Peak of the Trans-Saharan Gold-Salt Trade
- Date
- c. 950-1050 CE
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- West Africa and the Sahara
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
Around the year 1000, the trans-Saharan caravan trade in West African gold and Saharan salt reached its height under the dominance of the Ghana Empire (Wagadou), which acted as the indispensable middleman between the goldfields of the western Sudan—Bure and Galam on the upper Niger and Bambuk at the confluence of the Faleme and Senegal rivers—and the salt mines and Mediterranean markets to the north.
Sanhaja Berber and Tuareg camel caravans, the "fleets of the desert," carried slabs of salt from mines such as Taghaza southward and returned with gold, ivory, and enslaved people, linking termini like Sijilmasa in Morocco to the trading towns of Awdaghust and the Ghanaian capital Kumbi Saleh. Arab geographers marvelled at this wealth: Ibn Hawqal in the 970s called Ghana's ruler "the wealthiest king on the face of the earth," and al-Bakri's account preserved details of a sophisticated system taxing salt at one gold dinar on import and two on export. At the trade's peak, an estimated two-thirds of the gold circulating in the medieval Mediterranean originated in West Africa, fuelling Islamic and European coinage. The system's western dominance waned after the Almoravid disruptions of the 1050s-1070s and the eastward shift of routes toward the rising Mali Empire.
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Empires active in c. 950-1050 CE
- Abbasid Caliphate750 CE – 1258 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
- Song Dynasty960 CE – 1279 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Liao Dynasty (Khitan Empire)916 CE – 1125 CE
- Ghana Empire700 CE – 1240 CE
Related economy & trade events
- Distribution of Early-Ripening Champa Rice in Song China1012 CE
- Song China issues jiaozi, the world's first government paper money1023 CE
- Rise of the Hanseatic Leaguec. 1159
- The Arab (Islamic) Agricultural Revolutionc. 8th-13th centuries CE
- Yang Yan's Two-Tax Reform (Liangshui fa) in Tang China780 CE
- Great Zimbabwe rises as a stone city on the gold trade13th–14th centuries CE
Further reading
The wider story
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Best-selling world history told through the trade routes that moved goods, faiths and ideas.
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