World History Practice Test: African Kingdoms and Empires

Ezana converted to Christianity, making Aksum one of the first states to adopt it officially. Islam did not yet exist; it began in the 600s.

Ghana's kings controlled the trade between gold fields to the south and salt from the Sahara to the north, taxing goods that passed through. The gold mines themselves lay outside the empire's core.

The old empire lay hundreds of miles northwest of the modern state. When the Gold Coast became independent in 1957, it took the name Ghana to honor the earlier empire.

Camels can travel many days without water and carry heavy loads over sand, which made regular caravans across the desert practical. Horses need far more water.

Mansa Musa traveled with a huge caravan and spent so much gold that prices in Cairo were disturbed for years. The journey made Mali famous in the Islamic world and in Europe.

Timbuktu, near the Niger River, drew scholars and traders, and families there preserved thousands of manuscripts. The great stone walls belong to Great Zimbabwe.

A Moroccan army equipped with guns crossed the Sahara and defeated Songhai at the Battle of Tondibi. Mali had already been weakened and absorbed by Songhai before then.

Builders fitted granite blocks together without mortar to make walls up to about 11 meters high. The city grew rich from trade in gold and cattle, linked to the coast.

Swahili is a Bantu language, but centuries of Indian Ocean trade with Arab and Persian merchants added many loanwords. The Portuguese arrived only around 1500.

Benin artists cast detailed plaques showing kings, warriors and court life. The kingdom is not the same as the modern country of Benin. Adwa was an Ethiopian victory in 1896.