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Mansa Musa's Extraordinary Wealth
- Mansa Musa is widely regarded as the richest person who ever lived, with wealth sometimes estimated around modern hundreds of billions of dollars.
- His extraordinary wealth derived from Mali's vast gold resources and control of trans-Saharan trade in gold and salt.
Empire Built On Culture And Story
- The Mali Empire was a vast, rapidly built West African state emphasizing culture and knowledge as instruments of power.
- Its founder Sunjata and successors crafted stories and institutions to bind diverse peoples into a single polity.
History Preserved By Griots
- Much of what we know relies on oral historians (griots) who transmit authorized, performative versions of history.
- These narratives are fluid and tailored, so sources require careful interpretation.