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the late-thirteenth century. Marble tombstones (dated between 1100 and 1120)
imported from al-Andalus were meant for royals. The new dynasty introduced monu-
mental brick architecture for royal buildings, replacing the earlier use of stone. Gao
Ancien remained important as a commercial and craft center and as a residence of
noble families.
Closely linked commercially and politically to the Kawkaw/Gao Kingdom was the
southern Saharan city of Tadmakka, founded in the fourth century ce between 300
and 400 kilometers north of Gao Ancien and Gao-Saney in the Tilemsi basin which,
until the onset of climatic dessication in the twelfth century, had navigable waterways,
some flowing into the middle Niger floodplain. By 750, it was a leading center of
long-distance and local trade and crafts, a favored destination for caravans from
northern-Saharan centers like Wargla, Ghadames, Qayrawan, and Jabal Nafusa; from
the ninth century onward, it was a center of Islamic scholarship. Surrounded by fish-
ing, farming, hunting, mining, and livestock breeding communities, the city’s ruins
cover 75 hectares along a relict tributary (the Wadi Essouk), consisting of stone
structures (mosques, caravanserais, commercial/housing compounds) and livestock
enclosures. Beyond the ruins are the remains of extensive cemeteries with Arabic-
inscribed tombstones (early-eleventh to late-thirteenth century), and on the walls of
the cliffs and rocky hills in the vicinity of the city are numerous inscriptions in Arabic
and Libyco–Berber scripts as well as (pre-Islamic) rock art images depicting armed
horsemen, women, ox-drawn chariots, and fauna. Archaeological excavations in the
merchants’ quarter uncovered high quality buildings of stone and adobe, coin moulds
used in the minting of gold coins, and a wide range of imported goods from the
Mediterranean world and beyond. The city’s primary export was gold. A twelfth-
century Ibadi trader from the northern Sahara recounts a visit to a merchant’s house
in Tadmakka: “I saw there, marked bags which I can only liken to puppies piled one
on another, all full of gold. On each bag was written: ‘This is God’s property. Praise
be to God the Lord of the Worlds’” (Levtzion and Hopkins, 2000: 91). Another
account relates that in the second half of the tenth century a single Tadmakkan mer-
chant annually exported nearly 1200 ounces of gold to al-Hamma in the northern
Sahara for distribution to the poor. In the early twelfth century a combined Ghana–
Almoravid force invaded the city and converted the population to Sunni Malikism,
supplanting the city’s earlier affiliation with Kharijism. Tadmakka became a nodal
point in the Almoravid imperial sphere.
Several rural areas within the Kawkaw/Gao Kingdom have proven important
archaeological sites that throw new light on the kingdom’s political economy. A site
in the Kissi district about 200 kilometers southeast of Gao Ancien has numerous set-
tlement mounds and cemeteries. In the late first millennium bce, its inhabitants prac-
ticed farming, livestock breeding, mining, and a wide range of craft industries. In the
early first century ce, the intensification of livestock breeding, especially cattle and
horses, the diversification of food crop production, and the introduction of an agro-
forestry system indicate changes in rural patterns of settlement, population size, sub-
sistence strategies, and divisions of labor—changes linked to the intensification of
trade, urbanization, and the territorial expansion of the kingdom. Archaeologists con-
clude that from the fourth through the tenth century Kissi’s communities comprised
a hierarchical social order of nobles, warriors, artisans, and peasants, a structure that
suggests institutionalized forms of access to land through rights shared among the