The Golden Age of Empire

Sundiata, Mansa Musa, and Timbuktu

Thursday, May  17, 2012, 6:30 p.m.

The Aramco Services  Company Lecture

Brown Auditorium Theater, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet

*Free Admission*

Professor Kevin MacDonald, Professor of African Archaeology, University College of London

Cosponsored by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Fabulous wealth from the Saharan gold trade established a glittering empire in Mali and supported the creation of an internationally renowned university and library at Timbuktu well before the establishment of European universities in the Renaissance.  Its ruler Mansa Musa also achieved fame through the creation of mosques and palaces.  Explore not only the legacy of Mansa Musa but also his predecessors and successors, the equally powerful but lesser known empires of Ghana and Songha.