Before the Portuguese, before the castles, before anyone on this coast had seen a European, the gold was already leaving — and it was going north.
The Begho archaeological area near Hani; Techiman market, which sits on the same trade axis it always did.
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Begho and the Gold Road
Before the Portuguese, before the castles, before anyone on this coast had seen a European, the gold was already leaving — and it was going north.
Begho, near modern Hani, was a large trading town from around the eleventh century: Akan forest goods on one side, and on the other, Mande and Dyula traders coming down from Jenne and the Niger with salt, cloth, brass and beads. Gold and kola went north across the Sahara. This is the trade that made the medieval Mediterranean's gold coinage possible, and it ran through Ghanaian forest towns that most Ghana itineraries have never heard of.
The Bono state at Bono Manso rose on the same axis, and much of what later became Asante ceremonial practice — the goldweights, the regalia, the court forms — has roots in this older Bono world.
And then the ships came to the coast, and the direction of the gold reversed inside a century, and the great inland market towns began their long decline.
If you visit Ghana. The Begho archaeological area near Hani; Techiman market, which sits on the same trade axis it always did.
Before the Portuguese, before the castles, before anyone on this coast had seen a European, the gold was already leaving — and it was going north.
Begho, near modern Hani, was a large trading town from around the eleventh century: Akan forest goods on one side, and on the other, Mande and Dyula traders coming down from Jenne and the Niger with salt, cloth, brass and beads. Gold and kola went north across the Sahara. This is the trade that made the medieval Mediterranean's gold coinage possible, and it ran through Ghanaian forest towns that most Ghana itineraries have never heard of.
The Bono state at Bono Manso rose on the same axis, and much of what later became Asante ceremonial practice — the goldweights, the regalia, the court forms — has roots in this older Bono world.
And then the ships came to the coast, and the direction of the gold reversed inside a century, and the great inland market towns began their long decline.