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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. Today's episode is from two back when

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Speaker 1: Sarah and Debilina were hosts of the show. It is

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Speaker 1: about Musa, the first of Molly, also known as Mansa Musa,

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Speaker 1: and he continues to be one of our most popular

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Speaker 1: listener requests when folks right in to ask about African history.

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Speaker 1: We do have a little update on this episode. Sarah

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Speaker 1: and Deblina talk about UNESCO World Heritage sites in Timbuctoo

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Speaker 1: that were threatened by desert, encroachment and a lack of upkeep.

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Speaker 1: In the Spring of these sites were further threatened by

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Speaker 1: several militant and extremist Islamist groups, which began destroying some

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Speaker 1: of them on the grounds that they were examples of idolatry.

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Speaker 1: The French military intervened and unrest has continued in the

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Speaker 1: years since then. Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History

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Speaker 1: Class from House Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm delayed a

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Speaker 1: chalk reboarding and today we're going to be talking about

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Speaker 1: a city of gold. But this one existed long before

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Speaker 1: anybody had heard about El Dorado, with its mythical streets

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Speaker 1: paved in gold. There was this city in Molly, and

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Speaker 1: that's this great West African empire that was supposedly so

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Speaker 1: rich that slaves could carry staffs that were dusted in gold,

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Speaker 1: and even the most common objects like everyday things around

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Speaker 1: your house would be made out of this precious metal

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Speaker 1: that was so rare in most of the world. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is for most of the Middle Ages,

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Speaker 1: Europe and even paid much attention to Africa beyond its

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Speaker 1: northern trading cities at all. But this gold really changed things. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: especially when according to the British historian Dr Basil Davidson,

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Speaker 1: the rulers of Molly were quote rumored to have been

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Speaker 1: the wealthiest men on the face of the earth. So

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Speaker 1: I would say would be worth checking out, even going

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Speaker 1: across the desert for perhaps, I'd say so. And the

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Speaker 1: most illustrious ruler of this empire was Mansa Musa, and

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Speaker 1: he expanded territories, developed great cities, and most famously displayed

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Speaker 1: his land's wealth in a procession of thousands across Africa.

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Speaker 1: And he didn't do this to fight a battle. He

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Speaker 1: did it to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. So, okay,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this city of gold, and

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Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about this ruler who made

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Speaker 1: this famous pilgrimage. So who was Mansa Musa and where

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Speaker 1: did he come from? He came from the Sahel, which

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Speaker 1: is this band of land that separates the Sahara from

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Speaker 1: the forests of southern Africa. And it's always been an important,

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Speaker 1: banned important part of the world because of the trade

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Speaker 1: that crosses it. And that really started in about seven

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Speaker 1: fifty a d. And lasted until the sixteenth and seventeenth

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Speaker 1: centuries when finally ships replaced over and caravans of camels.

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Speaker 1: You could do your trading a lot easier by boats. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And the first great kingdom of this area was that

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Speaker 1: of Ghana, and that's different from the modern nation of

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Speaker 1: Ghana that we know today. Yeah, it's not even really

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Speaker 1: in the same spot nearby, but not exactly the same.

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Speaker 1: But while this kingdom splintered apart, Islamic proselytizing converted much

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Speaker 1: of the region to Islam, including ruling families. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: one of these families, the Kaita, started up a new

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Speaker 1: kingdom that replaced this empire of Ghana. That was the

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Speaker 1: Kingdom of Molly and it's first major leader, the leader

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Speaker 1: who brought the family to great power with Sindiata. And

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Speaker 1: there's kind of a fun story about this guy from

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Speaker 1: the oral tradition. Supposedly he was a really strong child,

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Speaker 1: but kind of clumsy on his feet. But there was

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Speaker 1: a rule, kind of like a king Arthur and the

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Speaker 1: Stone sort of story. But there was a challenge. Whoever

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Speaker 1: could knock down a fruit from this special tree in

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Speaker 1: town and then swallow the pit of that fruit would

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Speaker 1: become king. And so this strong, that clumsy boy gave

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Speaker 1: it a shot. And most people would try to knock

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Speaker 1: down the fruit by throwing rocks or some sort of

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Speaker 1: object at it, and it wouldn't work. Cyndiata picked up

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Speaker 1: a man and threw him at the fruit, knocked it down,

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Speaker 1: swallowed the fruit hole, and for good measure, he plucked

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Speaker 1: the tree out of the ground and replanted it in

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Speaker 1: his mother's yard so other people couldn't steal the fruit. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's a hard story to beat about becoming king. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I would make him king. Yeah, it's worth it.

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Speaker 1: So the Empire of Molly thrived because of its placement

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Speaker 1: near the Niger River. This kingdom had a lock on

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Speaker 1: all the gold that traveled north. But it wasn't just gold.

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Speaker 1: There was also trade in copper, slaves, and salt. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So imagine mostly gold and slaves coming from the south

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Speaker 1: and salt coming from the desert, and all of it

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Speaker 1: going through this kingdom where they can tax the merchants

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Speaker 1: heavily and make a big profit. Um. But we shouldn't

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Speaker 1: think of it as two cohesive an empire because it

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Speaker 1: had really distinct regions where different people live, they spoke

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Speaker 1: different languages. Um. It's not an empire how you might

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Speaker 1: think of an empire today. Um. And according to Timba,

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Speaker 1: to the Sahara's fabled City of Gold, which was a

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Speaker 1: Book I reference for this episode, after Cindiata's death, there

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Speaker 1: were there was kind of turmoil. There was a series

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Speaker 1: of emperors. One was insane and murdered by his courtiers.

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Speaker 1: That's never good. Um. And power has kind of juggled

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Speaker 1: around until somehow it falls on this man of the

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Speaker 1: servant class named Sakura, and power changed hands a few

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Speaker 1: times again after him, and settled on Abu Bakir the second,

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Speaker 1: the immediate predecessor of Mansa Musa. Yeah, and Mansa Musa

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Speaker 1: I mean we're gonna be talking about him more at

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Speaker 1: length later. But he proved to be a very able administrator.

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Speaker 1: He expanded the territory a lot. It's reputation, but he

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Speaker 1: wasn't a shoe in for becoming king, and at least

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Speaker 1: the timing of his ascension is kind of a fluke.

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Speaker 1: As he later told the Son of the Sultan and Cairo,

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Speaker 1: the only reason he earned his throne was because Albubaqure

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Speaker 1: refused to believe that the ocean was infinite. So basically,

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Speaker 1: this guy was obsessed with what was across the Atlantic,

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Speaker 1: stare out at the ocean, just dying that there might

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Speaker 1: be lands over there that he was not the emperor

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Speaker 1: of right. So he finally launched an expedition of four

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Speaker 1: hundred ships into this unknown Atlantic ocean, and only one

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Speaker 1: came back. But the men spoke of a river on

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Speaker 1: the ocean, so that must have been enough for him.

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Speaker 1: He was intrigued of a river being in the ocean,

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Speaker 1: which I don't know if that's like a current or something.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps he was interested, and so he ordered two thousand

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Speaker 1: new ships, a thousand with men, a thousand with supplies,

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Speaker 1: And this time he led the fleet out and told

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Speaker 1: Mansa Musa here in charge until I come back. Unsurprising

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Speaker 1: famous last words. Yeah, he never came back. And um,

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Speaker 1: if you want to compare this to some other transatlantic travel,

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Speaker 1: this is thirteen ten or thirteen twelve, So it's kind

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Speaker 1: of fascinating to imagine what if he did make it.

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Speaker 1: I think you have like a good comic book or

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Speaker 1: something possibility of Um. Fortunately from Mansa Musa he's a

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Speaker 1: lot more content with what he has and expanding the

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Speaker 1: territory and land, not sailing off into the great unknown ocean. Yes.

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Speaker 1: So his empire became one of the world's largest at

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Speaker 1: the time. A lot of people said it supposedly took

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Speaker 1: a year to travel from one end to the other,

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Speaker 1: but that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Actually,

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Speaker 1: fourteenth century traveler Ibben Batuta said that it took him

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Speaker 1: about four months to travel from northern Molly to Nani

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Speaker 1: in the south. So still a very sizeable empire. Um.

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Speaker 1: And in the seventeenth year of his reign, Montsa Musa

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Speaker 1: embarked on the most famous journey of his lifetime. What

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Speaker 1: is the reason why we're talking about him today on

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Speaker 1: the podcast. Probably that's his pilgrimage to Mecca, and basically

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Speaker 1: this pilgrimage let the whole world knew how wealthy his

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Speaker 1: kingdom was and what was beyond the desert. And he

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Speaker 1: traveled from his capital of Nanni to Wallata, to Tuat

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Speaker 1: to Cairo, and from there he went on to Mecca.

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Speaker 1: And he had a caravan of sixty thousand men, twelve

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Speaker 1: thousand slaves dressed in brocade and the finest Persian silk,

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Speaker 1: one wife. He brought his senior wife with him her

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Speaker 1: retinue of five hundred slaves, and then he himself rode

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Speaker 1: on horseback with five hundred gold staff slaves that we

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Speaker 1: mentioned in the beginning riding in front of him and

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Speaker 1: his traje's baggage was carried by eighty camels, and they

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Speaker 1: each carried three pounds of gold. So, I mean, just

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Speaker 1: imagine something like this passing through your tiny little desert town.

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Speaker 1: I know, that's a lot of baggage. Would be unbelievable,

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Speaker 1: especially considering he only brought one wife. Yeah, So along

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Speaker 1: his way he gave generously, and he spent lavishly, and

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Speaker 1: his party was noted for their good behavior, and he

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Speaker 1: was noted for his own piousness in Cairo. It took

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Speaker 1: a major convincing to make monts AMusA pay a formal

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Speaker 1: visit to the mom Luke Sultan, since he didn't wish

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Speaker 1: to break away from his religious observances. Yeah, it basically

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Speaker 1: took someone saying, you really have to go meet with

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Speaker 1: the Sultan or you're going to be in trouble. And

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Speaker 1: according to the chronicler all Umari, he said, I came

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Speaker 1: for the pilgrimage and nothing else. I do not wish

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Speaker 1: to mix anything else with my pilgrimage. But probably the

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Speaker 1: most amazing detail of this pilgrimage is that twelve years

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Speaker 1: later all Umari found people still talking about the visit

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Speaker 1: in Cairo. And apparently, although this is kind of a

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Speaker 1: disputed fact, apparently he flooded the Cairo market with so

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Speaker 1: much gold, just giving to every official he could find

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Speaker 1: and spending buying everything he could find. He infused so

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Speaker 1: much gold into the market that it basically crashed and

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Speaker 1: remained deflated for years. I mean twelve years later, that's unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: That's a long time. So the pilgrimage with all of

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Speaker 1: its gold and all of these slaves and camels and

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Speaker 1: other people attending the pilgrimage with him. That's really impressive

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Speaker 1: in itself, but the truly amazing thing is the impression

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Speaker 1: it leaves on all of the people who see him,

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Speaker 1: and how quickly the word spreads, not just through Africa

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Speaker 1: and through the Middle East, but all the way into

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Speaker 1: Southern Europe yep. And he's not just spreading the word

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Speaker 1: about himself and his wealth, but he's spreading the word

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Speaker 1: about his home to other West African rulers had made

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Speaker 1: pilgridges before, but Mansa Musa's really advertised Molly Muslim kingdoms

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Speaker 1: in North Africa and European kingdoms. They all wanted to

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Speaker 1: see the place that this wealth was coming from the

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Speaker 1: area that that it originated. Yeah, and Venetian and Genoye

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Speaker 1: trading firms that were based in Alexandria of course heard

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Speaker 1: about this great king that was over in Cairo, and

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Speaker 1: they started to spread the word around Southern Europe. And

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Speaker 1: by thirteen seventy five, which is you know, it's a

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Speaker 1: long time later, but this is still of note, Mansa

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Speaker 1: Musa had made it on to Charles the fifth of

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Speaker 1: France's newly commissioned Atlas. And if you look up Mansa

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Speaker 1: Musa the picture you got of him is going to

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Speaker 1: be from this atlas. He's drawn holding a ball of gold,

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Speaker 1: he's wearing a crown, and there's the caption, so abundant

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Speaker 1: is the gold which is found in his country, that

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Speaker 1: he is the richest and most noble king in all

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Speaker 1: the land, and three cities in his empire listed on

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Speaker 1: this atlas. So clearly he's made a big, big impression

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Speaker 1: on people very far away from him. He had a

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Speaker 1: big name for his homeland. Even though he's a high roller.

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Speaker 1: His riches aren't inexhaustible, though unfortunately it would be a

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Speaker 1: better story if they were. It would be Um. He

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Speaker 1: over spends himself, as you so often do when you're traveling.

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Speaker 1: You overspend yourself and then you have to get home

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Speaker 1: and raise some money quickly, and so during the trip

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Speaker 1: home he had to borrow at really high rates due

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Speaker 1: to all that spending in Cairo and Mecca. Fortunately, though,

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Speaker 1: while he was on his pilgrimage, one of his generals,

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Speaker 1: like Mandia, had expanded his empire's territory, so he had

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Speaker 1: a lot of new prospective sources of income. Um, since

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Speaker 1: he had just incorporated to very wealthy, very prominent city

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Speaker 1: state scow in Timbuctoo. Um So, yeah, it's it's looking

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Speaker 1: like all the borrowing isn't going to be too bad

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Speaker 1: looking up. So on the way home, Mansa Musa stops

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Speaker 1: by Cairo not just to borrow money, but also to

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Speaker 1: collect artisans Mason's iron workers and the poet and architect

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Speaker 1: AbuI shok Sahli all twadjen al Granada before swinging through

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Speaker 1: his newly claimed city states and taking a couple of

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Speaker 1: princes as hostages on the way make sure the city

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Speaker 1: states knew who were bought Who's boss um so in

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Speaker 1: exchange for these really extravagant payments like hundreds of pounds

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Speaker 1: of gold and slaves and food and riverland. The architect

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Speaker 1: with the very long name builds a lot of great

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Speaker 1: monuments to Mansa Musa. He builds a palace and a

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Speaker 1: mosque and go and a now lost palace in Timbuctoo

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Speaker 1: and one of one in Nanni. And most famously he

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Speaker 1: builds a great mosque in Timbuctwo and um A, and

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Speaker 1: if you google Timbucto, this is probably the mosque you're

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Speaker 1: going to see. It's the most famous landmark, i'd say,

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Speaker 1: of the city. And it looks a lot like it

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Speaker 1: did in thirteen thirty. It's a UNASCO site. It's very

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Speaker 1: threatened by the desert and um just being neglected in

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Speaker 1: terms of upkeep um. But it's a pretty impressive structure.

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Speaker 1: And the rich building projects that Mansa Musa essentially kicks

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Speaker 1: off start a trend because all the wealthy merchants in

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Speaker 1: Timbuctwo want to sort of look like what the king

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Speaker 1: is doing. And yeah, they start bringing in their own

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Speaker 1: Egyptian workers and making their own elaborate homes, and we

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Speaker 1: have guilds of masons formed and iron workers formed, and

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Speaker 1: Timbuctoo becomes this really cosmopolitan city and their people from

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Speaker 1: all these different cultures. In the fourteenth century, there are

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Speaker 1: as many as fifteen thousand people, which maybe it doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound like a whole lot nowadays, but let's compare that

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Speaker 1: to London's population at the same time, which was only

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Speaker 1: twenty thousands, so pretty close. It's interesting. It's a it's

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Speaker 1: a huge city with a lot going on, and Timbucto

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Speaker 1: kept this sort of position as a cosmopolitan city even

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Speaker 1: after Manson Musa died in thirty two, and gradually the

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Speaker 1: states of the Empire of Molly began to break off

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Speaker 1: after that, but Timbuctoo went on to become a major

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Speaker 1: cultural and religious center of the world. And you know,

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Speaker 1: it had been it had been a pretty major trading

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Speaker 1: city before Monsa Musa took it under his wing. Um,

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Speaker 1: long long ago. It had been this little crossroads town.

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Speaker 1: And I love the story of its naming. It was

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Speaker 1: a place where a tiregg woman named Buck two ran

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Speaker 1: a rest stop on the edge of the desert near

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Speaker 1: a Niger River tributary and tin buk two means well

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Speaker 1: of Buck two, So there you go, wow Um. But

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Speaker 1: you know it had developed a lot since then, but

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Speaker 1: it was under Mansa Lusa that it started. The great

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Speaker 1: libraries developed, the schools developed, and it became the meeting

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Speaker 1: place for some of the best poets and scholars and

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Speaker 1: artists in Africa in the Middle East. And I'd just

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Speaker 1: like to give a little rundown of some of the

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Speaker 1: stuff that people were working on at this time, just

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Speaker 1: because it it seems, um so much earlier than you

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Speaker 1: would think, Yeah, than you would think. In the fifteenth century,

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Speaker 1: mathematicians and Timbuctoo knew about the rotation of the planets

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Speaker 1: and the details of the eclipse, which were things that

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Speaker 1: Galileo and Copernicus calculated a lot later, and we've talked

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Speaker 1: about both of them in recent episodes, so it's interesting

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Speaker 1: to get a little pre Galileo Copernicus background on astronomy here. Yeah, definitely.

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Speaker 1: They also kind of tooled around a bit with some

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Speaker 1: ideas from India, including creating Arabic numerals. Yeah, and their

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Speaker 1: physicians wrote about medicinal plants and nutrition and performed early

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Speaker 1: operations on the human eye, which sounds kind of uncomfortable,

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Speaker 1: but I guess you gotta start somewhere. And ethesis debated

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Speaker 1: polygamy and tobacco. So I mean, just a very small

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Speaker 1: slice of all of the ideas that were floating around

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Speaker 1: in Timbuctoo, and of course a lot of ideas on

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Speaker 1: Islam too. It became a great center of Islamic study. Um.

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Speaker 1: So finally, you know, the city did reach a decline

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Speaker 1: at some point, even though it was long after the

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Speaker 1: Empire of Molly fell, And that came when a Morok

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Speaker 1: consultan invaded and killed the scholars, and that ended the

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Speaker 1: um educational reputation of Timbuctoo somewhat, and its commercial success

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Speaker 1: ended not too long after that when the ocean trade

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Speaker 1: routes opened up and nobody had any reason to go

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Speaker 1: all the way to Timbuctoo anymore. But luckily none of

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Speaker 1: it didn't all go away. There are many thousands of

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Speaker 1: books that were stashed away and were hidden in caves

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Speaker 1: and storage rooms, were buried in trunks, and in that

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Speaker 1: way they were sort of protected from invaders, if not

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Speaker 1: from the elements necessarily. And today there's a major effort

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Speaker 1: to save these ancient books, which many of which were

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Speaker 1: handwritten in classic Arabic on linen based paper, inks and

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Speaker 1: dyes that were from desert plants, and they had covers

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Speaker 1: that were the skins of goats and sheep. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: YASCO has been working on protecting a lot of these texts,

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Speaker 1: all of since Molly's independence in the nineteen sixties. And

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Speaker 1: there are numerous libraries that have been established in timbuc To,

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Speaker 1: supported by not only NASCO, but the Ford Foundation or

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Speaker 1: the professor Henry Lewis Gates Jr. Who has promoted the

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Speaker 1: libraries and the text of timbuc To. A lot um

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Speaker 1: people are really focusing on, for one thing, finding them,

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Speaker 1: rounding them up, getting them out of the trunks they're

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Speaker 1: buried in in the desert and getting the dust off

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Speaker 1: of them, but also digital using the library so that

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Speaker 1: they can be used around the world. You don't have

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Speaker 1: to go to Timbec to to look at this important manuscript, right,

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Speaker 1: And I think you've mentioned that some of them are

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Speaker 1: in pretty bad shape. Yeah, a lot of them are

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Speaker 1: rotten at this point. It's um obviously a dry climate,

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Speaker 1: but dryness isn't always good for books, and there's a

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Speaker 1: rainy season, so you end up with insects and mold

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Speaker 1: and mildew. Um. So a lot of them. It's amazing

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Speaker 1: that they're they've survived this long um. According to Tell Tamari,

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Speaker 1: who's a historian at the National Center for Scientific Research

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Speaker 1: in Paris, what's in the books is likely going to

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Speaker 1: shock the world if it's ever all compiled. Um. Tell

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Speaker 1: Tamari was quoted as saying, these discoveries are going to

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Speaker 1: revolutionize what one thinks about West Africa. So there's really

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Speaker 1: a rush to to get this onto computers or at

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Speaker 1: least preserved before they disintegrate. Yeah. It sounds like a

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Speaker 1: real challenging effort, but a good one. If you want

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Speaker 1: to learn a little bit more about the preservation effort

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Speaker 1: in Timbucto. There's a really good Smithsonian article by Joshua

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Speaker 1: Hammer just on how these libraries were formed, um and

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Speaker 1: what people are doing to try to save all these

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Speaker 1: old manuscripts. Yep. And it would be good for them

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Speaker 1: to do that too, because it's not that easy to

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Speaker 1: visit Timbuctoo anymore, is it. No, it's not. The U. S.

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Speaker 1: State Department cautions against all travel in northern Mali, including Timbucto,

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Speaker 1: because of threats from the terrorists group a q i

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Speaker 1: Am and tire unrest and banditry um. So yeah, Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: going from here to Timbucto really is like an impossibility

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Speaker 1: now unless you're seriously willing to um risk some major

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Speaker 1: personal danger um. And that's unfortunate because it seems like

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Speaker 1: there's so much they are still and of course the

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Speaker 1: city is also being threatened by the desert itself there.

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Speaker 1: I think they're trying to keep it at bay and

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Speaker 1: protect the mosques and the monuments from just being swallowed

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Speaker 1: up by the sand again. So I guess that's about

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Speaker 1: all we have to say about tim Buck two and

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Speaker 1: Monsa Musa today. But it was really interesting to learn

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Speaker 1: about this king who, um, I mean, I had never

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Speaker 1: really heard about him before. He's been suggested a few times, um,

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Speaker 1: but it's it's interesting to learn about how the whole

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Speaker 1: continent is partly opened up to another part of the world,

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Speaker 1: and about Tim Buck two, which I think has almost

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Speaker 1: taken on kind of a mythical persona Tim Buck two.

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Speaker 1: You say it when you're talking. You want to say,

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Speaker 1: like something that's the farthest place you can imagine. It's

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Speaker 1: just a catchphrase. I think probably a lot of people

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Speaker 1: don't even realize it's a real city, let alone that. Um.

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Speaker 1: That catchphrase would have been so wrong for most of

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Speaker 1: its history, right like the center of things. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for joining us for this Saturday classic. Since

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Speaker 1: this is out of the archive, if you heard an

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Speaker 1: email address or a Facebook U r L or something

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Speaker 1: similar during the course of the show, that may be

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Speaker 1: obsolete now. So here is our current contact information. We

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Speaker 1: are at History Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com,

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Speaker 1: and then we're at Missed in the History. All over

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Speaker 1: social media that is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram. Thanks again for listening. For more on this

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com,