Empire of Ghana at fatal weakness

1080

Decades of desert drought and Almoravid pressure had hollowed out the ancient Soninke empire of Ghana. Its gold trade routes were being diverted; its tributary chiefdoms were defecting. The imperial core around Kumbi Saleh would stagger on for a century more, but the great West African power was finished. The trans-Saharan gold trade that had been Ghana's lifeblood was shifting eastward toward the rising Mali.