Ghana Empire
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The Ghana Empire, also known as simply Ghana, Ghanata, or Wagadu, was an ancient western-Sahelian empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali.
Column Tomb with remains of the corner columns still intact
Individual burial from the Column Tomb with isolated stele placed at the head
The Western Nile according to al-Bakri (1068)
The Western Nile according to Muhammad al-Idrisi (1154)
Koumbi Saleh
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Koumbi Saleh, or Kumbi Saleh, is the site of a ruined ancient and medieval city in south east Mauritania that may have been the capital of the Ghana Empire. It is also a commune with a population of 1
Ghana Empire
…which clearly reflected a complex culture that was present by 1600 BCE and had architectural and material cultural elements similar to those found at Koumbi Saleh in the 1920s. The earliest proto-polity ancestral to Ghana likely arose from a large collection of ancient proto-Mande agro-pastoralist chiefdoms that…
Archaeological site of Koumbi Saleh
Epigraphic shale plate from Koumbi Saleh bearing religious formulae and geometric decorations exposed at the National Museum Nouakchott