The Conquest that Never was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. I. The External Arabic Sources

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 21-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Conrad ◽  
Humphrey Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Internal Sources ◽  
Complex Matter ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
The Middle Ages

We first conceived of this study several years ago, when our respective lines of research seemed to some extent to converge on the period of the decline of ancient Ghana. It has proved a more complex matter than we imagined, or than the deceptively simple title above might suggest--partly because it is often more difficult to prove that something did not happen than that it did. We have had to divide our analysis into two parts. First we examine the external written sources for the Almoravid conquest of Ghana. Our work in this respect has been immensely facilitated by the appearance in 1975 of Cuoq's Recueil des sources arabes, which in some sense provides the infrastructure for our argument. We have also had the invaluable privilege of seeing in proof Hopkins' and Levtzion's Corpus of early Arabic sources. In the second half of our study, it will be the turn of internal sources, mainly oral traditions. We use the terms external and internal advisedly, since the simple distinction between written sources and oral traditions is too artificial: an oral tradition was an oral tradition, whether written down in Arabic in the Middle Ages or in French in this century, and a great deal of the information in both parts of our article must have started as oral tradition.Putting it very bluntly, we have discovered no sources, whether external or internal, which unambiguously point to such a conquest. A handful of sources suggest some link between the rise of the Almoravids and the decline of Ghana, but with a puzzling vagueness--a vagueness which decreases as the number of centuries between the alleged event, and the report of it increases.

Marine and terrestrial investigations in the Norse Eastern Settlement, South Greenland

2001 ◽  
pp. 65-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naja Mikkelsen ◽  
Antoon Kuijpers ◽  
Susanne Lassen ◽  
Jesper Vedel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Original Series ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
The Middle Ages

NOTE: This article was published in a former series of GEUS Bulletin. Please use the original series name when citing this article, for example: Mikkelsen, N., Kuijpers, A., Lassen, S., & Vedel, J. (2001). Marine and terrestrial investigations in the Norse Eastern Settlement, South Greenland. Geology of Greenland Survey Bulletin, 189, 65-69. https://doi.org/10.34194/ggub.v189.5159 _______________ During the Middle Ages the Norse settlements in Greenland were the most northerly outpost of European Christianity and civilisation in the Northern Hemisphere. The climate was relatively stable and mild around A.D. 985 when Eric the Red founded the Eastern Settlement in the fjords of South Greenland. The Norse lived in Greenland for almost 500 years, but disappeared in the 14th century. Letters in Iceland report on a Norse marriage in A.D. 1408 in Hvalsey church of the Eastern Settlement, but after this account all written sources remain silent. Although there have been numerous studies and much speculation, the fate of the Norse settlements in Greenland remains an essentially unsolved question.

scholarly journals composer phenomenon in a historical retrospect of an authorship idea formation in European musical culture of the middle ages

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (S2) ◽  
pp. 284-302
Author(s):  
Iryna Yu Konovalova
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Historical Retrospect ◽  
Idea Formation ◽  
The Middle Ages

The article is devoted to comprehension of specifics and formation prerequisites of composer’s and musical authorship phenomena historical formation in European culture of the Middle Ages. Genesis of composer’s phenomenon and individual musical authorship model is considered on the basis of historical, socio-cultural and aesthetic-artistic transformations, on awareness about their dynamic’s tendencies and general cultural institutionalization of an authorship phenomenon, as well as on an increasing role of individual creativity in an artistic realm. It is stated that multi-ethnic and anonymous culture of oral tradition, folklore and Christian singing practices, as well as instrumental improvisation’s traditions, became spiritual sources of this phenomena and turn into a strong foundation of musical professionalism and creative impulse for European authorial music evolution. It is emphasized that process of composer’s formation as a creativity subject and musical professionalism carrier was stimulated by the necessity of everyday vocal-choral practice, conditioned by the spiritual context of time, by intention on theocentric world’s picture and religious – Christian outlook dominance. Significant role of secular direction development in the context of music-author’s discourse formation and composer’s figure assertion in the late Middle Ages is highlighted. 

The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. II. The Local Oral Sources

1983 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 53-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Conrad ◽  
Humphrey J. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Time Scale ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Positive Identification ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Oral Evidence ◽  
Remote Past ◽  
Written Sources

“The land took the name of the wells, the wells that had no bottom.”In Part I of this paper we examined the external written sources and found no unambiguous evidence that an Almoravid conquest of ancient Ghana ever occurred. The local oral evidence reviewed in this part of our study supports our earlier hypothesis, in that we find nothing in the traditions to indicate any conquest of the eleventh-century sahelian state known to Arab geographers as “Ghana.” Instead, the oral traditions emphasize drought as having had much to do with the eventual disintegration of the Soninke state known locally as “Wagadu.”An immediate problem involved in sifting the oral sources for evidence of an Almoravid conquest is that a positive identification between the Wagadu of oral tradition and the Ghana of written sources has never been established. Early observers like Tautain (1887) entertained no doubts in this regard, and recently Meillassoux seems to have accepted a connection, if not an identification, between Ghana and Wagadu when he notes that “les Wago, dont le nom a donné Wagadu, sont les plus clairement associés à l'histoire du Ghana.” However, much continues to be written on the subject, and the question remains a thorny one. On the lips of griots (traditional bards) and other local informants, Wagadu is a timeless concept, so a reliable temporal connection between people and events in the oral sources on one hand and Ghana at the time of the Almoravids on the other, is particularly elusive. Indeed, any link between the traditions discussed here and a specific date like 1076 must be regarded as very tenuous, as must any association of legendary events with Islamic dates. In western Sudanic tradition influenced by Islam, the hijra (A.D. 622) is both prestigious and convenient, a date with which virtually any event in the remote past can be associated, though such a claim may have nothing to do with any useful time scale.

scholarly journals Medieval Shiloh—Continuity and Renewal

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 493
Author(s):  
Amichay Shcwartz ◽  
Abraham Ofir Shemesh
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
The Middle Ages

The present paper deals with the development of cult in Shiloh during the Middle Ages. After the Byzantine period, when Shiloh was an important Christian cult place, it disappeared from the written sources and started to be identified with Nebi Samwil. In the 12th century Shiloh reappeared in the travelogues of Muslims, and shortly thereafter, in ones by Jews. Although most of the traditions had to do with the Tabernacle, some traditions started to identify Shiloh with the tomb of Eli and his family. The present study looks at the relationship between the practice of ziyara (“visit” in Arabic), which was characterized by the veneration of tombs, and the cult in Shiloh. The paper also surveys archeological finds in Shiloh that attest to a medieval cult and compares them with the written sources. In addition, it presents testimonies by Christians about Jewish cultic practices, along with testimonies about the cult place shared by Muslims and Jews in Shiloh. Examination of the medieval cult in Shiloh provides a broader perspective on an uninstitutionalized regional cult.

Oral Tradition and Sierra Leone History

1985 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 65-72
Author(s):  
C. Magbaily Fyle
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Human Problem ◽  
Written Sources

This paper attempts to examine specific problems encountered with the collection and interpretation of oral traditions in Sierra Leone and ways in which these were approached. I will suggest with examples that problems facing oral traditions are not always peculiar to them, as the researcher with written sources faces some similar problems.Much has been said about methodology in collecting oral tradition for it to warrant much discussion here. One point that has been, brought out, however, is that methods which work well for one situation might prove disastrous or unproductive in another. It is thus necessary to bring out specific examples of situations encountered so as to improve our knowledge of the possible variety of approaches that could be used, while emphasizing that the researcher, as a detective, should have enough room for initiative.For the past eight years, I have been collecting oral histories from among the Yalunka (Dialonke) and Koranko of Upper Guinea, both southern Mande peoples, and the Limba and Temne, grouped under the ‘West Atlantic.’ Extensive exploration into written sources has indicated that similar problems arise in both cases. In both situations, the human problem was evident. For the oral traditionist this problem is more alive as he is dealing first hand with human beings. A number of factors therefore, like his appearance, approach to his informants, his ability to ‘identify’ with the society in question, may affect the information he receives. These could provide reasons for distortion which are not necessarily present with written sources.

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