The collections
Explore
A small, carefully developed collection of exhibitions and articles. More is added after editorial review.
Mansa Musa: Beyond the Gold
A ruler remembered for a famous pilgrimage, set back into the empire he governed: its trade, its scholars, its builders, and the records that let us see it.
Exhibition · 14 min read
Sunjata and the Founding of Mali
How the Mande epic of Sunjata remembers the birth of an empire, and how historians work with a story passed down by generations of jeliw.
Article · 9 min read
Timbuktu: City of Scholars
Mosques, teachers and family libraries: how a town at the edge of the Sahara became a centre of learning, and how its manuscripts survived.
Exhibition · 11 min read
The Vai Script
In the 1830s, a Vai man in what is now Liberia created a writing system for his language. It is still in use today.
Article · 6 min read