Qualla: Tomb of Askia https://qualla.com/tomb-of-askia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/z/u/tomb-of-askia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tomb of Askia https://qualla.com/tomb-of-askia Tomb of Askia: Introduction https://qualla.com/tomb-of-askia/ Photo credit Gio53, CC BY-SA 4.0. From a distance it looks like nothing you have seen before: a steep brown pyramid, seventeen metres tall, its sloping flanks pierced all over with the protruding ends of wooden beams, like a porcupine of timber and earth. This is the Tomb of Askia, the resting place of one of medieval Africa's greatest rulers, and the largest pre-colonial monument still standing in Gao. It is not stone. Every surface is mud, shaped by hand and renewed by hand for more than five centuries.

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Image: Gio53 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/z/u/tomb-of-askia-wp/efzu-tomb-of-askia-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tomb of Askia: An Emperor's Last Monument https://qualla.com/tomb-of-askia/ Photo credit Gio53, CC BY-SA 4.0. Askia Muhammad I built it at the end of the fifteenth century, around 1495, when Gao was the capital of the Songhai Empire and he was its most powerful ruler. A devout Muslim, he had made the long pilgrimage to Mecca, returning around 1497 and afterward making Islam the official ...

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Image: Gio53 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/z/u/tomb-of-askia-wp/efzu-tomb-of-askia-an-emperors-last-monument.mp3 0:06 2 full Tomb of Askia: Architecture of Earth https://qualla.com/tomb-of-askia/ Photo credit David Sessoms from Fribourg, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0. The tomb is the supreme example of the Sudano-Sahelian building tradition, a style of monumental mud architecture native to the West African Sahel and found nowhere else on Earth in quite this form. Those wooden beams jutting from the walls, called toron, are not decoration alone...

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Image: David Sessoms from Fribourg, Switzerland | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/z/u/tomb-of-askia-wp/efzu-tomb-of-askia-architecture-of-earth.mp3 0:06 3 full Tomb of Askia: Still in Use https://qualla.com/tomb-of-askia/ Photo credit Walter Mittelholzer, Public domain. What sets the Tomb of Askia apart from a ruin is that it was never abandoned. The complex includes the pyramidal tomb, two flat-roofed mosques, a cemetery, and an open-air assembly ground, and the people of Gao still gather here to pray. The mosque buildings were expanded in the ...

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Image: Walter Mittelholzer | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/z/u/tomb-of-askia-wp/efzu-tomb-of-askia-still-in-use.mp3 0:06 4 full Tomb of Askia: World Heritage at Risk https://qualla.com/tomb-of-askia/ Photo credit Taguelmoust, CC BY-SA 3.0. UNESCO inscribed the Tomb of Askia on its World Heritage List in 2004, calling it a fine example of the monumental mud-building traditions of the Sahel and a testament to the wealth Songhai drew from the trans-Saharan trade in salt and gold. But heritage status cannot make a regi...

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Image: Taguelmoust | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/z/u/tomb-of-askia-wp/efzu-tomb-of-askia-world-heritage-at-risk.mp3 0:06 5 full