@afriques.bsky.social
Internationally refereed, Afriques is an academic journal about African worlds focusing on periods prior to the twentieth century. journals.openedition.org/afriques/ afriques.hypotheses.org/
In our new post, @transcrireada.bsky.social introduces the work of the Langarchiv project at IMAF Paris, which trains graduate students to write Wikipedia articles on African intellectuals and historical sources, addressing the encyclopedia's uneven representation of African history.
Link below ⬇️
remise de médaille à Marie Laure Derat à l'institut du Monde Arabe
Marie Laure Derat (Orient & Méditerranée) reçoit aujourd'hui la médaille d'argent du CNRS pour son travail d'historienne et d'archéologue sur l'Ethiopie chrétienne médiévale. C'est une grande fierté pour la communauté et une juste récompense pour son travail de longue haleine.
24.11.2025 14:11 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Promotional graphic for a new book from British Academy Publishing titled "The Chronicles of Two West African Kingdoms: The Tomb ibn al-Mukhtar of the Songhay Empire and the Tarikh al-fattash of the Caliphate of Hamdullahi," authored by Mauro Nobili, Zachary Wright, and A. Diakite. The image shows the book cover featuring an ancient manuscript page.
A new volume in the Fontes Historiae Africanae series, The Chronicles of Two West African Kingdoms presents a new reading of West African history from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries based on close analysis of Arabic manuscripts from Timbuktu and other regions.
https://bit.ly/3Jeb8cm
Elara Bertho
21.10.2025 10:02 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
New post by @transcrireada.bsky.social introducing the Islam West Africa Collection (IWAC), led and developed by @fmadore.bsky.social 📚 An open-access #database of 14,000+ documents, newspaper articles, recordings, and photographs relating to Islam and Muslims in West Africa.
🔗 tinyurl.com/jvu2wzd6
Avant le 30 novembre, soumettez vos propositions pour participer au webinaire 2025-26 de REDAfrica.
"La culture matérielle dans les pays africains de langue officielle portugaise et leurs diasporas"
redafricas.hypotheses.org/1018
Exciting book : "Bishops and Bishoprics in Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia (4th-13th c.)"
It compare the processes of Christianization and the influences of the anti-Chalcedonian Patriarchate of Alexandria in the Christian institutions of Egypt, Nubia & Ethiopia.
www.peeters-leuven.be/detail.php?s...
@mprovencalle.bsky.social
@univrouen.bsky.social
Mots-clés : relation de voyage, Villault de Bellefond, légende, Côte de l’Or, Akan
Keywords: travel account, Villault de Bellefond, legend, France, Gold Coast, Akan, Gulf of Guinea
Géographique : France, golfe de Guinée
conclusion of the article
It then evolved to become a tool in the fight against the Dutch monopoly that had been established, particularly in the kingdom of Eguafo. Villault de Bellefond would have taken up and enriched this legend, of which he became aware during his visit to the region.
13.09.2025 07:13 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Jean-Baptiste d’Anville, « Carte de la Côte de Guinée et du pays », 1729
This article develops another hypothesis: this legend would have been elaborated by Africans living on the Gold Coast in the early 17th c. to attract the French to the region and put an end to the Portuguese monopoly.
13.09.2025 07:13 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
early historiography on this text
Then, the Normans made numerous voyages to West Africa until the beg. of the 15th c.
Charles de La Roncière (1925) and Raymond Mauny (1950) consider that Villault de Bellefond wrote in order to support Colbert's colonial project in Africa and labelled his narration a legend.
Summary of the article
In 1669, the Frenchman Nicolas Villault de Bellefond published a travel account entitled "Relation des costes d’Afrique appelées Guinée". It reports in great detail that the Normans passed Cape Bojador as early as 1364, i.e. almost 70 years before the Portugueses.
13.09.2025 07:13 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
New article : "In search of African voices in European narratives: Nicolas Villault de Bellefond’s travel account and the legend of French priority in West Africa (17th century)"
by Matthieu Provençalle (Rouen Univ.)
#GoldCoast #Akan #GulfofGuinea
journals.openedition.org/afriques/5313
Le tout en #openaccess à ce lien brill.com/downloadpdf/...
Et pour le livre papier @degruyterbrill.bsky.social offre 35% jusqu'à la fin juillet avec le code DGBCONFB
brill.com/edcollbook-o...
Photo de la couverture du livre L’œuvre en kanouri d'al-Hajj Musa ibn Hissein, un savant du Borno (Niger-Nigéria)
Notre livre est arrivé! Pour fêter cette nouvelle, je vous propose un petit 🧵sur notre chanson préférée du livre avec Ari.
Il s'agit de la chanson XIV "Complainte d'une esclave pour son ami le beau Mamadu qui a été vendu loin à l'étranger"
Un chant entendu par al-Hajj Musa dans les années 1870
Olivier Langlois is full researcher at CEPAM CNRS UMR7264 à l'Université Côte d'Azur
17.07.2025 16:37 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Sketch of the ruins of DGB-1 (Kuva). Drawing by Christian Seignobos.
This article proposes a new hypothesis concerning the geographical origin of the builders of the DGB monuments. In line with many migration and origin accounts, the Mowo-Gudur region may have played a special role in the settlement process of highlands.
17.07.2025 16:33 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Map of the area (at the border between Nigerai and Cameroon).
Sucession of maps explaining the chronological distribtion of the pottery's decoration
This comparison reveals a time offset between the traditions of the summits and their analogues in the foothills.
It also sheds new light on the settlement process in the interior of the mountain chain.
Summary of the article
The DGB (diy-geɗ-biy) sites, perched on the northern heights of the Mandara Mountains, have revealed two pottery traditions that the author compare with those that make up the chrono-cultural sequences of the surrounding foothills and plains.
17.07.2025 16:33 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
A new article in the varia of Afriques !
"A history of the settlement of the northern Mandara Mountains (Cameroon, Nigeria) told through pottery decoration"
by Olivier Langlois
#archaelogy #AfricanHistory #ceramic
journals.openedition.org/afriques/5234
Couverture de l'ouvrage publié, intitulé L’œuvre en kanouri d'al-Hajj Musa ibn Hissein, un savant du Borno (Niger-Nigéria), publié chez Brill dans la collection African Sources for African History, en juillet 2025.
Aujourd’hui nous republions l’ensemble de ces textes en kanouri (chansons, proverbes, lettres, textes historiques) dans une double transcription celle du XIXe siècle et une lisible par les locuteurs contemporains et nous les traduisons en français pour les faire connaitre au plus grand nombre.
30.06.2025 18:27 — 👍 23 🔁 6 💬 3 📌 1
Photographie des étudiants à la mosquée al-Azhar du Caire vers 1900
En 1904, deux savants se rencontrent à la mosquée al-Azhar du Caire, un lettré musulman du Borno, al-Hajj Musa et un linguiste amateur allemand, Rudolf Prietze, tous deux en Égypte pour poursuivre leurs études, ils collaboreront pendant dix ans produisant des centaines de pages de textes en kanouri.
30.06.2025 18:27 — 👍 62 🔁 29 💬 1 📌 3
French translation of the letter.
It also explains how the Sultanate of Kilwa attempted to break away from Omani control.
#manuscript, #SwahiliCoast, #diplomacy, #slavetrade, #Oman, #Kilwa, #France, #AfricanHistory
The envelop of the letter
It sheds crucial light on the nature of relations between Swahili, Omani and French at the beginning of the 19th c. It shows the importance of slave-trading networks for French diplomacy and how they persisted after the official abolition of the slave trade.
18.06.2025 11:55 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
The letter of the King of Kilwa, 1819, to the King of France
This article includes a reproduction of the letter, its transcription and translation. The historical analysis helps to understand the context (actors, political situation), as well as the strategies of resistance of the Swahili sovereigns in the face of Omani expansionism in East Africa.
18.06.2025 11:55 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
Summary of the article
A newly edited and translated letter from mfalme Sulaymān b. Ḥasan to Louis XVIII, written in Arabic in 1819, aimed to seal an alliance between France and the Sultanate of Kilwa against the Omanis settled in Zanzibar, thanks to the good offices of an Arabic-speaking scholar and a slave trader.
18.06.2025 11:55 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
New article!
"A project of alliance between Kilwa and France against Omani expansionism, a study of a letter in Arabic from mfalme Sulaymān b. Ḥasan to Louis XVIII"
by Abdelhakim Belhacel (Univ. Nanterre, ESNA, IMAF) and Fu’ad Al-Qaisi (Doha Institute)
journals.openedition.org/afriques/5159
"Penser (ou repenser) les recherches sur les Afriques depuis la France", c'est demain, les 27 et 28 mai 2025 sur le campus Condorcet et en distanciel.
Le programme est passionnant !
etudes-africaines.cnrs.fr/lactualite-d...
Un texte important de @camillelefebvre.bsky.social
histoirecoloniale.net/lhistorienne...
Suppression HCERES
Victoire !!! Nous venons d’empêcher le rétablissement du #HCERES ! On l’a supprimé ! #DirectAN
10.04.2025 08:42 — 👍 366 🔁 109 💬 15 📌 23
