Songhai Empire

At its height in the 16th century, the Songhai Empire was one of the largest states in African history — well over a million square kilometres along the Niger River, controlling the trans-Saharan trade in gold and salt. Its city of Timbuktu was a renowned centre of learning, home to the University of Sankore and a book trade so active that manuscripts were said to be among the most valuable goods in the market.

Its end was abrupt and lopsided. In 1591 the Saadi sultan of Morocco sent an army across more than a thousand kilometres of Sahara — a march that should have been suicidal — armed with arquebuses and cannon. At the Battle of Tondibi this force of a few thousand met a Songhai army many times its size, fighting with swords, spears, and cavalry. Gunpowder decided it in an afternoon. The empire fragmented into Moroccan-ruled towns and rump states, and the great Saharan centre of learning faded. Songhai is the clearest case in this museum of an old power killed not by a bigger one, but by a newer technology.