7. The Songhai Empire - Africa's Age of Gold
Fall of Civilizations Podcast
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Gao, Songhai's Greatest Market Place
Gao was what's known as an entrapo, or entry port, the terminus of a vast array of trade routes which spread out from it like a web. The explorer leo africanus, who visited gao in the sixteenth century, writes about the rich trade he saw arriving from europe. Of all other items, salt is the most expensive, while gold was universally used for trade. Horses purchased in europe for ten ducats, are sold here for forty and sometimes 50 ducats apiece. There is not european cloth so coarse as to sell for less than four ducats per cubit. A cubit of the scarlet of
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