Khitan woman, ca. 1000 AD (Musee Guimet, Paris) From prehistory right through the Middle Ages, most Central Asian people's most important attachments were to their family and their clan or [...]
The tomb of the Samanid rulers. Bukhara, Uzbekistan, about 900 AD. Who were the Samanids? The Samanids were people who lived in the easternmost part of the medieval Abbasid Empire. They [...]
Yurts- the houses of Central Asia What do nomads live in? The nomadic people of Central Asia generally lived in yurts, portable houses made of a foldable wood frame with [...]
Uzbek ruler in his yurt (1509, probably at Samarkand, in Uzbekistan) The Uzbek empire After the collapse of the Mongol Timur's empire in the 1400s AD, many smaller states replaced the [...]
Important to Uighur history: Yakub Beg Uighurs become independent After the collapse of the Mongol Empire about 1600 AD, the Uighurs regained their independence. Earlier Uighurs Who were the Mongols? [...]
In 1500 AD, most of the people in Africa worshipped traditional local gods. But local gods are appropriate for local chiefs; big empires tend to go with monotheistic religions. So as more [...]
Kilwa By 1500 AD, people in Tanzania were doing pretty well. They did a lot of trading with India and the Arabian Peninsula from their biggest port at Kilwa, and [...]
A village near Sennar in 1823 Big changes came to Sudan about 1500 AD. About 1490, the Shilluk people - who called themselves the Chollo and worshipped African gods - seem [...]
Palace of the Hafsids in Tunis (now the Bardo Museum) - where the economist Ibn Khaldun spent time Ibn Khaldun's childhood The economist Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis, in [...]
Ibn Battuta in China - on his travels Continuing travels of Ibn Battuta Ibn Battuta had already traveled much more than most people did! But even after visiting East Africa he [...]
