Mansa Musa and the Empire of Mali

1324 CE — Africa, Mali Empire

Today: West Africa (Mali; the city of Timbuktu)

The West African empire of Mali, successor to Ghana, controlled the gold that minted much of the medieval world's money — and its emperor Mansa Musa may have been the richest person in all of history. On a legendary 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca, he handed out so much gold in Cairo that he wrecked the region's economy for years. His city of Timbuktu became a fabled center of Islamic scholarship, its libraries holding hundreds of thousands of manuscripts.

Worth knowing: Mali's wealth so impressed Europe that a 1375 Spanish atlas drew Mansa Musa enthroned with a golden orb, one of the first depictions of an African ruler in European mapmaking — and Timbuktu's book trade reportedly rivaled its trade in gold.

Pattern: Trade-route shift — The path or medium of exchange moves, and a place or power rises or declines because it sits on or off the new route.

Entry 133 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.