Deck 14: Patterns of State Formation in Africa, 600-1450 C.E

Question 1

Under the Zagwe kings, the conversion of the peoples in the central and southern highlands to Christianity ____________.

A) was immediately abandoned
B) was only mildly encouraged
C) was fully resumed
D) was eventually abandoned

Answer 1

C

Question 2

According to the official foundation narrative, the kings of Aksum were not only the descendants of the Queen of Sheba and the Israelite King Solomon but also the heirs to the Israelite __________________.

A) Ark of the Covenant
B) Dead Sea Scrolls
C) Torah
D) Old Testament

Answer 2

A

Question 3

During the period ____________, Nubia was a Christian kingdom along the middle Nile in the Sahara and sub-Saharan steppe.

A) 1500-1700
B) 600-1250
C) 1300-1500
D) 200-400

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Ancient Ghana emerged in the 600s as the strongest group of ___________ between the Niger inland delta in the east and the Senegal valley in the west.

A) chiefdoms
B) empires
C) city-states
D) kingdoms

Question 5

Unlike ________________, where kings appointed church officials, the Coptic patriarchs of Alexandria appointed the bishops, and these would remain independent from kings.

A) Armenia
B) Catholic Europe
C) Ghana
D) India

Question 6

A pattern of regional trade, urbanization, and chiefdom formation was also characteristic for the _______ and savanna of West Africa from the middle of the first millennium CE onwards.

A) plains
B) Sahel
C) grasslands
D) Gold Coast

Question 7

Mali's supply of _________ enjoyed an increased demand in the Islamic realm on the other side of the Sahara.

A) spices
B) emeralds
C) diamonds
D) gold

Question 8

Nubian churches were outposts of the ____________.

A) Nestorian Christian Church
B) Roman Catholic Church
C) Greek Orthodox Church
D) Coptic Church

Question 9

Interaction with the ______________ allowed Nubia to adapt itself to the Christian institutions of sacred kingship.

A) Achaemenid Empire
B) Chinese Empire
C) Roman Empire
D) Holy Roman Empire

Question 10

Archaeologists have so far discovered _____________ of a kingdom-wide taxation system in Christian Nubia.

A) ambiguous evidence
B) no evidence whatsoever
C) scant evidence
D) substantial evidence

Question 11

_________________ missionaries converted the Nubians to Christianity.

A) Roman
B) Persian
C) Greek
D) Egyptian

Question 12

The __________________ of southern Africa was the first region of the interior where a pattern of increasing wealth and population density became visible, during the period 600-1505.

A) Zimbabwean Plateau
B) Namib Desert
C) Okavango Delta of Botswana
D) Southern highlands of Mozambique

Question 13

During the period 600-1450, the Swahili people emerged as an indigenous African population of:

A) Christians.
B) warriors.
C) merchants.
D) Muslims.

Question 14

__________ descent is the possession of genealogy going back to the Prophet Muhammad.

A) Shiite
B) Ummayad
C) Sharifian
D) Swahili

Question 15

______________ was the most famous ruler of Mali and a staunch promoter of Islamic culture, science, and religion, especially in the city of Timbuktu.

A) Mahmud IV
B) Mansa Musa
C) Maghan II
D) Mandinke

Question 16

The earliest evidence for the existence of permanent agricultural and fishing settlements around Lake Upemba in central Africa points to the period around ____________.

A) 300 CE
B) 100 BCE
C) 800 CE
D) 1300 CE

Question 17

The Zagwe kingdom was synonymous with "Ethiopia" or ___________.

A) "Armenia"
B) "Abyssinia"
C) "Anatolia"
D) "Etruria"

Question 18

________________ is one of the earliest written histories in sub-Saharan Africa.

A) The Rosetta Stone
B) The Story of Sinuhe
C) The Glorious Victories of Amda Seyon
D) The Theogony

Question 19

Under a king ruling by divine right, Ethiopia was a confederation of:

A) vassal kingdoms.
B) provincial lords.
C) satellite religions.
D) independent empires.

Question 20

The Solomonid kings continued to embrace their Christian identity in legal matters, adopting a Christianized version of ____________, called The Law of the Kings or Fetha Nagast.

A) Salic law
B) Roman law
C) Sharia law
D) Kabbala law

Question 21

The Empire of Mali was founded by Malinke King _____________.

A) Solomon
B) Sundiata
C) Musa I
D) Sandaki

Question 22

Swahili _____________ were Muslims claiming Middle Eastern descent and, by virtue of profiting from long-distance trade with the countries around the Indian Ocean, either ascended to the throne of their cities as kings or governed their cities in a council along with their peers.

A) high priests
B) elders
C) patricians
D) mullahs

Question 23

The earliest of the rainforest village clusters to urbanize, Ife was the spiritual center of the _________ ethnic group and its oral traditions.

A) Edo
B) Swazi
C) Zulu
D) Yoruba

Question 24

The kings of Aksum and the patriarch of the Coptic Church abandoned the capital perhaps as early as the _____________ and reestablished themselves in a modest chiefdom with better agrarian resources farther south.

A) mid-600s
B) mid-800s
C) mid-400s
D) mid-1000s

Question 25

Some of the later rainforest kingdoms achieved great feats of engineering, including elaborate moats and ramparts, the most famous of which is Ijebu´s:

A) Kasubi Tombs
B) "Sungbo's Eredo"
C) Djinguereber Mosque
D) "The Forbidden City"

Question 26

In the 400s, Nubian chiefs established three small kingdoms that prospered in large measure as a result of the rapid spread of ________________.

A) gold mining operations
B) cattle farming
C) animal-driven waterwheels
D) crop rotation

Question 27

The Solomonid kings sponsored the composition of an elaborate foundation narrative, the ______________, aimed at legitimizing their dynasty.

A) Epic of Gilgamesh
B) Meqabian
C) Kebra Negast
D) Rig-Veda

Question 28

Power remained largely decentralized after the unification of the three Nubian kingdoms, with a dozen vassal rulers and appointed official called a(n) ______________.

A) eparch
B) mbira
C) saqqiya
D) thema

Question 29

Khariji dissidents, who became the earliest Muslim merchants in East Africa, were primarily interested in the ______________, a profitable enterprise in the Islamic empire.

A) spice trade
B) slave trade
C) manufacturing trade
D) mining trade

Question 30

By around ___________ Christianity in Nubia had largely given way to Islam.

A) 750
B) 1276
C) 1450
D) 1930

Question 31

One of the signs of the conversion of Nubians to Christianity in the 500s was:

A) Their refusal to participate in a hijra to Mecca with their neighbors.
B) Their recognition of the Patriarch in Constantinople over the Coptic authorities.
C) Their preference for democratic, rather than monarchic, government.
D) The conversion of pagan temples into churches.

Question 32

Later Muslim historians reinterpreted the pact made after a battle between Nubians and Arabs in 652 as:

A) A punishment on Arabic forces for violating the Nubians' neutrality.
B) An admission of Nubian submission to Islamic hegemony.
C) A temporary setback in the Islamicization of East Africa.
D) An invalid treaty, because the Nubians violated its terms almost immediately afterward.

Question 33

The Christian hierarchy in Nubia was:

A) Appointed by and responsible to the patriarch in Alexandria.
B) Composed of members of the royal family and controlled by the king.
C) An outpost of the Catholic Church, sending frequent messages to Rome.
D) Constantly seeking theological reconciliation with Muslims.

Question 34

In the 970s, the mysterious Queen Gudit or Judith:

A) Converted to Christianity and retired to a nunnery.
B) Converted to Islam and oversaw a translation of the Koran into Aksumite.
C) Married a Hebrew king and raised their child as the first Solomonid king.
D) Led several destructive campaigns in which churches were burned.

Question 35

Built in the early 1200s, the Lalibela monoliths were probably a reaction to:

A) The rediscovery of African spiritualism by the Aksumite kings.
B) The Muslims' recovery of Jerusalem in 1187.
C) The need for an Islamic pilgrimage center that was closer than Mecca.
D) A threatened Arab invasion and the need for a systematic defense.

Question 36

According to the Kebra Negast, the kings of Aksum were the descendants of a union between the queen of Sheba and Solomon, as well as the heirs to ______________.

A) The Ark of the Covenant
B) The Holy Grail
C) The letters of Prester John
D) Muhammad's son-in-law Ali

Question 37

An embassy of 30 people traveled to Italy around _________, and their king was identified with the mythical Prester John, a great Christian ruler in 'the east' who would help recover the Holy Land.

A) 30 CE
B) 1095 CE
C) 800 CE
D) 1300 CE

Question 38

A revolt among enslaved East Africans at the mouth of the __________ River between 868 and 883 led to the suppression of large-scale agricultural slavery in the region.

A) Nile
B) Congo
C) Tigris
D) Zambezi

Question 39

Wealthy Swahili merchant families came to associate themselves with the capital of the Shiite dynasty of the Buyids in __________.

A) Basra
B) Shiraz
C) Zanzibar
D) Cairo

Question 40

The ____________ traveler Ibn Battuta (1304-1369) claimed to see a combination of Islamic and pre-Islamic customs in the royal court of Sheikh Abu Bakr in Mogadishu.

A) Moroccan
B) Indian
C) Egyptian
D) Turkish

Question 41

From the early 900s, the major export item from Mapungubwe to Swahili cities was:

A) Porcelain
B) Bronze
C) Glass
D) Gold

Question 42

The enclosure complex of the Zimbabwe seems to have been all of the following except:

A) Composed of solid stone walls
B) Plastered or painted on the inside
C) An Islamic law school
D) Densely packed with houses

Question 43

A __________ bearing a date around 1505 was found in a burned and collapsed structure in the Great Zimbabwe compound, suggesting that trade routes were still viable at this period.

A) Gold Mapungubwe figurine
B) Bronze Ife mask
C) European parchment calendar
D) Chinese porcelain dish

Question 44

The regularization of a trans-Saharan trade by the __________ in the mid-500s had a profound effect in the Sahel.

A) Bantu
B) Romans
C) Nubians
D) Luba

Question 45

In contrast to their Swahili colleagues, the kings of ______ avoided a combination of traditional notions of kingship with Islam.

A) Mali
B) Mapungubwe
C) Ijebu
D) Ghana

Question 46

The onset of ___________ eventually led to the shrinking of the Malian empire by 1450.

A) Civil war
B) Drought
C) Christianization
D) French colonialism

Question 47

Scholars have explained the purpose of Sungbo's Eredo as being all of the following except:

A) To facilitate the collection of tolls.
B) To mark boundaries for ancestral lands and their spirits.
C) To stimulate the economy through construction projects.
D) To protect against enemies and elephants.

Question 48

The epic of Sundiata demonstrates that:

A) Fortuitous birth determines all future success.
B) Only men are capable of achieving long-lasting societal change.
C) Marginal figures in village life can cut across the established social order.
D) Islamicization led to the immediate rejection of West African spirituality.

Question 49

In 1270, a new dynasty of kings, the _____________, emerged some 300 miles south of Aksum, in the region of today's capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.

A) Tigrays
B) Tewodros
C) Mapungubwe
D) Solomonids

Question 50

When one of local chiefs centralized rule in 1137, the new kingdom of ________ unified the highlands and battled the Muslims in the lowlands on the Red Sea coast in the name of a Christian Crusade.

A) Nubia
B) Ethiopia
C) Yemen
D) Malindi

Question 51

Nubian kingdoms prospered in large part as the result of the rapid spread of the animal-driven ________ invented in Egypt in the first century CE.

A) War chariot
B) Canal at Suez
C) Sailing ship on the Nile
D) Waterwheel

Question 52

A ruling in the mid-800s by an Egyptian Muslim judge allowed Nubian Muslims to acquire __________.

A) Private property
B) Arabic surnames
C) Written copies of the Koran
D) Statues of Muhammad

Question 53

________ Christianity, centered in Egypt, emphasizes the sole divine nature of Jesus.

A) Catholic
B) Orthodox
C) Coptic
D) Nestorian

Question 54

To its neighbors, the Zagwe kingdom was 'Ethiopia' or '_________', names rooted in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles.

A) Zimbabwe
B) Abyssinia
C) Oman
D) Eden

Question 55

The religious heritage of the Solomonids still lives on in Ethiopia, and among the _________, who form a small minority in Jamaica and are associated with Bob Marley.

A) Animists
B) Aksumists
C) Sundiatists
D) Rastafarians

Question 56

In the mid-1400s, Ethiopian kings adopted a Christianized version of _______________ law, The Law of the Kings (Fetha Nagast) from the Egyptian Copts.

A) Jewish
B) Roman
C) Persian
D) Islamic

Question 57

Many small rivers open into the Indian Ocean, but only the _________ River in the south was large enough to allow longer-range water traffic and the building of inland towns.

A) Congo
B) Nile
C) Niger
D) Zambezi

Question 58

Swahili cities were characterized by a central open square containing a __________, the main city well, and the tombs of saints.

A) Mosque
B) City Hall
C) Communal garden
D) Cathedral

Question 59

By 1400, Swahili city-states included all of the following except:

A) Mogadishu
B) Zanzibar
C) Gede
D) Limpopo

Question 60

Among the golden objects found among the items of the royal dynasty of Mapungubwe, signifying the power and magic of the kings, was a ____________.

A) Giraffe
B) Rhinoceros
C) Map of the world
D) Miniature palace

Question 61

At its height between 1250 and 1505, the kingdom of __________ represents the culmination of the southern African kingdoms.

A) Luba
B) Ghana
C) Mapungubwe
D) Great Zimbabwe

Question 62

Serving as a model for subsequent kingdoms in the savanna of central Africa, the Luba kingdom survived until the arrival of __________ colonialism at the end of the nineteenth century.

A) Belgian
B) French
C) British
D) German

Question 63

Ghana came to resemble the states on the Swahili coast and their hinterlands, where only the rulers and merchants were ____________.

A) Christians
B) African spiritualists
C) Berbers
D) Muslims

Question 64

At the head of a cavalry force borrowed from a chiefdom in the Sahel, Sundiata defeated ancient Ghana in 1235 and founded the empire of Mali, with its capital on an upper Niger tributary in modern __________.

A) Cameroon
B) Morocco
C) Guinea
D) Chad

Question 65

Mansa Musa established the city of ________ as a center of learning, focusing on Islamic law but also offering courses in a wide variety of sciences

A) Ijebu
B) Fez
C) Sofala
D) Timbuktu

Question 66

Sungbo's Eredo is a ___________ combination up to 70 feet deep/high and 100 miles long.

A) Rope and pulley
B) Mosque and minaret
C) Brick and mortar
D) Moat and rampart

Question 67

The stripes on the faces of some Ife figures are believed to distinguish one lineage from another or to represent:

A) The various religious affiliations of the settlement's inhabitants.
B) The passage from youth to adulthood.
C) The artists' skill in sculpting them while the terra cotta was being fired.
D) The religious ban on human depictions.

Question 68

In the Malian epic told about his life, Sundiata prevails over his enemies thanks to a discovery made by his ___________.

A) Wife
B) Mother
C) Son
D) Sister

Question 69

The East and West African expansion of trade under the impact of Islam may have also indirectly led to a __________ in the interior of Africa.

A) Debilitating plague
B) Population increase
C) Rediscovery of African spirituality
D) Flourishing of Islamic law schools