Celebrating African Heritage

Every year on the 5th of May,  African World Heritage Day  celebrates the continent’s unique cultural heritage. The day was created by UNESCO in 2015, in recognition of how African cultural heritage sites are underrepresented on UNESCO’s World Heritage Site list, and how a disproportionately high number of those that do exist have been classified as “In Danger”. Africa is home to innumerable places of global cultural and historical significance, yet many of these sites are at risk from various threats, whether from increasing urbanisation, agricultural expansion, or climate change.

Here at the Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments ( MAEASaM ) project, we are launching our first StoryMap on this day to bring attention to some of the rich heritage in our countries of study. The StoryMap presents one site from each of the eight countries engaged in the project, to try to convey how incredible and diverse these precious places are – and also to highlight the vulnerability of such sites across Africa.

All of the featured sites are included in  UNESCO’s List of World Heritage Sites . Established by the World Heritage Convention in 1975 and regularly added to since, the list inscribes locations of particular heritage interest to the entire world.

Scroll through to discover sites of significant cultural heritage in Senegal, Mali, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Botswana.  

List of image attributions

1. Island of Gorée (Senegal) 1: © Mahmoud Abdelrazek 2: ©  Zamani Project   3-6: © Stefania Merlo 2. Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara (Tanzania) 1-2: © Stephanie Wynne-Jones 3: ©  Zamani Project  4: © Robin Chew, available on CC BY-SA 4.0 via  Wikimedia  5: © Richard Mortel, available on CC BY 2.0 via  Flickr  6: © Egui, available on CC BY-NC 2.0 via  Flickr  3. Great Zimbabwe National Monument (Zimbabwe) 1-2: © Daniel Löwenborg 3-6: © Federica Sulas 4. Timbuktu (Mali) 1: © Mission de l'ONU au Mali, available on CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr 2: © Johannes Zielcke, available on CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr 3: © David Lantner, available on CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr 4: © Emilio Labrador, available on CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia 5: © United Nations Photo/Mark Garten, available on CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr 6: © Mission de l'ONU au Mali, available on CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr 5. Tsodilo Hills (Bostwana) 1-6: © Stefania Merlo 6. Harar Jugol, the Fortified Historic Town (Ethiopia) 1: © Tim Insoll 2: © Ahron de Leeuw, available on CC BY 2.0 via Flickr 3: © Rod Waddington, available on CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr 4: © A. Davey, available on CC BY 2.0 via Flickr 5: © twiga_swala, available on CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr 6: © Rod Waddington, available on CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr 7. Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe (Sudan) 1-6: © Jane Humphris 8. Thimlich Ohinga (Kenya) 1-6: © Paul Lane Banner image created by Ed Burnett based on following images: Meroe, Sudan: © Jane Humphris Lekubu, Botswana: © Stefania Merlo Djingareyber Mosque, Mali: © David Lantner, available on CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr Bete Giyorgis, Ethiopia: © Vegetation7/Shutterstock, available via WHC/UNESCO Sine Ngayene, Senegal: © Adama Athie Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: © David Berkowitz, available on CC BY 2.0 via Flickr Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe: © evenfh, available via Shutterstock Gede, Kenya: © malczyk, available on CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr

Sources

Introduction  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/   https://www.unesco.org/en/member-states-portal/about   https://whc.unesco.org/en/upstreamprocess/   https://whc.unesco.org/en/nominations/   https://whc.unesco.org/en/158/   https://whc.unesco.org/en/danger/  Island of Gorée (Senegal) Bibliographic references: - Thiaw, I. 2003a. “The Gorée Archaeological Project (GAP): Material Things and the Use of Space in Plural Settings”, Sephis Newsletter 8, pp. 10-14. - Thiaw, I. 2003b. “Archaeology and the Public in Senegal: Reflections on doing Fieldwork at Home”, Journal of African Archaeology 1 (2), pp. 27-35. - Thiaw, I. 2003c. “The Gorée Archaeological Project (GAP): Preliminary results”, Nyame Akuma 60, pp. 27-35. UNESCO website:  https://whc.unesco.org/fr/list/26/  Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara (Tanzania) Bibliographic references: - Chittick, N.H. 1974. Kilwa: An Islamic Trading City on the East African Coast, Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa. - Wynne-Jones, S. 2005. “Urbanization at Kilwa, Tanzania AD 800–1400.” PhD diss., University of Cambridge. - Ichumbaki, E.B. and Mapunda, B.B. 2017. “Challenges to the retention of the integrity of World Heritage Sites in Africa: the case of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara, Tanzania”, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 52(4), pp. 518-539. - Sutton, J.E.G. 1998. “Kilwa”, Azania 33, pp. 113–169. - Trimingham, J. 1975. “The Arab geographers.” In East Africa and the Orient: Cultural Syntheses in Pre-Colonial Times”, edited by N.H. Chittick and R. Rotberg, London: Holmes and Meier, pp. 115–146. UNESCO website:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/144  Great Zimbabwe National Monument (Zimbabwe) Bibliographic references: - Chirikure, S., Moultrie, T., Bandama, F., Dandara, C and Manyanga, M. 2017. “What was the population of Great Zimbabwe (CE1000-1800)”, PloS One 12(6). p.e0178335. - Connah, G. 2016. “Cattle, ivory, and gold: social complexity in Zambezia”, African Civilizations: An archaeological perspective, third edition. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. - Donovan, C.H.W. 1979. With Wilson in Matabeleland, facsimile reproduction of 1894 edition. Books of Rhodesia: Bulawayo. - Hall, R.N. 1905. “The Great Zimbabwe”, Journal of the Royal African Society, 4(15): 295-300 - Maund, E.A., 1891. “On Matabele and Mashona Lands”, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, 13(1): 1-21. Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Wiley. - Mitchell, P. 2016. “The Zimbabwe Tradition". In: The archaeology of Southern Africa, fifth edition. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. - Pikirayi, I. 2001. The Zimbabwe Culture: origins and decline in southern Zambezian state. Alta Mira: California. UNESCO website:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/364/   https://whc.unesco.org/en/soc/2077   Timbuktu (Mali) Bibliographic references: - Insoll, T. 1998. “Archaeological research in Timbuktu, Mali”, Antiquity 72, 413-417. - Insoll, T. 2002. “The archaeology of post medieval Timbuktu”, Sahara 13, 7-22. - Post Park, D. 2010. “Prehistoric Timbuktu and its hinterland”, Antiquity 84, 1076-1088. UNESCO website:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119   https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/3574   https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/4767/   https://whc.unesco.org/en/soc/1243   https://whc.unesco.org/en/soc/261/   https://whc.unesco.org/en/canopy/timbuktu/  Tsodilo Hills (Botswana) Bibliographic references: - Basinyi, S. 2019. "Living with Heritage: The Case of Tsodilo World Heritage Site and Neighbouring Localities". Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 99. Oxford: Archaeopress Access Archaeology. - Campbell, A. C. (ed.) 2010. "Tsodilo Hills: Copper Bracelet of the Kalahari". East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. - Wendorff M. 2022. “The Tsodilo Hills: a multifaceted World Heritage Site”. In: Eckardt, F. D. (ed.), Landscapes and Landforms of Botswana. World Geomorphological Landscapes. Cham: Springer: pp. 345-360 UNESCO website:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1021/  Harar Jugol, the Fortified Historic Town (Ethiopia) Bibliographic references: Text from: Khalaf, N. and Insoll, T. 2019. “Monitoring Islamic Archaeological Landscapes in Ethiopia Using Open Source Satellite Imagery”, Journal of Field Archaeology, 44:6.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00934690.2019.1629256  - Ahmed, A. M. 1990. “A Survey of the Harar Djugel (Wall) and its Gates.” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 23: 321–334. - Braukämper, U. 2004. Islamic History and Culture in Southern Ethiopia. Münster: Lit Verlag.; Insoll, T. 2017a. “First Footsteps in the Archaeology of Harar.” Journal of Islamic Archaeology 4: 189–215. - Caulk, R. A. 1977. “Harär Town and Its Neighbours in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of African History 18: 369–386; Braukämper, U. 2004. Islamic History and Culture in Southern Ethiopia. Münster: Lit Verlag; Insoll, T. 2017a. “First Footsteps in the Archaeology of Harar.” Journal of Islamic Archaeology 4: 189–215. - Horton, M. 1994. “East Africa.” In The Mosque, edited by M. Frishman and H.-U. Khan, 194–207. 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Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology.  https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.565  - Humphris, J., Bussert, R., Alshishani, F. and Scheibner, T. 2018. "The ancient iron mines of Meroe". Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 53(3): 291-311.  https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2018.1515922  - Kleinitz, C., 2014. "The Graffiti of Musawwarat es-Sufra: current research on historic inscriptions, images and markings at the Great Enclosure". Sudan & Nubia 18: 93-103. - Sadig, A. M. and Adam, A. H. A. 2017. “The Archaeology of Island of Meroe as seen from the recent discoveries north of the Royal City”, Journal of Faculty of Arts University of Khartoum 39. - Fahmi, M. M., Ahmad, Y. B., and Hashim, H. A. 2018. "Review of Restoration Methods: Pyramids and Temples in Sudan", Journal of Heritage Management 3(2): 209–222.  https://doi.org/10.1177/2455929619833196  UNESCO website:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1336/  Thimlich Ohinga (Kenya) Bibliographic references: - Lofgren, L. 1967.  "Stone structures of South Nyanza". Azania 2: 75-88. - Onjala, I. O., and Kamaru, E. K. 2005. "Thimlich Ohinga: Traditional conservation practices". In: T. Joffroy (ed.), Traditional Conservation Practices in Africa. pp. 97–104. ICCROM: pp. 97-104. - Onjala, I.O. 2003. "Spatial distribution and settlement system of the stone structures of south-western Kenya". Azania 38: 99–120. - Wandibba, S. 1985. "Thimlich Ohingini". Azania 21: 134. UNESCO website:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1450/ 

Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments ( MAEASaM ), funded by Arcadia, is documenting endangered archaeological heritage sites in eight African countries. The project’s mission? To record and describe such sites in ways that help authorities, museums, and other heritage bodies to protect them.