The architectural heritage of pre-colonial Africa includes numerous stone monuments and cities whose construction and function are sufficiently documented in the historical record.
Im really curious about the many other stone ruins in Africa that are shown on the map. Also what do those orange dots mean? They are not named. Is there somewhere were I can see a full list of names of the ruins?
the orange cities are those whose primary building material wasn't stone (brick, timber, etc), this map is only a sketch meant to highlight the most notable stone ruins and cities of sub-Saharan Africa
Not that it matters, ignoring the Swahili coast, & berber polities in west Africa like Takedda that used red stones to build the houses, apart from the unidentified capital of Ghana (whose houses were built with stones (schist stones?) & acacia wood) & the historical town of Mina (Edina), whose houses were built with rock stones, do you know of any other city/town in West/central/east Africa that was completely built with stones? I know there were cities/towns that employed stones in erecting their forts, walls, castles & palace residences, duplexes, mosques, etc (like Birni Ngazargamu), but they also employed bricks & adobe materials. I don't have those in mind.
there are probably only a few cities in the world that were ever built completely with stones (even today), all construction employed (s) a combination of wood, brick, and stone to varying degrees and depending on the status of the person commissioning the construction (medieval and early modern Europe for example, had a lot of daub and wattle houses --the name of this style itself probably comes from Germany-- alongside monuments of brick and stone, same for the middle east and India with a combination of elite stone structures and simple brick and timber houses)
a counterpoint to this would be the societies of Southeast Africa, some of whom seemed to construct everything with stone save for the roof. (walls, terraces, kraals, roads, public squares, cooking areas, name it)
that aside, west/central/east Africa only used stone sparingly, if you exclude the walls and mosques and some palaces. the more common material for elite structures was mud-brick for West Africa, and timber for Central Africa (the best of these are the palaces of Mangbetu, the Lozi and baKongo/loango), even the jumbes of the tanzania interior which influenced the palaces of 19th century east Africa were built primarily with timber despite the swahili's experience with coralstone.
Yeah, I know that medieval/early modern societies in other areas had a lot of daub & wattle edifices alongside the ones of masonry. From reading Duarte Barbosa, I know that this was the case in some regions, areas & polities in the subcontinent. Also, if I am not misconstruing what Atkins noted in the early 1700s, when talking about a non-inland settlement area in contemporary Salone, he compared the hut houses there (of obviously adobe & wood) to those in Yorkshire, even claiming they were better than many there.
I was just curious to know if you knew about others, apart from the ones I had read about. Also, from your articles, you seem to know a great deal about east Africa, you should write something about the Metropole of the Mutapa. From a 17th-century account I need to revisit, it had a nice city with whitewashed houses & a very grand palace. Plus, if I am not mistaken, the Mutapa also had connections to the Zimbabwe sites & all
Besides those on the map? Nah, I doubt I could come up with others. The ones in Congo, Tanzania, and Malawi for example were included because of the Swahili expansion there (I had previously posted a photo of a mosque at Isangi, and there are some archeological papers on Kasongo)
The rest are stone-walled sites that I believe you're already familiar with.
As for Mutapa, I'll try to read up on it, but as far as I can tell, it was a typical Zimbabwe-type enclosure, with stone walls separating residential sections, public assembly areas, roads, and kraals. I think Huffman and Garlake both suggested that the northern stone ruins correspond well to the Mutapa sites and that the 16th-century Portuguese description of stone ruins in this region may have actually been one of these northern sites (eg Chisvingo) rather than Great Zimbabwe itself. (although the Portuguese reached as far south as Khami)
I haven't yet encountered archaeological research for the sort of Mutapa palace described by the Portuguese (although I don't doubt that such a structure was built, if only for the king, probably in the hybridized architectural style of 16th century Kongo and Ethiopia). I believe Chirukure and others did some research on the field forts constructed by the Portuguese in Zimbabwe, but those resemble local architectural styles more than Portuguese styles, although there may have been a church or two (eg at Dambarare) that followed typical Iberian conventions.
Im really curious about the many other stone ruins in Africa that are shown on the map. Also what do those orange dots mean? They are not named. Is there somewhere were I can see a full list of names of the ruins?
the orange cities are those whose primary building material wasn't stone (brick, timber, etc), this map is only a sketch meant to highlight the most notable stone ruins and cities of sub-Saharan Africa
Not that it matters, ignoring the Swahili coast, & berber polities in west Africa like Takedda that used red stones to build the houses, apart from the unidentified capital of Ghana (whose houses were built with stones (schist stones?) & acacia wood) & the historical town of Mina (Edina), whose houses were built with rock stones, do you know of any other city/town in West/central/east Africa that was completely built with stones? I know there were cities/towns that employed stones in erecting their forts, walls, castles & palace residences, duplexes, mosques, etc (like Birni Ngazargamu), but they also employed bricks & adobe materials. I don't have those in mind.
there are probably only a few cities in the world that were ever built completely with stones (even today), all construction employed (s) a combination of wood, brick, and stone to varying degrees and depending on the status of the person commissioning the construction (medieval and early modern Europe for example, had a lot of daub and wattle houses --the name of this style itself probably comes from Germany-- alongside monuments of brick and stone, same for the middle east and India with a combination of elite stone structures and simple brick and timber houses)
a counterpoint to this would be the societies of Southeast Africa, some of whom seemed to construct everything with stone save for the roof. (walls, terraces, kraals, roads, public squares, cooking areas, name it)
that aside, west/central/east Africa only used stone sparingly, if you exclude the walls and mosques and some palaces. the more common material for elite structures was mud-brick for West Africa, and timber for Central Africa (the best of these are the palaces of Mangbetu, the Lozi and baKongo/loango), even the jumbes of the tanzania interior which influenced the palaces of 19th century east Africa were built primarily with timber despite the swahili's experience with coralstone.
Yeah, I know that medieval/early modern societies in other areas had a lot of daub & wattle edifices alongside the ones of masonry. From reading Duarte Barbosa, I know that this was the case in some regions, areas & polities in the subcontinent. Also, if I am not misconstruing what Atkins noted in the early 1700s, when talking about a non-inland settlement area in contemporary Salone, he compared the hut houses there (of obviously adobe & wood) to those in Yorkshire, even claiming they were better than many there.
I was just curious to know if you knew about others, apart from the ones I had read about. Also, from your articles, you seem to know a great deal about east Africa, you should write something about the Metropole of the Mutapa. From a 17th-century account I need to revisit, it had a nice city with whitewashed houses & a very grand palace. Plus, if I am not mistaken, the Mutapa also had connections to the Zimbabwe sites & all
Besides those on the map? Nah, I doubt I could come up with others. The ones in Congo, Tanzania, and Malawi for example were included because of the Swahili expansion there (I had previously posted a photo of a mosque at Isangi, and there are some archeological papers on Kasongo)
The rest are stone-walled sites that I believe you're already familiar with.
As for Mutapa, I'll try to read up on it, but as far as I can tell, it was a typical Zimbabwe-type enclosure, with stone walls separating residential sections, public assembly areas, roads, and kraals. I think Huffman and Garlake both suggested that the northern stone ruins correspond well to the Mutapa sites and that the 16th-century Portuguese description of stone ruins in this region may have actually been one of these northern sites (eg Chisvingo) rather than Great Zimbabwe itself. (although the Portuguese reached as far south as Khami)
https://www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-kingdom-of-mutapa-and-the-portuguese
I haven't yet encountered archaeological research for the sort of Mutapa palace described by the Portuguese (although I don't doubt that such a structure was built, if only for the king, probably in the hybridized architectural style of 16th century Kongo and Ethiopia). I believe Chirukure and others did some research on the field forts constructed by the Portuguese in Zimbabwe, but those resemble local architectural styles more than Portuguese styles, although there may have been a church or two (eg at Dambarare) that followed typical Iberian conventions.