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| | Wonders of the African World - Episodes - Road to Timbuktu - Wonders |
 | | By the time Arab geographers began to write of West Africa in the 8th century A.D., the Empire of Ghana -- described as a "land of gold" -- was already in existence. |
 | | If this is anything more than an exercise in symmetry, then we may expect the origins of the Empire of Ghana to extend back to the first few centuries A.D. Certainly there is good archaeological evidence for the existence of large towns within, and north of, the Inland Niger Delta by ca. |
 | | In these writings, Ghana is depicted as a great military power which could put "200,000 warriors in the field, more than 40,000 being armed with bow and arrow." The king, it was said, controlled the flow of gold from the south, and the traffic of salt from the north. |
| www.pbs.org /wonders/Episodes/Epi5/5_wondr4.htm (419 words) |
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