Season 6 Episode 6: Lime, Iron, and Salt
History of Africa

Season 6 Episode 6: Lime, Iron, and Salt

B2Upper-intermediateNovember 11, 202421 min

In today's episode, we chart the growth of Kilwa as a major economic center, from its growth as a manufacturer of lime and iron, to its rise as a middleman in the trade of gold from Africa's southern reaches, as well as its blossoming into a maritime power.

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

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A1 7%A2 22%B1 46%B2 22%C1 4%
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  • 158 words a minute: a natural pace.
  • 173 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

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0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the History of Africa podcast. I'm your host, Andy. In our last episode, we explored the controversial and somewhat contentious semi-mythical origin story of Kilwa.

0:12

When Ali ibn Hassan al-Sirazi, a Persian prince born from a nobleman from Shiraz and an enslaved African woman, sailed to the island of Kilwa and created a new kingdom of his own. While the exact historicity of the account remains contentious, we examined the evidence and determined that there was at least some basis to this story based on genetic evidence,

0:33

and that Persian sailors likely did play a somewhat unclear but notable role in the early history of the city. However, we also determined that the archaeological evidence and the remainder of Kielwa's history confirms its status as a civilization with an African foundation, just one which happened to have a trans-oceanic cosmopolitan bent.

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