Mansa Musa's Lost Map: The Cartography of Mali's Empire

Mansa Musa: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived — Fexingo History · Jul 5, 2026 · 7m · transcript

In this episode of Fexingo History, Lucas and Luna explore the lost cartographic traditions of the Mali Empire under Mansa Musa. While no maps survive from Mali itself, clues from Arabic and European sources—like the 1375 Catalan Atlas and writings of al-Umari—reveal how Mansa Musa's reign was mapped by others. They discuss the role of dyula merchants in transmitting geographic knowledge, the possible use of oral mapmaking by jeliw, and how Mansa Musa's hajj put the Mali Empire on the world map. The conversation touches on the limits of surviving evidence, the biases of external…