Medieval African Architecture
Along the coast, in East Africa, Islamic influence beginning about 1000 AD also led people to build mosques. In Ethiopia and Sudan, however, people were building Christian churches like the one at Lalibella built about 1300 AD. Ethiopian architects may have gotten the idea for their rock cut churches by trading with India, where architects were building rock-cut Buddhist and Hindu temples beginning about 200 BC, and continuing to 1000 AD.
Inland, in what is now Zimbabwe, at the end of the great trade routes looking for ivory and gold, people built a great city called Great Zimbabwe, about 1200 AD.
In West Africa, people again built cities and mosques at the end of the trade routes for gold and slaves, especially at Timbuktu and Djenne (both in modern Mali). There was no good building stone in West Africa, so people built even very large buildings out of mud-brick.
Want more information? Here are some good books on African architecture:
Early
Art and Architecture of Africa by Peter Garlake ($13.27)
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