Johann Heinrich Barth was a German explorer of Africa and scholar.
Fezzan is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara Desert. The term originally applied to the land beyond the coastal strip of Africa proconsularis, including the Nafusa and extending west of modern Libya over Ouargla and Illizi. As these Berber areas came to be associated with the regions of Tripoli, Cirta or Algiers, the name was increasingly applied to the arid areas south of Tripolitania.
Trans-Saharan trade is trade between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa that requires travel across the Sahara. Though this trade began in prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century CE. The Sahara once had a different climate and environment. In Libya and Algeria, from at least 7000 BCE, there were pastoralism, large settlements, and pottery. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara (Ahaggar) between 4000 to 3500 BCE. Remarkable rock paintings in arid regions portray flora and fauna that are not present in the modern desert.
Dixon Denham was an English soldier, explorer of West Central Africa, and ultimately Governor of Sierra Leone.
Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs was a German geographer, explorer, author and adventurer.
Doctor Joseph Ritchie was an English surgeon, explorer and naturalist. His primary interest lay in the natural sciences, though he is best known for playing a minor role in the British exploration of Africa.
Murzuk, Murzuq, Murzug or Merzug is an oasis town and the capital of the Murzuq District in the Fezzan region of southwest Libya. It lies on the northern edge of the Murzuq Desert, an extremely arid region of ergs or great sand dunes which is part of the greater Sahara Desert.
Araouane or Arawan is a small village in the Malian part of the Sahara Desert, lying 243 km (151 mi) north of Timbuktu on the caravan route to the salt-mining centre of Taoudenni. The village once served as an entrepôt in the trans-Saharan trade.
Bain Hugh Clapperton was a Scottish naval officer and explorer of West and Central Africa.
James Richardson was a British explorer known for his expeditions into the Sahel region of the Saharan desert.
Adolf Overweg was a German astronomer, geologist, and explorer of Africa. As a member of a mission to fix trade routes in Central Africa he became the first person of European origin to circumnavigate Lake Chad by boat.
Desert exploration is the deliberate and scientific exploration of deserts, the arid regions of the earth. It is only incidentally concerned with the culture and livelihood of native desert dwellers. People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding semi-arid lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, and oases have provided opportunities for a more settled way of life. Many, such as the Bushmen in the Kalahari, the Aborigines in Australia and various Indigenous peoples of the Americas, were originally hunter-gatherers. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, and traditionally were used by caravans of camels carrying salt, gold, ivory and other goods. Large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara. Today, some mineral extraction also takes place in deserts, and the uninterrupted sunlight gives potential for the capture of large quantities of solar energy.
The Vicariate Apostolic of Sahara is a former Roman Catholic missionary jurisdiction in colonial Algeria and Libya.
Hanmer George Warrington was born in Acton, Nantwich, Cheshire, England, served in the British Army, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel and subsequently became British Consul General at Tripoli on the Barbary Coast, a position he held for an unusually long term of 32 years. He was rumored to be married to an illegitimate child of king George IV, later but historians consider it to be "improbable". As consul he played an important role in assisting British exploration of the Niger river.
Starting out as a seasonal settlement, Timbuktu was in the kingdom of Mali when it became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, the town flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and slaves from several towns and states such as Begho of Bonoman, Sijilmassa, and other Saharan cities. It became part of the Mali Empire early in the 14th century. By this time it had become a major centre of learning in the area. In the first half of the 15th century the Tuareg tribes took control of the city for a short period until the expanding Songhai Empire absorbed the city in 1468. The Moroccan army defeated the Songhai in 1591, and made Timbuktu, rather than Gao, their capital.
Between the first century BC and the fourth century AD, several expeditions and explorations to Lake Chad and western Africa were conducted by groups of military and commercial units of Romans who moved across the Sahara and into the interior of Africa and its coast. However, there was a huge Roman and Greek presence in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia. The primary motivation for the expeditions was to secure sources of gold and spices from Axumite piracies.
Lake Menghough was an intermittent lake in the southeast of Algeria. It is described in the account of the first Flatters expedition, which reached the lake in April 1880. Other European visitors found the lake dry or filled depending on rainfall.
Kabara is a small town in Mali on the Niger River, the port for Timbuktu. It is 8 km (5 mi) to the south of Timbuktu and is connected to an arm of the Niger River by a 3 km (2 mi) canal. The town has at times in the past been linked to Timbuktu by an extension of the canal. However, silting and lower water levels in recent years have made the extension canal unusable and the Kabara port usable only during the high water seasons.
The Trans-Saharan slave trade, also known as the Arab slave trade, was a slave trade in which slaves were mainly transported across the Sahara. Most were moved from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the other direction. Estimates of the total number of black slaves moved from sub-Saharan Africa to the Arab world range from 6-10 million, and the trans-Saharan trade routes conveyed a significant number of this total, with one estimate tallying around 7.2 million slaves crossing the Sahara from the mid-7th century until the 20th century when it was abolished. The Arabs managed and operated the trans-Saharan slave trade, although Berbers were also actively involved. Alongside Black Africans, Turks, Iranians, Europeans and Berbers were among the people traded by the Arabs, with the trade being practised throughout the Arab world, primarily in Western Asia, North Africa, East Africa, and Europe.
On the Road to Timbuktu: Explorers in Africa is a 1999 documentary film adapted from French historian Anne Hugon's nonfiction book of the same name. Directed by Jean-Claude Lubtchansky, and co-produced by Trans Europe Film, La Sept-Arte and Éditions Gallimard, with voice-over narration by French actors François Marthouret, Yves Lambrecht, and German actor Richard Sammel. The film follows in the footsteps of Mungo Park, René Caillié and Heinrich Barth, the three explorers who have become legends both in Europe and in Africa.
