To where did Ghana’s capital go? On the Koumbi-Saleh archeological site, Islam in the Sahel and the Almoravid Conquest
Keywords:
Town of Ghana, Soninké, Culture and PowerAbstract
The discussions on the location of the capital of Ghana/Wàgádù, also called the Town or City of Ghana in primary sources, effectively halted since the discovery and exploration of the Koumbi-Saleh site, dividing archeology and historiography between those who defend the site as the lost city and those critical of the proposal. Despite this, the proposal appears as fact in recent texts due to the absence of better alternatives, or of the propagation of discussions to the contrary nationally and, in certain cases, internationally. In this paper, the main arguments utilized in defense of this proposal, such as the Almoravid Conquest and the forced and sudden Islamization of the Sahel, will be deconstructed and confronted both with the analysis of primary sources and with important papers with little to no national reach. Through the discussions of this paper, it is affirmed that the Almoravid Conquest was a historiographical misunderstanding, while the Islamization of the Sahel was neither sudden nor forced. Furthermore, two new urban identifications are offered: Koumbi-Saleh would be the town of Awdaghust, while the Town of Ghana was Djenné-Djenno.
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