Search
Timeline
Map
Graph
Threads
Civilizations
Eras
Random

A living digital encyclopedia of human civilization. Begin anywhere; follow the threads.

Browse

Threads
Civilizations
Eras
Timeline
Map
Graph
Random entry
About

Sources & licensing

Adapted prose from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica entries used as a second source where available — public domain in the United States.
Imagery via Wikimedia Commons; individual attribution shown on each entry.
Source code at github.com/chloeilabs/alexandria.

Alexandria · 2026Begin anywhere; follow the threads.

Trans Saharan Trade · Alexandria

Civilization · 100 CE – 1804 CE · 15 entries

Trans Saharan Trade

Classical

Ghana Empire
event · 100 CE
Long before the name was claimed by a modern West African nation in 1957, Ghana was the title of a warrior king who ruled a vast western-Sahelian empire.

Medieval

Umayyad Caliphate
event · 661 CE
When Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan established hereditary rule in 661 CE, he transformed a young religious movement into a sprawling global empire.
Fatimid Caliphate
event · 909 CE
The rise of the Fatimid Caliphate began not in a grand palace, but with the tireless preaching of an Isma'ili Shi'a missionary named Abu Abdallah, who marshaled the Kutama forces of North Africa to overthrow the…
Cairo
place · 969 CE
Six thousand years of human habitation anchor the ground where Cairo stands, a landscape where the ancient memories of Memphis, Heliopolis, and the Giza pyramid complex bleed into the fabric of a modern megacity.

Modern

Sokoto Caliphate
event · 1804 CE
In the winter of 1804, a migration of devout dissidents fled the wrath of the Hausa King Yunfa, who had attempted to assassinate their leader, Usman dan Fodio.

Without dates

Battle of Tondibievent
Timbuktuplace
trans-Saharan tradeconcept

Threads through

West African Empires9 shared entries
Islamic Caliphates6 shared entries
Indian Ocean Trade2 shared entries
Central African Kingdoms1 shared entry
Silk Roads1 shared entry

Kanem-Bornu Empire

event · 11th c. CE

For eight centuries, the political and economic life of Central Africa revolved around the shifting waters of Lake Chad.

Sundiata Keita

person · 1190 CE

A child crippled from birth, mocked alongside his hunchbacked mother in the royal court, seemed an unlikely candidate to forge one of history’s greatest empires.

Mali Empire

event · 1235 CE

Before it was an empire, Mali was a modest Mandinka kingdom huddled along the upper reaches of the Niger River, waiting for history to shift.

Mansa Musa

person · 1280 CE

When the ninth ruler of the Mali Empire embarked on his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 CE, he carried with him a fortune so vast that it permanently altered the economies of the lands he crossed.

Ibn Battuta

person · 1304 CE

In the summer of 1325, a twenty-one-year-old law student named Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta walked out of his family home in Tangier, driven by what he called an overmastering impulse to see the sacred sanctuaries…

Ibn Khaldun

person · 1332 CE

In the mid-fourteenth century, the Black Death swept through Tunis, claiming the parents and teachers of a young nobleman named Abū Zayd 'Abdu r-Rahman bin Muhammad bin Khaldūn Al-Hadrami.

Songhai Empire

place · 1464 CE

The rise and fall of the Songhai Empire hinged on the control of the great river highways and desert trade routes of the western Sahel.