Empires and Kingdoms

The facts about Africa’s giant race and its extinction is still a mystery to the world today. The more we look for origin and disappearance, the more closer we get to it. The few remains of history teaches us that Africa had giants. Idubor from the ancient Kingdom of Benin, currently located in Southern Nigera, was one of such giants …

Queen Pokou was the queen and founder of the Baoule tribe in West Africa, now Ivory Coast. She is sometimes called Awura, Aura, or Abla Pokou. As the tribe spread westward, she ruled over a branch of the strong Ashanti Empire. The Baoule people, a sub-group of the Akan people, are one of the largest ethnic groups in modern Ivory …

The Zulu Kingdom, also called the Zulu Empire, was a Southern African state in what is now South Africa. During and after the Anglo-Zulu War, the small kingdom gained world renown, not least for initially defeating the British in 1879 at the Battle of Isandlwana. This led in 1887 to the British annexation of Zululand, while the king’s office continued …

Japan was allegedly blessed by the transatlantic slave trade conducted by 16th century Europeans with its first black man who rose through the elite ranks to make history as the first black Samurai in the country. It is believed that Yasuke, as he was called, was born about 1555 in Mozambique. He worked under Alessandro Valignano, an Italian Jesuit, as …

The 25th dynasty of Egypt, also known as the Nubian dynasty or kushite kingdom, was the last dynasty of Egypt’s Third Middle Era after the Nubian incursion (the XXV Dynasty or the 25th Dynasty). The 25th dynasty was a line of pharaohs from Kush Kingdom, located in northern Sudan and Upper Egypt today. Most of the kings of this dynasty …

Did you know that there are more pyramids outside Egypt? The undisputed kings of the pyramid-building world, in number at least, were from the Kush Empire. The truth is that pyramids at Meroe, modern Sudan, were built between 2,700 and 2,300 years ago. This civilisation arose after the fall of the 24th Dynasty of Egypt in c.1000 BC, and ruled …

The Songhai Empire during the 15th and 16th centuries was a kingdom that controlled the Western Sahel. At its height, it was one of the greatest in African history. The state is known for its historiographic name, derived from the Songhai, its leading ethnic group and ruling elite. The Songhai Empire was located in south of the Sahara Desert in …

The Kingdom of Zimbabwe which is best remembered for Great Zimbabwe was one of the great African Empires. The kingdom existed from 1220 to 1450. The region of Zimbabwe was settled in the eleventh century, but the Kingdom was fully set up in the thirteenth century. Documentation left by explorer Joao de Barros of the 16th century reveal that the …

Known primarily as the Punic Wars competitor of ancient Rome, Carthage was a trading city in North Africa that existed for over 500 years. From its foundation by the semi-legendary Queen Dido in 814 B.C the Kingdom of Carthage became the dominant power in the western Mediterranean. The Phoenician cities were highly dependent on both land and seaborne trade, and …

On the Coast of West Africa, the Dahomey Kingdom (1625 -1894) was home to the only appointed elite female warrior troop in history. In what is now modern day Benin, the Dahomey soldiers included fearless female warriors, most commonly known as the Dahomey Amazons. Not much is known about how the Dahomey Warriors came to be or even what happened …