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Commemorative Stela for Queen M.s.r (or M.s.n) Inscribed in Ornamental Kufic
Not on view
The Arabic inscriptions in ornamental Kufic script on the stelae found at the sites of Gao or Saney are among the earliest datable, locally produced historical records. They concern a series of twelfth-century rulers of Gao whose existence is otherwise unrecorded by external Arabic sources or later seventeenth-century Timbuktu chronicles. This inscription commemorates a queen, or malika. Such women served as leaders in parallel to kings in a high office that originated in Gao and was preserved by its Muslim leadership.
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