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Introduction
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Which was the most important item of trade a thousand years ago
in west Africa? This is in a way a "chicken-and-egg" question,
ultimately impossible to answer. From the perspective of the peoples
of the hot climate of the Sudan and further south, salt from the
mines of the Sahara was immensely valuable; chunks of salt broken
from large salt bars were even used as currency.1 Gold exports received much attention from Arab geographers and
travelers writing about the Sudan, and so likewise have been emphasized
by historians relying on the Arabic sources. As important as gold
was for the trans-Saharan trade, it was not, however, the only
valuable metal which changed hands in Sudanic Africa. Iron seems
to have been a critical factor in the early development of trade
in the region, and as mentioned above, copper mined in savanna
kingdoms such as Mali came to be a crucial element in trade patterns,
for it could be exchanged with the peoples to the south who actually
controlled the sources of gold.2 Writing in the fourteenth century, Al-Umari has left us vivid descriptions of such traffic in both salt and
valuable metals. Kola nuts, animal skins, slaves, grain, meat,
and even dairy products were also transported by trading networks.3
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