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Taghaza

January 06, 2023

Taghaza (Arabic: تاغزة) (also Teghaza) is an abandoned salt-mining centre located in a salt pan in the desert region of northern Mali. It was an important source of rock salt for West Africa up to the end of the 16th century when it was abandoned and replaced by the salt-pan at Taoudenni which lies 150 km (93 mi) to the southeast. Salt from the Taghaza mines formed an important part of the long distance trans-Saharan trade. The salt pan is located 857 km (533 mi) south of Sijilmasa (in Morocco), 787 km (489 mi) north-northwest of Timbuktu (in Mali) and 731 km (454 mi) north-northeast of Oualata (in Mauritania).

Taghaza
Arabic: تاغزة
Taghaza
Location within Mali
Coordinates: 23°36′N 5°00′W / 23.600°N 5.000°W / 23.600; -5.000Coordinates: 23°36′N 5°00′W / 23.600°N 5.000°W / 23.600; -5.000
CountryMali
Time zoneUTC+0 (GMT)

Early Arabic sources

 
Trade routes of the Western Sahara Desert c. 1000-1500. Goldfields are indicated by light brown shading: Bambuk, Bure, Lobi, and Akan.

The Taghaza mines are first mentioned by name (as Taghara) in around 1275 by the geographer al Qazwini who spent most of his life in Iraq but obtained information from a traveller who had visited the Sudan.[1] He wrote that the town was situated south of the Maghreb near the ocean and that the ramparts, walls and roofs of the buildings were made of salt which was mined by slaves of the Masufa, a Berber tribe, and exported to the Sudan by a caravan that came once a year.[2] A similar description had been given earlier by Al-Bakri in 1068 for the salt mines at a place that he called Tantatal, situated twenty days from Sijilmasa.[3] It is possible these were the same mines.[4]

In 1352 the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta arrived in Taghaza after a 25-day journey from Sijilmasa on his way across the Sahara to Oualata to visit the Mali Empire.[5][6] According to Ibn Battuta, there were no trees, only sand and the salt mines. Nobody lived in the village other than the Musafa slaves who dug for the salt and lived on dates imported from Sijilmasa and the Dar'a valley, camel meat and millet imported from the Sudan. The buildings were constructed from slabs of salt and roofed with camel skins. The salt was dug from the ground and cut into thick slabs, two of which were loaded onto each camel. The salt was taken south across the desert to Oualata and sold. The value of the salt was chiefly determined by the transport costs. Ibn Battuta mentions that the value increased fourfold when transported between Oualata and the Malian capital.[7] In spite of the meanness of the village, it was awash in Malian gold. Ibn Battuta did not enjoy his visit; he found the water brackish and the village full of flies.[5] He goes on to say, "For all its squalor, qintars of qintars of gold dust are traded in Taghaza."[8]

The salt mines became known in Europe not long after Ibn Battuta's visit as Taghaza was shown on the Catalan Atlas of 1375 on the trans-Saharan trade route linking Sijilmasa and Timbuktu.[6]

Alvise Cadamosto learned in 1455 that Taghaza salt was taken to Timbuktu and then on to Mali. It was then carried "a great distance" to be bartered for gold.[9]

In around 1510 Leo Africanus spent 3 days in Taghaza. In his Descrittione dell’Africa he mentions that the location of the mines, 20 days journey from a source of food, meant that there was a risk of starvation. At the time of Leo's visit, Oualata was no longer an important terminus for the trans-Saharan trade and salt was instead taken south to Timbuktu. Like Ibn Battuta before him, Leo complained about the brackish well water.[10]

Sixteenth century

At some date Taghaza came under the control of the Songhai Empire which had its capital at the city of Gao on the Niger River 970 km (600 mi) across the Sahara. Al-Sadi in his Tarikh al-Sudan chronicles the efforts of the Moroccan rulers of the Saadi dynasty to wrestle control of the mines from the Songhai during the 16th century. In around 1540 the Saadian Sultan Ahmad al-Araj asked the Songhai leader Askia Ishaq I to cede the Taghaza mines. According to al-Sadi, Askia Ishaq I responded by sending men to raid a town in the Dara valley as a demonstration of Songhai power.[11] Then in 1556-7 Sultan Muhammed al-Shaykh occupied Taghaza and killed the Askia's representative.[12] However the Tuareg shifted the production to another mine called Taghaza al-ghizlan (Taghaza of the gazelles). On his succession in 1578 Ahmad al-Mansur asked for the tax revenues from Taghaza but Askiya Dawud responded instead with a generous gift of 47 kg of gold.[13] In 1586 a small Saadian force of 200 musketeers again occupied Taghaza[14] and the Tuareg moved to yet another site – probably Taoudeni.[15] Finally, a new demand by Ahmad al-Mansur in 1589–90 was met with defiance by Askiya Ishak II. This provided the pretext for Ahmad al-Mansur to send an army of 4,000 mercenaries across the Sahara led by the Spaniard Judar Pasha.[16] The defeat of the Songhai in 1591 at the Battle of Tondibi led to the collapse of their empire. After the conquest Taghaza was abandoned and Taoudenni, situated 150 km (93 mi) to the southeast and thus nearer to Timbuktu, took its place as the region's key salt producer.

In 1828 the French explorer René Caillié stopped at Taghaza on his journey across the Sahara from Timbuktu. He was travelling with a large caravan that included 1,400 camels transporting slaves, gold, ivory, gum and ostrich feathers.[17] At that date the ruins of houses constructed of salt bricks were still clearly visible.[18]

Ruins

At Taghaza there are ruins of two different settlements, one on either side of the ancient salt lake (or sabkha). They are separated by a distance of 3 km.[19] The larger more westerly settlement extended over an area of approximately 400 m by 200 m.[20] All the houses, except the mosque, were aligned in a northwest to southeast direction, perpendicular to the prevailing wind. The houses in the more easterly settlement were aligned in the same manner and occupied an area of 200 m by 180 m. The reason for the dual settlements is not known but could be connected with Taghaza's service both as a salt mine and as a stopping point on an important trans-Saharan trade route.[21]

Climate

Taghaza has a hyper-arid hot desert climate (Köppen BWh). It is one of the driest places on earth and one of the hottest during summer, only being behind Chenachène. The average high temperature in July is 48.2 °C (118.8 °F), which is 0.8°C higher than Furnace Creek, Death Valley, California, 0.3°C higher than Taoudenni and only 0.1°C cooler than Chenachène.

Climate data for Teghaza
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Average high °C (°F) 25.2
(77.4) 		29.0
(84.2) 		31.7
(89.1) 		38.3
(100.9) 		41.3
(106.3) 		45.7
(114.3) 		48.2
(118.8) 		46.8
(116.2) 		43.5
(110.3) 		37.4
(99.3) 		30.5
(86.9) 		25.1
(77.2) 		36.9
(98.4)
Daily mean °C (°F) 17.0
(62.6) 		20.1
(68.2) 		23.5
(74.3) 		28.3
(82.9) 		31.7
(89.1) 		35.8
(96.4) 		38.7
(101.7) 		37.7
(99.9) 		35.1
(95.2) 		29.1
(84.4) 		22.8
(73.0) 		17.4
(63.3) 		28.1
(82.6)
Average low °C (°F) 8.8
(47.8) 		11.2
(52.2) 		15.3
(59.5) 		18.4
(65.1) 		22.2
(72.0) 		26.0
(78.8) 		29.2
(84.6) 		28.6
(83.5) 		26.7
(80.1) 		20.8
(69.4) 		15.2
(59.4) 		9.7
(49.5) 		19.3
(66.8)
Average precipitation mm (inches) 0
(0) 		1
(0.0) 		0
(0) 		0
(0) 		0
(0) 		0
(0) 		1
(0.0) 		3
(0.1) 		4
(0.2) 		1
(0.0) 		1
(0.0) 		0
(0) 		11
(0.3)
Source: Climate-Data.org[22]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Levtzion & Hopkins 2000, pp. 176, 178; Mauny 1961, p. 330; Hunwick 2000, p. 89.
  2. ^ Levtzion & Hopkins 2000, p. 178.
  3. ^ Levtzion & Hopkins 2000, p. 76.
  4. ^ Levtzion & Hopkins 2000, p. 399 note 3.
  5. ^ a b Levtzion & Hopkins 2000, p. 282.
  6. ^ a b Mauny 1961, p. 330.
  7. ^ Levtzion & Hopkins 2000, p. 414 note 5. The location of the Malian capital is uncertain.
  8. ^ Battutah, Ibn (2002). The Travels of Ibn Battutah. London: Picador. p. 281. ISBN 9780330418799.
  9. ^ Wilks,Ivor. Wangara, Akan, and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (1997). Bakewell, Peter (ed.). Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas. Aldershot: Variorum, Ashgate Publishing Limited. p. 9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Leo Africanus 1896, pp. 800–801 Vol. 3.
  11. ^ Hunwick 1999, p. 142.
  12. ^ Hunwick 1999, p. 151.
  13. ^ Hunwick 1999, p. 155.
  14. ^ Hunwick 1999, p. 166.
  15. ^ Hunwick 1999, p. 167.
  16. ^ Kaba 1981; Hunwick 1999, pp. 309–310.
  17. ^ Caillié 1830, p. 106 Vol. 2.
  18. ^ Caillié 1830, p. 128 Vol. 2. Caillié uses the spelling Trasas or Trarzas. See Caillié 1830, pp. 329–330 Vol. 2.
  19. ^ Mauny 1961, p. 369 Fig. 67.
  20. ^ Mauny 1961, pp. 485–487.
  21. ^ Mauny 1961, p. 487.
  22. ^ "Climate: Teghaza". Climate-Data.org. Retrieved March 28, 2020.

References

  • Caillié, René (1830), Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo; and across the Great Desert, to Morocco, performed in the years 1824-1828 (2 Vols), London: Colburn & Bentley. Google books: Volume 1, Volume 2.
  • Hunwick, John O. (1999), Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sadi's Tarikh al-Sudan down to 1613 and other contemporary documents, Leiden: Brill, ISBN 90-04-11207-3.
  • Hunwick, John O. (2000), "Taghaza", Encyclopaedia of Islam Volume 10 (2nd ed.), Leiden: Brill, p. 89, ISBN 90-04-11211-1.
  • Kaba, Lansiné (1981), "Archers, musketeers, and mosquitoes: The Moroccan invasion of the Sudan and the Songhay resistance (1591-1612)", Journal of African History, 22 (4): 457–475, doi:10.1017/S0021853700019861, JSTOR 181298, PMID 11632225.
  • Leo Africanus (1896), The History and Description of Africa (3 Vols), Brown, Robert, editor, London: Hakluyt Society. Internet Archive: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3. The original text of Pory's 1600 English translation together with an introduction and notes by the editor.
  • Levtzion, Nehemia; Hopkins, John F.P., eds. (2000), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West Africa, New York: Marcus Weiner Press, ISBN 1-55876-241-8. First published in 1981 by Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-22422-5.
  • Mauny, Raymond (1961), Tableau géographique de l'ouest africain au moyen age (in French), Dakar: Institut français d'Afrique Noire, OCLC 6799191. Page 329 has a map showing the sabkha and the two settlements. Page 486 has plans of the settlements.

Further reading

  • Monod, Théodore (1938), "Teghaza, La ville en sel gemme (sahara occidental)", La Nature (in French) (3025 15-May-1938): 289–296.

January 06, 2023
taghaza, arabic, تاغزة, also, teghaza, abandoned, salt, mining, centre, located, salt, desert, region, northern, mali, important, source, rock, salt, west, africa, 16th, century, when, abandoned, replaced, salt, taoudenni, which, lies, southeast, salt, from, m. Taghaza Arabic تاغزة also Teghaza is an abandoned salt mining centre located in a salt pan in the desert region of northern Mali It was an important source of rock salt for West Africa up to the end of the 16th century when it was abandoned and replaced by the salt pan at Taoudenni which lies 150 km 93 mi to the southeast Salt from the Taghaza mines formed an important part of the long distance trans Saharan trade The salt pan is located 857 km 533 mi south of Sijilmasa in Morocco 787 km 489 mi north northwest of Timbuktu in Mali and 731 km 454 mi north northeast of Oualata in Mauritania Taghaza Arabic تاغزةTaghazaLocation within MaliCoordinates 23 36 N 5 00 W 23 600 N 5 000 W 23 600 5 000 Coordinates 23 36 N 5 00 W 23 600 N 5 000 W 23 600 5 000CountryMaliTime zoneUTC 0 GMT Contents 1 Early Arabic sources 2 Sixteenth century 3 Ruins 4 Climate 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further readingEarly Arabic sources Edit Trade routes of the Western Sahara Desert c 1000 1500 Goldfields are indicated by light brown shading Bambuk Bure Lobi and Akan The Taghaza mines are first mentioned by name as Taghara in around 1275 by the geographer al Qazwini who spent most of his life in Iraq but obtained information from a traveller who had visited the Sudan 1 He wrote that the town was situated south of the Maghreb near the ocean and that the ramparts walls and roofs of the buildings were made of salt which was mined by slaves of the Masufa a Berber tribe and exported to the Sudan by a caravan that came once a year 2 A similar description had been given earlier by Al Bakri in 1068 for the salt mines at a place that he called Tantatal situated twenty days from Sijilmasa 3 It is possible these were the same mines 4 In 1352 the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta arrived in Taghaza after a 25 day journey from Sijilmasa on his way across the Sahara to Oualata to visit the Mali Empire 5 6 According to Ibn Battuta there were no trees only sand and the salt mines Nobody lived in the village other than the Musafa slaves who dug for the salt and lived on dates imported from Sijilmasa and the Dar a valley camel meat and millet imported from the Sudan The buildings were constructed from slabs of salt and roofed with camel skins The salt was dug from the ground and cut into thick slabs two of which were loaded onto each camel The salt was taken south across the desert to Oualata and sold The value of the salt was chiefly determined by the transport costs Ibn Battuta mentions that the value increased fourfold when transported between Oualata and the Malian capital 7 In spite of the meanness of the village it was awash in Malian gold Ibn Battuta did not enjoy his visit he found the water brackish and the village full of flies 5 He goes on to say For all its squalor qintars of qintars of gold dust are traded in Taghaza 8 The salt mines became known in Europe not long after Ibn Battuta s visit as Taghaza was shown on the Catalan Atlas of 1375 on the trans Saharan trade route linking Sijilmasa and Timbuktu 6 Alvise Cadamosto learned in 1455 that Taghaza salt was taken to Timbuktu and then on to Mali It was then carried a great distance to be bartered for gold 9 In around 1510 Leo Africanus spent 3 days in Taghaza In his Descrittione dell Africa he mentions that the location of the mines 20 days journey from a source of food meant that there was a risk of starvation At the time of Leo s visit Oualata was no longer an important terminus for the trans Saharan trade and salt was instead taken south to Timbuktu Like Ibn Battuta before him Leo complained about the brackish well water 10 Sixteenth century EditAt some date Taghaza came under the control of the Songhai Empire which had its capital at the city of Gao on the Niger River 970 km 600 mi across the Sahara Al Sadi in his Tarikh al Sudan chronicles the efforts of the Moroccan rulers of the Saadi dynasty to wrestle control of the mines from the Songhai during the 16th century In around 1540 the Saadian Sultan Ahmad al Araj asked the Songhai leader Askia Ishaq I to cede the Taghaza mines According to al Sadi Askia Ishaq I responded by sending men to raid a town in the Dara valley as a demonstration of Songhai power 11 Then in 1556 7 Sultan Muhammed al Shaykh occupied Taghaza and killed the Askia s representative 12 However the Tuareg shifted the production to another mine called Taghaza al ghizlan Taghaza of the gazelles On his succession in 1578 Ahmad al Mansur asked for the tax revenues from Taghaza but Askiya Dawud responded instead with a generous gift of 47 kg of gold 13 In 1586 a small Saadian force of 200 musketeers again occupied Taghaza 14 and the Tuareg moved to yet another site probably Taoudeni 15 Finally a new demand by Ahmad al Mansur in 1589 90 was met with defiance by Askiya Ishak II This provided the pretext for Ahmad al Mansur to send an army of 4 000 mercenaries across the Sahara led by the Spaniard Judar Pasha 16 The defeat of the Songhai in 1591 at the Battle of Tondibi led to the collapse of their empire After the conquest Taghaza was abandoned and Taoudenni situated 150 km 93 mi to the southeast and thus nearer to Timbuktu took its place as the region s key salt producer In 1828 the French explorer Rene Caillie stopped at Taghaza on his journey across the Sahara from Timbuktu He was travelling with a large caravan that included 1 400 camels transporting slaves gold ivory gum and ostrich feathers 17 At that date the ruins of houses constructed of salt bricks were still clearly visible 18 Ruins EditAt Taghaza there are ruins of two different settlements one on either side of the ancient salt lake or sabkha They are separated by a distance of 3 km 19 The larger more westerly settlement extended over an area of approximately 400 m by 200 m 20 All the houses except the mosque were aligned in a northwest to southeast direction perpendicular to the prevailing wind The houses in the more easterly settlement were aligned in the same manner and occupied an area of 200 m by 180 m The reason for the dual settlements is not known but could be connected with Taghaza s service both as a salt mine and as a stopping point on an important trans Saharan trade route 21 Climate EditTaghaza has a hyper arid hot desert climate Koppen BWh It is one of the driest places on earth and one of the hottest during summer only being behind Chenachene The average high temperature in July is 48 2 C 118 8 F which is 0 8 C higher than Furnace Creek Death Valley California 0 3 C higher than Taoudenni and only 0 1 C cooler than Chenachene Climate data for TeghazaMonth Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec YearAverage high C F 25 2 77 4 29 0 84 2 31 7 89 1 38 3 100 9 41 3 106 3 45 7 114 3 48 2 118 8 46 8 116 2 43 5 110 3 37 4 99 3 30 5 86 9 25 1 77 2 36 9 98 4 Daily mean C F 17 0 62 6 20 1 68 2 23 5 74 3 28 3 82 9 31 7 89 1 35 8 96 4 38 7 101 7 37 7 99 9 35 1 95 2 29 1 84 4 22 8 73 0 17 4 63 3 28 1 82 6 Average low C F 8 8 47 8 11 2 52 2 15 3 59 5 18 4 65 1 22 2 72 0 26 0 78 8 29 2 84 6 28 6 83 5 26 7 80 1 20 8 69 4 15 2 59 4 9 7 49 5 19 3 66 8 Average precipitation mm inches 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 1 4 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 11 0 3 Source Climate Data org 22 See also EditJudar Pasha Saadi Dynasty Taoudenni ChenacheneNotes Edit Levtzion amp Hopkins 2000 pp 176 178 Mauny 1961 p 330 Hunwick 2000 p 89 Levtzion amp Hopkins 2000 p 178 Levtzion amp Hopkins 2000 p 76 Levtzion amp Hopkins 2000 p 399 note 3 a b Levtzion amp Hopkins 2000 p 282 a b Mauny 1961 p 330 Levtzion amp Hopkins 2000 p 414 note 5 The location of the Malian capital is uncertain Battutah Ibn 2002 The Travels of Ibn Battutah London Picador p 281 ISBN 9780330418799 Wilks Ivor Wangara Akan and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 1997 Bakewell Peter ed Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas Aldershot Variorum Ashgate Publishing Limited p 9 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Leo Africanus 1896 pp 800 801 Vol 3 Hunwick 1999 p 142 Hunwick 1999 p 151 Hunwick 1999 p 155 Hunwick 1999 p 166 Hunwick 1999 p 167 Kaba 1981 Hunwick 1999 pp 309 310 Caillie 1830 p 106 Vol 2 Caillie 1830 p 128 Vol 2 Caillie uses the spelling Trasas or Trarzas See Caillie 1830 pp 329 330 Vol 2 Mauny 1961 p 369 Fig 67 Mauny 1961 pp 485 487 Mauny 1961 p 487 Climate Teghaza Climate Data org Retrieved March 28 2020 References EditCaillie Rene 1830 Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo and across the Great Desert to Morocco performed in the years 1824 1828 2 Vols London Colburn amp Bentley Google books Volume 1 Volume 2 Hunwick John O 1999 Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire Al Sadi s Tarikh al Sudan down to 1613 and other contemporary documents Leiden Brill ISBN 90 04 11207 3 Hunwick John O 2000 Taghaza Encyclopaedia of Islam Volume 10 2nd ed Leiden Brill p 89 ISBN 90 04 11211 1 Kaba Lansine 1981 Archers musketeers and mosquitoes The Moroccan invasion of the Sudan and the Songhay resistance 1591 1612 Journal of African History 22 4 457 475 doi 10 1017 S0021853700019861 JSTOR 181298 PMID 11632225 Leo Africanus 1896 The History and Description of Africa 3 Vols Brown Robert editor London Hakluyt Society Internet Archive Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 The original text of Pory s 1600 English translation together with an introduction and notes by the editor Levtzion Nehemia Hopkins John F P eds 2000 Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West Africa New York Marcus Weiner Press ISBN 1 55876 241 8 First published in 1981 by Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 22422 5 Mauny Raymond 1961 Tableau geographique de l ouest africain au moyen age in French Dakar Institut francais d Afrique Noire OCLC 6799191 Page 329 has a map showing the sabkha and the two settlements Page 486 has plans of the settlements Further reading EditMonod Theodore 1938 Teghaza La ville en sel gemme sahara occidental La Nature in French 3025 15 May 1938 289 296 Portal Food Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Taghaza amp oldid 1114258489, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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