Gao Empire

The Gao Empire precedes that of the Songhai Empire in the region of the Middle Niger. It owes its name to the town of Gao located at the eastern Niger bend. In the ninth century CE, it was considered to be the most powerful West African kingdom.

Sources on Gao history

Apart from some Arabic epitaphs on tombstones discovered in 1939 at the cemetery of Gao-Saney (6 km to the east of the city) there are no surviving indigenous written records that date from before the middle of the 17th century. Our knowledge of the early history of the town relies on the writings of external Arabic geographers living in Morocco, Egypt and Andalusia, who never visited the region. These authors referred to the town as Kawkaw or Kuku. The two key 17th century chronicles, the Tarikh al-Sudan and the Tarikh al-Fattash, provide information on the town at the time of the Songhai Empire but they contain only vague indications on the time before. The chronicles do not, in general, acknowledge their sources. Their accounts for the earlier periods are almost certainly based on oral tradition and for events before the second half of the 15th century they are likely to be less reliable. For these earlier periods the two chronicles sometimes provide conflicting information.

Gao

Gao /ɡaʊ/ is a city in Mali and the capital of the Gao Region. The city is located on the River Niger, 320 km (200 mi) east-southeast of Timbuktu on the left bank at the junction with the Tilemsi valley.

For much of its history Gao was an important commercial centre involved in the trans-Saharan trade. In the 9th century external Arabic writers described Gao as an important regional power and by the end of the 10th century the local ruler was said to be a Muslim. Towards the end of the 13th century Gao became part of the Mali Empire, but in first half of the 15th century the town regained its independence and with the conquests of Sonni Ali (ruled 1464–1492) it became the capital of the Songhai Empire. The Empire collapsed after the Moroccan invasion in 1591 and the invaders chose to make Timbuktu their capital. By the time of Heinrich Barth's visit in 1854, Gao had declined to become an impoverished village with 300 huts constructed from matting. In 2009, the urban commune had a population of 86,633.

Gao (disambiguation)

Gao is a city in Mali and the capital of Gao Region.

Gao or GAO may also refer to:

Places

Languages

Battles

Other uses

Gao–Guenie meteorite

Gao–Guenie is a H5 ordinary chondrite meteorite fell on in 1960 in Burkina Faso, Africa. The fall was composed by a large number of fragments and it is one of the largest observed meteorite showers in Africa to date.

Name

The meteorites formerly known as Gao and Guenie in 1999 were officially paired and they name fused into the collective name Gao–Guenie.

History

Gao–Guenie meteorites fell in Burkina Faso on March 5, 1960 at 17:00 (local time). After three separate detonations, several thousands of stones rained down over an area of about 70 square kilometres (27 sq mi). The sound of the fall was heard as far as Ouagadougou, which is 100 kilometres (62 mi) away. Eyewitnesses said that some trees were broken and henhouses destroyed. The largest stones recovered weigh up to 10 kilograms (22 lb).

Composition and classification

Gao–Guenie is classified as H5 ordinary chondrite.

Surface details of a small oriented fragment

Surface details of a small oriented fragment

308 g sample