Timbuktu's Lost Maps: The Cartographers of the Sahel

Before Europeans mapped West Africa, Timbuktu's scholars were charting the Niger River, the Sahara trade routes, and the coastline from Senegal to the Gulf of Guinea. This episode explores the lost cartographic traditions of the Sankore libraries—manuscripts like the Kāshif al-Asrār and the work of cartographer Mahmud Kati, who compiled geographic knowledge from travelers, merchants, and astronomers. Lucas and Luna discuss how these maps blended Ptolemaic coordinates with local toponyms, the role of qibla-direction calculations in shaping maps, and why so few of these maps survive. They also examine the 1550 map of West Africa by the Ottoman admiral Piri Reis, which may have drawn on Timbuktu sources. A look at the art of Sahelian cartography and what it reveals about African knowledge of the world before colonialism. #Timbuktu #Cartography #MahmudKati #PiriReis #Sankore #Sahel #MaliEmpire #SonghaiEmpire #NigerRiver #Ptolemaic #KashifAlAsrar #AfricanHistory #Maps #SaharaTrade #Qibla #FexingoHistory #History #WestAfrica Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo