Massawa, Eritrea ca. 1868 #archivesxt

Mihrab of an old mosque in Lamu, Kenya ca. 1923 #archivesxt

Scaffolding for constructing the reception hall of Menelik ca. 1900, Ethiopia #archivesxt

-Queen Mokwae of Nalolo at Home -Lealui King Lewanika's return, 1902 -Women making pottery, Lealui, Upper Zambezi. -The Nalikuanda (royal barge) Barotseland (Lozi kingdom) ca. 1902-7 #archivesxt #ethnographxt

For context: the British government paid Joseph Ritchie & Francis Lyon £2,000 (about £222,000 today) to undertake a journey that West African pilgrims regularly accomplished on a much smaller budget Mungo Park was given £5,000 (H. Clapperton and H. Barth spent similar amounts)

mosque of Kankan, Guinea ca. 1901 #archivesxt

-Façades of houses on the square of Djenné. -A house of Djenné with pylons and phallic ornament and bearing the emblems of fire (les emblèmes du feu) on the uprights of its awning. ca. 1906 Mali #archivesxt

Unfortunately, this headline is clickbait But there are theories that the aridification of the western desert (Yellow Nile in North Darfur) pushed more populations into the Nile valley by 5000-3500 BC (end of the Green Sahara, start of ancient Kerma) theconversation.com/how-a-shifti...

Revolution, Trade, and Art among the Chokwe of 19th-century Central Africa. www.patreon.com/posts/revolu...

Revolutionary Africa in the nineteenth century. icymi www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-re...

"analysis shows that periods of lower inequality coincide with moments of highest productivity, reversing the traditional logic that associates the concentration of power with economic efficiency" Reimagining our past can recalibrate our future expectations

“There was no palace that centralized the tools of administration, suggesting that no single ruler hoarded resources, but rather that citizens worked cooperatively to ensure fair access to a decent standard of living.” www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/05/d...

“A great deal of the material we have about pre-colonial African societies probably originated from information given by Europeanized Africans or Africanized Europeans; and this grey zone makes it almost impossible to distinguish neatly between external and internal sources.”

"This exceptional text provides direct internal evidence for the long-established intra-African networks that facilitated the travel of pilgrims, scholars, and merchants throughout this region. These pre-existing networks would later be utilised by European travelers/explorers such as James Bruce."

Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. ca. 1926. A council of war at Tabna, Tanzania, ca. 1890 Kigeri Rwabugiri and his son Shirangawe, Rwanda. ca. 1894 Matadi, Congo, ca. 1894. www.patreon.com/posts/158460...

Color Lithograph Showing Native Women of Sudan (West Africa), ca. 1819 www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-an...

Libya: Tubu people of Qatrun, by George Francis Lyon, ca. 1819 www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-an...

Awdaghust, Mauritania. Timbuktu, Mali. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-an...

The medieval cities of the Sahara. Trans-Saharan networks, the dispersion routes of the Wangara www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-an...

The medieval citadel of Old Dongola, Sudan www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-an...

Map of the journey by the Ethiopian monk Takla ’Alfā (1596) and the Scottish traveler James Bruce (1773) across North-East Africa www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-an...

This is part of why when I made my little “Expedition Zine Game” I made certain that several sample characters were from the global south. The big “explorers” would not have survived without local knowledge and expertise.

"Many African societies were intimately familiar with both the outside world and their own continent. And it was their established intra-African networks that would be utilized by later European travelers to “discover” what was already known to their hosts."

“European explorers of Africa were essentially tourists using local infrastructure and pre-existing systems of knowledge.” www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-an...

African and European Explorers in the 19th century: Competing Narratives of “Discovery.” www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/african-an...

A 19th-century African explorer: Abdallah bin Rashid's journey from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Coast in 1894 www.patreon.com/posts/158460...

Tomorrow's Patreon article is on African and European explorers

Le roi de Sennâr donnant audience à ses ministres ca. 1823 Sennar, Sudan. #ethnographxt

Genadendal, South Africa ca. 1849. by George French Angas #ethnographxt

Religious procession from the court of St. Michael at Ankobar. Shewa, Ethiopia ca. 1841-1843. by Johann Martin Bernatz #ethnographxt

One of the sons of the Shehu of Borno Sheikh on horseback, Sudan Plains, East Central Africa, ca. 1920. #ethnographxt

-A Songhai village at the foot of the Hombori mountains ca. 1853, Mali. -Mountains of Hombori #archivesxt

a Khoe Ox rider. ca. 1836, southern Africa. Pack Oxen, early 20th cent. Chad Travelling by Ox between Fashoda and Darfour, ca. 1910, Sudan. A Hausa native riding an Ox, Kano. ca. 1921, Nigeria. #ethnographxt

There’s a disturbing reason why social scientists still use colonial anthropology for their outlandish theories about pre-colonial Africa Its not that they don’t know these 80-year old books are outdated, It’s because they consider colonial research to be the most “objective”

Despite its popularity, Murdock's “tribal map” of Africa doesn’t represent the territorial limits of any state in any period of pre-colonial Africa. A cursory examination of the map reveals significant inaccuracies. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/africa-was...

Village in Maniema, Congo. ca. 1877 Ruins of a Swahili-style mosque in Isangi, eastern D.R.Congo, ca. 1894 www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/africa-was...

“Kingdoms emerged when people had come to accept the idea of a supreme title as a desirable outcome to the dynamic drift of their political institutions.” Jan Vansina www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/africa-was...

Misconceptions about Precolonial State-Building in Africa “Africa was not an anarchist paradise; it underwent broadly similar processes of centralisation and state formation to those found elsewhere, with regional variation.” www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/africa-was...

Hundreds of huge ancient mass graves have been discovered in the Sahara Desert in Eastern Sudan dated ca. 4000–3000 BCE, near the end of the “Green Sahara.” theconversation.com/we-found-hun...

Most modern African societies of the colonial period and the 21st century do not represent their predecessors of the 19th or 16th centuries. Any study of modern African societies that doesn't acknowledge this historical change cannot be usefully applied to the pre-colonial period.

walled settlements in pre-colonial western Kenya www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-luo-mi...

Ruins of Thimlich Ohinga, S.W Kenya www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-luo-mi...

Fashoda, the Shilluk capital. ca. 1871 www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-luo-mi...

mosque and place in Sennar, Sudan www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-luo-mi...

The “stateless” or “segmentary” Luo societies described in colonial anthropology were largely shaped by the disruptive impact of Turco-Egyptian military raids, rather than representing a long-standing historical condition. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-luo-mi...

“Africa is the cradle of modern political anthropology. It was through studies of African societies, mostly among Luo-speakers of East Africa, that scholars first formulated classifications of “early states,” “segmentary states,” and stateless societies.” www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-luo-mi...

The Luo Migrations: Reassessing “Stateless” Societies in Pre-Colonial Africa www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-luo-mi...

Tomorrow's article is about the Luo migrations and debates on "stateless" societies

Fortified residence of the ancient Meleks, or Kings, of Shendy. ca. 1835, Sudan. #historyxt

Mozambique, ca. 1860 Wasin Town, Tanzania. ca. 1872 Zanzibar from the sea, ca. 1872 #archivesxt