom of Meroë…

Musawwarat es-Sufra (Arabic:المصورات الصفراء al-Musawwarāt as-sufrā, Meroitic: Aborepi, Old Egyptian: jbrp, jpbr-ˁnḫ), also known as Al-Musawarat Al-Sufra, is a large Meroitic temple complex in modern Sudan, dating back to the early Meroitic period of the 3rd century BC. It is located in a large basin surrounded by low sandstone hills in the western Butana, 180 km northeast of Khartoum, 20 km north of Naqa and approximately 25 km south-east of the Nile. Its MGRS coordinates…

Nuri is a place in modern Sudan on the west side of the Nile, near the Fourth Cataract Nuri is situated about 15 km north of Sanam, and 10 km from Jebel Barkal. More than 20 ancient pyramids belonging to Nubian kings and queens are still standing at Nuri, which served as a royal necropolis for the ancient city of Napata, the first capital of the Nubian Kingdom of Kush. It is probable that, at its apex, 80 or more pyramids stood at Nuri, marking the tombs of royals. The…

Matara (Metera) is an archaeological site in Eritrea. Situated a few kilometers south of Senafe, it was a major city in the Dʿmt and Aksumite kingdoms. Since Eritrean independence, the National Museum of Eritrea has petitioned the Ethiopian government to return artifacts removed from the site. However, the efforts have thus far been rebuffed. The archaeological site already has yielded evidence of several levels of habitation, including at least two different major cities…

Qohaito, also known as Kohaito,قوحيتو was an ancient city in the southern Debub region of Eritrea. It was a pre-Aksumite settlement that thrived during the Aksumite period. The town was located over 2,500 meters above sea level, on a high plateau at the edge of the Great Rift Valley. As of 2011, Qohaito's stone ruins have yet to be excavated. The ancient port city of Adulis lies directly to the east. Rock art near Qohaito appears to indicate habitation in the area since the…

Adulis or Aduli is an archeological site in the Northern Red Sea of Eritrea, situated about 30 miles south of Massawa in the Gulf of Zula. It was the port considered part of the Kingdom of Aksum, located on the coast of the Red Sea. However recent excavation uncovers artifacts that predates the Axumite civilization. These civilization is now known as Adulitarian. Adulis Bay is named after the site. It is thought that the modern town of Zula may be the Adulis of the Aksumite…

Old Dongola (Old Nubian: Tungul; Arabic: دنقلا العجوز‎, Dunqulā al-ʿAjūz) is a deserted town in what is now Northern State, Sudan, located on the east bank of the Nile opposite the Wadi Howar. An important city in medieval Nubia, and the departure point for caravans west to Darfur and Kordofan, from the fourth to the fourteenth century Old Dongola was the capital of the Makurian state. A Polish archaeological team has been excavating the town since 1964. Old Dongola was…

Kano is the state capital of Kano State in North West, Nigeria. It is situated in the Sahelian geographic region, south of the Sahara. Kano is the commercial nerve centre of Northern Nigeria and is the second largest city in Nigeria. The principal inhabitants of the city are the Hausa people. However, there are many who speak Fulani language. As in most parts of northern Nigeria, the Hausa language is widely spoken in Kano. The city is the capital of the Kano Emirate. In…

Kilwa Kisiwani is an archaeological city-state located on an Indian Ocean island off the southern coast of present-day Tanzania in eastern Africa. It was occupied from at least the 8th century CE and later became the center of the Kilwa Sultanate, a medieval sultanate whose authority at its height in the 13th-15th centuries CE stretched the entire length of the Swahili Coast. From this period date the construction of the Palace of Husuni Kubwa and a significant extension to…

Koumbi Saleh, sometimes Kumbi Saleh is the site of a ruined medieval town in south east Mauritania that may have been the capital of the Ghana Empire. From the ninth century, Arab authors mention the Ghana Empire in connection with the trans-Saharan gold trade. Al-Bakri who wrote in eleventh century described the capital of Ghana as consisting of two towns 6 miles apart, one inhabited by Muslim merchants and the other by the king of Ghana. The discovery in 1913 of a 17th…

Chinguetti (Berber languages: Cengiṭ, Arabic: شنقيط‎, translit. Šenqīṭ) is a ksar or a Berber medieval trading center in northern Mauritania, located on the Adrar Plateau east of Atar. Founded in the 13th century as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes, this small city continues to attract a handful of visitors who admire its spare architecture, scenery and ancient libraries. The indigenous Berber Saharan architecture of older sectors of the city features houses…

Lalibela (Amharic: ላሊበላ) is a town in Amhara Region, Ethiopia famous for its rock-cut monolithic churches. The whole of Lalibela is a large antiquity of the medieval and post-medieval civilization of Ethiopia. Lalibela is one of Ethiopia's holiest cities, second only to Axum, and a center of pilgrimage. Unlike Axum, the population of Lalibela is almost completely Ethiopian Orthodox Christian. Ethiopia was one of the earliest nations to adopt Christianity in the first half of…

Bumbusi is a Zimbabwean archaeological site, surrounded by Hwange National Park, in Western Zimbabwe. It is not often visited because of its remote location and low tourist profile. The remains on the site resemble those of other archaeological sites in the Great Zimbabwe tradition. The Bumbusi National Monument consists of colossal stone walls, boulders, platforms and the ruins of dwellings. Its main structures date from the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Excavations in…

Great Zimbabwe is a city, now in ruins, in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwe and the town of Masvingo. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe during the country's Late Iron Age. Construction on the monument began in the 11th century and continued until the 15th century. 1 The edifices were erected by the ancestral Shona. 2 The stone city spans an area of 7.22 square kilometres (1,780 acres) which, at its peak, could have housed up to 18,00…

The ruins of Gedi are a historical and archaeological site near the Indian Ocean coast of eastern Kenya. The site of Gedi includes a walled town and its outlying area. All of the standing buildings at Gedi, which include mosques, a palace, and numerous houses, are made from stone, are one-story, and are distributed unevenly in the town. There are also large open areas in the settlement which contained earth and thatch houses. Stone "pillar tombs" are a distinctive type of…

Benin City, originally known as Edo, was once the capital of The Benin Empire. The city was made of hundreds of interlocked cities and villages laid out to form perfect fractals. The main streets had underground drainage made of a sunken impluvium with an outlet to carry away storm water. Metal lamps fuelled by palm oil provided street lighting at night. The city was enclosed by massive walls made from earthworks longer than the Great Wall of China. The walls were built of…

Manyikeni is a Mozambican archaeological site, around 52 km west of the coastal city of Vilanculos. The archaeological site dates from the twelfth to seventeenth century. It is believed to be part of the Great Zimbabwe tradition of architecture, distinguished by mortarless stone walls, and part of the famous Mwenu Mutapa’s Kingdom. 1 The central stone enclosure complex is built in this tradition, and the find of a Zimbabwe-style iron gong at the site also suggests cultural…

Niani is a village in Guinea. It is located in the Kankan Prefecture of the Kankan Region, in the east of the country. It lies on the left bank of the Sankarani River. Niani is often considered one of the ancient capitals of the Mali Empire and the birthplace of emperor Sundiata Keita. The city had at least 100,000 inhabitants in the 14th century. 3 The emperor (mansa) and his courtiers lived in Niani, which was a centre of trade and commerce. 4 The town developed as an…

Songo Mnara is a stone town on the Swahili Coast in southern Tanzania which was occupied from the 14th to 16th centuries. Songo Mnara has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In total, archaeologists have found six mosques, four cemeteries, and two dozen house blocks along with three enclosed open spaces on the island. Songo Mnara was constructed from rough-coral and mortar. This stonetown was built as one of many trade towns on the Indian Ocean. Archaeologists…

Ife (/ee-fay/, Yoruba: Ifè, also Ilé-Ifẹ̀) is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. According to theYoruba religion Ife was founded by the order of the Supreme God Olodumare to Obatala and then fell into the hands of his brother Oduduwa, which created turmoil between the two. Oduduwa created his own dynasty through his sons and daughters that became different rulers of many kingdoms. According to Yoruba religion, Olodumare, the Supreme God, ordered Obatala to…

Timbuktu is an ancient city in Mali, situated 20 km (12 mi) north of the Niger River. Starting out as a seasonal settlement, Timbuktu became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, Timbuktu flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and slaves. It became part of the Mali Empire early in the 14th century. In the first half of the 15th century, the Tuareg tribes took control of the city for a short period until the expanding…

The ruins of Loropéni are an ancient heritage site near the town of Loropéni in southern Burkina Faso. They were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2009. These ruins are the country's first World Heritage site. The site, which spans 11,130 square metres (119,800 sq ft), includes an array of stone walls that comprised an ancient fortress, the best preserved of ten in the area. They date back at least a thousand years. The settlement was occupied by the Lohron or…

M'banza-Kongo (known as São Salvador in Portuguese from 1570 to 1975), is the capital of Angola's northwestern Zaire Province. 1 was founded some time before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1483 and was the capital of the Kilukeni dynasty ruling at that time. The site was temporarily abandoned during civil wars in the 17th century. It lies close to Angola's border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located at around 6°16′0″S 14°15′0″E and sits on top of an…

Chibuene is a Mozambiquean archaeological site, located five kilometres south of the coastal city of Vilanculos South Beach. The site was occupied during two distinct phases. The earlier phase of occupation dates to the late first millennium AD. The second phase dates from around 1450 and is contemporaneous with the Great Zimbabwe civilization in the African interior. During both phases of its development Chibuene was a trading settlement. Trade goods obtained from the site…

Khami (also written as Khame, Kame or Kami) is a ruined city located 22 kilometres west of Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe. It was once the capital of the Kalanga Kingdom of Butwa of the Tolwa dynasty. It is now a national monument, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. The settlement that we see today was a development of the architectural form that emerged at Great Zimbabwe in the 13th century AD and a local Leopard's Kopje culture that built platforms of rough walling on…

Abomey is a city in the Zou Department of Benin. Abomey is also the former capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey (c. 1600–1904), which would later become a French colony, then the Republic of Dahomey (1960–1975), and is the modern-day Republic of Benin. Abomey houses the Royal Palaces of Abomey, a collection of small traditional houses that were inhabited by the Kings of Dahomey from 1600 to 1900, and which were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. The commune of…

Gondar is a city and separate distirct in Ethiopia which served as a strong Christian kingdom for many years. Gondar previously served as the capital of both the Ethiopian Empire and the subsequent Begemder Province. The city holds the remains of several royal castles, including those in Fasil Ghebbi (the Royal Enclosure), for which Gondar has been called the "Camelot of Africa". Until the 16th century, the Solomonic Emperors of Ethiopia usually had no fixed capital town…

Fasil Ghebbi (Royal Enclosure) is the remains of a fortress-city within Gondar, Ethiopia. It was founded in the 17th century by Emperor Fasilides (Fasil) and was the home of Ethiopia's emperors. Its unique architecture shows diverse influences including Nubian styles. The site was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. Ghebbi is an Amharic word for a compound or enclosure. The complex of buildings includes Fasilides' castle, Iyasu I's palace, Dawit III's Hall, a…