Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

• World Regions

  All regions

  Select a region

  • North America
  • Europe
  • Central and North Asia
  • East Asia
  • Central America
  • South America
  • Africa
  • West Asia
  • Oceania
  • South and Southeast Asia

  Select a time period

  • 8000–2000 B.C.
  • 2000–1000 B.C.
  • 1000 B.C.–1 A.D.
  • 1–500 A.D.
  • 500–1000 A.D.
  • 1000–1400 A.D.
  • 1400–1600 A.D.
  • 1600–1800 A.D.
  • 1800–1900 A.D.
  • 1900 A.D.–Present
• Timelines

  by Time Period 8,000–2,000 b.c. 2,000–1,000 b.c. 1,000 b.c.–1 a.d. 1–500 a.d. 500–1,000 a.d. 1,000–1400 a.d. 1400–1600 a.d. 1600–1800 a.d. 1800–1900 a.d. 1900 a.d.–present

  by Geographical Region Africa   Central America   Central and North Asia   East Asia   Europe   North America   Oceania   South America   South and Southeast Asia  West Asia

• Thematic Essays
  • Recent Additions  |  All Thematic Essays
  • 
    Select a Thematic Category African Art American Art Ancient Near Eastern Art Art of the Americas Asian Art Byzantine Art Egyptian Art European Art Greek and Roman Art Islamic Art Medieval Art Modern and Contemporary Art Oceanic/Pacific Art Prehistory Select a Department American Decorative Arts American Paintings and Sculpture Ancient Near Eastern Art Arms and Armor Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas Asian Art The Costume Institute Drawings and Prints Education Egyptian Art European Paintings European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Greek and Roman Art Islamic Art The Libraries Medieval Art and The Cloisters Musical Instruments Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art Objects Conservation Paintings Conservation Paper Conservation Photographs Robert Lehman Collection Scientific Research Textile Conservation

    ---

  • Select a Geographical Region Africa Central America Central and North Asia East Asia Europe North America Oceania South America South and Southeast Asia West Asia All Geographical Regions Select a Time Period 20,000–8000 B.C. 8000–2000 B.C. 2000–1000 B.C. 1000 B.C.–1 A.D. 1–500 A.D. 500–1000 A.D. 1000–1400 A.D. 1400–1600 A.D. 1600–1800 A.D. 1800–1900 A.D. 1900 A.D.–Present All Time Periods
    
• Works of Art
  Recent Additions
  
  

  Title Description
  Artist
  Material and Technique
  Credit Line
  Accession Number

• Index

  Artist (A–Z) | All Artists

  • A
  • B
  • C
  • D
  • E
  • F
  • G
  • H
  • I
  • J
  • K
  • L
  • M
  • N
  • O
  • P
  • Q
  • R
  • S
  • T
  • U
  • V
  • W
  • X
  • Y
  • Z

  ---

  Subject (A–Z)

  • A
  • B
  • C
  • D
  • E
  • F
  • G
  • H
  • I
  • J
  • K
  • L
  • M
  • N
  • O
  • P
  • Q
  • R
  • S
  • T
  • U
  • V
  • W
  • X
  • Y
  • Z

Inland Niger Delta

The Inland Niger Delta is located between the Bani and Niger rivers in present-day southwestern Mali. These waterways have provided the region with a fertile floodplain and a natural thoroughfare for trade, both of which helped secure the area's central position in the economic, social, and urban histories of the western Sudan.

Since the vast majority of the statues have been unearthed from sites without documentation or regard for their burial content, the age and significance of these objects is not well understood.

Related

Cited Works of Art or Images (1)

• 

Timelines (6)

• Western and Central Sudan, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Western and Central Sudan, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Western and Central Sudan, 1600–1800 A.D.
• Western and Central Sudan, 1800–1900 A.D.
• Western and Central Sudan, 1900 A.D.–present
• Western Sudan, 500–1000 A.D.

Primary Thematic Essays (4)

• The Birth of Islam
• The Empires of the Western Sudan: Mali Empire
• The Empires of the Western Sudan: Songhai Empire
• Trade and the Spread of Islam

Other Thematic Essays (16)

• African Rock Art
• African Rock Art of the Central Zone
• African Rock Art of the Northern Zone
• African Rock Art of the Southern Zone
• African Rock Art: Game Pass
• African Rock Art: Tassili–n–Ajjer (?8000 b.c.–?)
• African Rock Art: The Coldstream Stone
• Apollo 11 (ca. 25,500–23,500 b.c.) and Wonderwerk (ca. 8000 b.c.) Cave Stones
• Arts of the San People in Nomansland
• The Fulani/Fulbe People
• Ife (from ca. 350 b.c.)
• Ife Pre–Pavement and Pavement Era (800–1000 a.d.)
• Ife Terracottas (1000–1400 a.d.)
• The Monumental Stelae of Aksum (3rd–4th century a.d.)
• Nok Terracottas (500 b.c.–200 a.d.)
• San Ethnography

Maps (3)

• Africa, 1000 b.c.–1 a.d.
• Africa, 1–500 a.d.
• World, 1000 b.c.–1 a.d.

Index Terms (10)

Art Movement/Style

• Bozo Peoples of Western Africa
• Lower Niger Bronze Industry of Western Africa

Geography/Place

• Islamic World
• Western and Central Sudan

Material and Technique

• Iron

Subject Matter/Theme

• Food and Feasting
• Islamic Architecture
• Trade (1–500 A.D.)
• Trade (1000–1400 A.D.)
• Trade (500–1000 A.D.)

Share

| More

Jenne-jeno ("Old Jenne"; Djenne-jeno), site of the oldest known city of sub-Saharan Africa, was populated as early as 250 B.C. and expanded to become a major urban center by 850 A.D. Archaeologists have determined from slag deposits that the original inhabitants of Jenne-jeno worked iron from the earliest days of the site's occupation. This iron industry is among the earliest known in sub-Saharan Africa, antedated only by that of the Nok culture.

In addition to its importance as an ironworking center, Jenne-jeno was the region's first known significant trading crossroads. Food surpluses such as dried fish, staple grains, and oil were likely exchanged for items of trans-Saharan trade such as stones and salt. Abandoned by 1400, Jenne-jeno left behind tells (settlement mounds) containing the remains of a once-thriving city, including funerary pots and a multitude of buried statuary. Since the vast majority of the statues have been unearthed from sites without documentation or regard for their burial content, the age and significance of these objects is not well understood.

The town of Jenne (Djenne) was founded near Jenne-jeno between 800 and 1250 A.D. and grew to become an even more significant trans-Saharan trading center than its neighbor. By the fourteenth century, gold, kola, and slaves from the southern savanna, salt and manuscripts from the Sahara, and the staple foods of the Inland Niger Delta were bartered here in an extensive web of trade reaching as far as northern Africa and Europe. By the sixteenth century, Jenne had become one of the foremost market centers on the African continent.

Ideas as well as goods were exchanged at Jenne and, with its trading partner Timbuktu 220 miles to the north, the city became an important site of Islamic religion and scholarship. The city's first Islamic king, Koi Konboro, constructed its first Great Mosque, of adobe, in the thirteenth century. Although the original structure no longer stands, a remarkable adobe mosque was rededicated in its place around 1906–7.

Because of its strategic location as a trading crossroads, the Inland Niger Delta has been contested and conquered by a succession of empires throughout its long history, including the Mali empire, the Songhai empire, the Bambara of the Segu kingdom, the theocratic Fulani state of Cheikhou Amadou, the Tukulor empire, and finally the French in 1893. The country of Mali achieved independence from colonial rule on September 22, 1960.

Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Citation

Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. "Inland Niger Delta". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ind_1/hd_ind_1.htm (October 2000)

Further Reading

Bourgeois, Jean-Louis. "The History of the Great Mosque of Djenne." African Arts 20, no. 3 (May 1987), pp. 54–63, 90–91.

Phillips, Tom, ed. Africa: The Art of a Continent. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Prestel, 1995.

Prussin, Labelle. Hatumere: Islamic Design in West Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.