The Golden Rhinoceros

Histories of the African Middle Ages

François-Xavier Fauvelle, Troy Tice

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780691217147
  9780691181264
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691183947
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

A leading historian reconstructs the forgotten history of medieval Africa

From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in the globalized world of the Middle Ages. The Golden Rhinoceros brings this unsung era marvelously to life, taking readers from the Sahara and the Nile River Valley to the Ethiopian highlands and southern Africa.

Drawing on fragmented written sources as well as his many years of experience as an archaeologist, François-Xavier Fauvelle painstakingly reconstructs an African past that is too often denied its place in history—but no longer. He looks at ruined cities found in the mangrove, exquisite pieces of art, rare artifacts like the golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe, ancient maps, and accounts left by geographers and travelers—remarkable discoveries that shed critical light on political and architectural achievements, trade, religious beliefs, diplomatic episodes, and individual lives.

A book that finally recognizes Africa's important role in the Middle Ages, The Golden Rhinoceros also provides a window into the historian's craft. Fauvelle carefully pieces together the written and archaeological evidence to tell an unforgettable story that is at once sensitive to Africa's rich social diversity and alert to the trajectories that connected Africa with the wider Muslim and Christian worlds.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Note on Conventions
• Introduction: Africa in the Middle Ages
• 1: The Tribulations of Two Chinese in Africa
• 2: In the Belly of the Sperm Whale
• 3: Aspects of a Border
• 4: Diplomatic Back-and-Forth at the Court of George II of Nubia
• 5: “Does anyone live beyond you?”
• 6: For Forty-Two Thousand Dinars
• 7: A Tale of Two Cities: On the Capital of Ghâna
• 8: Ghâna, One Hundred Years Later
• 9: The Conversion Effect
• 10: The King of Zâfûn Enters Marrakesh
• 11: The Rich Dead of the Tumuli
• 12: Aksum, the City That Made Kings
• 13: The Treasures of Debre Damo
• 14: One Map, Two Geographies
• 15: The Case of the Concubine
• 16: Sijilmâsa, Crossroads at the Ends of the Earth
• Colour Images
• 17: The Land Where Gold Grows like Carrots
• 18: Phantom Mines
• 19: The Land of Sofala
• 20: The Golden Rhinoceros
• 21: The Stratigraphy of Kilwa, or How Cities Are Born
• 22: The Camels of Madagascar, or Marco Polo’s Africa
• 23: The Work of Angels
• 24: The Sultan and the Sea
• 25: Ruins of Salt
• 26: The Customs of Mâli
• 27: A Wreck in the Sahara
• 28: The Golden Orb
• 29: The King’s Speech
• 30: The Production of Eunuchs in Abyssinia
• 31: Inventory at Great Zimbabwe
• 32: Next Year in Tamentit, or the (Re)discovery of Africa
• 33: Africa’s New Shores
• 34: Vasco da Gama and the “New World”
• Acknowledgments
• Glossary
• Further Reading
• Index