Written Record List
A viewset for viewing and editing Written Records.
GET /api/sc/written-records/?format=api&page=8
{ "count": 584, "next": "https://seshat-db.com/api/sc/written-records/?format=api&page=9", "previous": "https://seshat-db.com/api/sc/written-records/?format=api&page=7", "results": [ { "id": 353, "polity": { "id": 296, "name": "uz_chagatai_khanate", "long_name": "Chagatai Khanate", "start_year": 1227, "end_year": 1402 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Rich literary corpus." }, { "id": 354, "polity": { "id": 469, "name": "uz_janid_dyn", "long_name": "Khanate of Bukhara", "start_year": 1599, "end_year": 1747 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": null }, { "id": 355, "polity": { "id": 465, "name": "uz_khwarasm_1", "long_name": "Ancient Khwarazm", "start_year": -1000, "end_year": -521 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " \"The Achaemenids brought writing to Sogdiana, and the written language long remained the Aramaic of the Achaemenid Empire.\" §REF§(De la Vaissière 2005, 17)§REF§" }, { "id": 356, "polity": { "id": 464, "name": "uz_koktepe_1", "long_name": "Koktepe I", "start_year": -1400, "end_year": -1000 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " \"The Achaemenids brought writing to Sogdiana, and the written language long remained the Aramaic of the Achaemenid Empire.\" §REF§(De la Vaissière 2005, 17)§REF§" }, { "id": 357, "polity": { "id": 466, "name": "uz_koktepe_2", "long_name": "Koktepe II", "start_year": -750, "end_year": -550 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " \"The Achaemenids brought writing to Sogdiana, and the written language long remained the Aramaic of the Achaemenid Empire.\" §REF§(De la Vaissière 2005, 17)§REF§ A possibility since administrative institutions use and store documents: \"Reflecting the major social and political development of the region, this monumental architecture is evidence of a strong local state organization. The inner buildings of these courtyards are at present difficult to reconstruct. Although this question has still to be resolved, it would seem that the courtyards of Koktepe housed earlier religious and administrative institutions.\"§REF§(Rapin 2007, 35) Rapin, Claude. \"Nomads and the Shaping of Central Asia: from the Early Iron Age to the Kushan Period.\" in Cribb, Joe. Herrmann, Georgina. 2007. After Alexander: Central Asia before Islam. British Academy.§REF§" }, { "id": 358, "polity": { "id": 287, "name": "uz_samanid_emp", "long_name": "Samanid Empire", "start_year": 819, "end_year": 999 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " \"Highly literate and given to careful record-keeping\"§REF§(Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton.§REF§" }, { "id": 359, "polity": { "id": 468, "name": "uz_sogdiana_city_states", "long_name": "Sogdiana - City-States Period", "start_year": 604, "end_year": 711 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": null }, { "id": 360, "polity": { "id": 370, "name": "uz_timurid_emp", "long_name": "Timurid Empire", "start_year": 1370, "end_year": 1526 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Examples in Kinds of Written Documents." }, { "id": 361, "polity": { "id": 353, "name": "ye_himyar_1", "long_name": "Himyar I", "start_year": 270, "end_year": 340 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " \"The South Arabia civilizations were literate during most of the first millennium BC and AD, and consequently they supply us with a record that complements that derived from archaeological excavations and surveys.\"§REF§(Wilkinson 2009, 57) Tony J Wilkinson. Environment and Long-Term Population Trends in Southwest Arabia. Michael D Petraglia. Jeffrey I Rose. eds. 2009. The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia. Paleoenvironments, Prehistory and Genetics. Springer. Dordrecht.§REF§" }, { "id": 362, "polity": { "id": 354, "name": "ye_himyar_2", "long_name": "Himyar II", "start_year": 378, "end_year": 525 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " \"The South Arabia civilizations were literate during most of the first millennium BC and AD, and consequently they supply us with a record that complements that derived from archaeological excavations and surveys.\"§REF§(Wilkinson 2009, 57) Tony J Wilkinson. Environment and Long-Term Population Trends in Southwest Arabia. Michael D Petraglia. Jeffrey I Rose. eds. 2009. The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia. Paleoenvironments, Prehistory and Genetics. Springer. Dordrecht.§REF§" }, { "id": 363, "polity": { "id": 541, "name": "ye_qasimid_dyn", "long_name": "Yemen - Qasimid Dynasty", "start_year": 1637, "end_year": 1805 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Written records in Arabic have a long scholarly tradition in Yemen." }, { "id": 364, "polity": { "id": 539, "name": "ye_qatabanian_commonwealth", "long_name": "Qatabanian Commonwealth", "start_year": -450, "end_year": -111 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": "\"It was quite common in the sedentary regions of Arabia to inscribe texts of a legal nature on stone (see chapter 5 above for examples). The advantage of this was that these texts were then easily available for all to read (or have read for them) and would endure for many lifetimes. The subjects are diverse: commercial ordinances (such as the list of taxes owing on goods sold in Palmyra put up by the city council, and the regulations concerning trade in the market of Timna established by the king of Qataban), sanctions against criminals, hydrological legislation, cultic prescriptions, boundary settlements, property claims and so forth. The issuing authority was most often a deity (whose edicts were effected by means of an oracle and received and transcribed by a religious functionary), a king or his representative, or a city or tribal council. And even individuals might avail themselves of this practice, laying down conditions for use of their tombs, asserting their ownership of houses and the like. A special type of juridical inscription, so far known chiefly from the Jawf region of south Arabia and Raybun in Hadramawt, is the penitential text, in which persons confess their infraction of a law, usually to do with purity, and make an offering in atonement.\"\"§REF§(Hoyland 2001, 124) Hoyland, R. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/hoylan/titleCreatorYear/items/AUHRSTGG/item-list§REF§\r\n\r\n \"One of the salient features of Yemen (and, to a lesser extent, Arabia) is the substantial quantity of epigraphic documents—texts written on non-perishable materials, such as stone and metal, or on durable media, such as wood—yielded by these regions. [...] The oldest local inscriptions, which originate from Yemen, were carefully carved texts and the work of professionals, and would date from the mid-eighth century BC.\"§REF§(Robin 2015: 90-91) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In <i>Arabs and Empires before Islam</i>, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3</a>.§REF§" }, { "id": 365, "polity": { "id": 368, "name": "ye_rasulid_dyn", "long_name": "Rasulid Dynasty", "start_year": 1229, "end_year": 1453 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": null }, { "id": 366, "polity": { "id": 538, "name": "ye_sabaean_commonwealth", "long_name": "Sabaean Commonwealth", "start_year": -800, "end_year": -451 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " \"One of the salient features of Yemen (and, to a lesser extent, Arabia) is the substantial quantity of epigraphic documents—texts written on non-perishable materials, such as stone and metal, or on durable media, such as wood—yielded by these regions. [...] The oldest local inscriptions, which originate from Yemen, were carefully carved texts and the work of professionals, and would date from the mid-eighth century BC.\"§REF§(Robin 2015: 90-91) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In <i>Arabs and Empires before Islam</i>, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZMFH42PE\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZMFH42PE</a>.§REF§" }, { "id": 367, "polity": { "id": 540, "name": "ye_saba_k", "long_name": "Kingdom of Saba and Dhu Raydan", "start_year": -110, "end_year": 149 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " \"One of the salient features of Yemen (and, to a lesser extent, Arabia) is the substantial quantity of epigraphic documents—texts written on non-perishable materials, such as stone and metal, or on durable media, such as wood—yielded by these regions. [...] The oldest local inscriptions, which originate from Yemen, were carefully carved texts and the work of professionals, and would date from the mid-eighth century BC.\"§REF§(Robin 2015: 90-91) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In <i>Arabs and Empires before Islam</i>, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3</a>.§REF§" }, { "id": 368, "polity": { "id": 372, "name": "ye_tahirid_dyn", "long_name": "Yemen - Tahirid Dynasty", "start_year": 1454, "end_year": 1517 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Account from 1472 AD by a historian ‘Then after the Qur'an I studied the Quranic readings, individually and collectively, under my maternal uncle ... Then I studied Arabic under my maternal uncle and others. I studied also in particular under him arithmetic, algebra, anatomy, surveying, God's ordinances and fiqb with the result that I derived benefit from all these disciplines’ §REF§G. REX SMITH, ‘THE TAHIRID SULTANS OF THE YEMEN (858-923/1454-1517) AND THEIR HISTORIAN IBN AL-DAYBA', ‘’Journal of Semitic Studies’’, Volume XXIX, Issue 1, 1 March 1984, p. 151§REF§" }, { "id": 369, "polity": { "id": 365, "name": "ye_warlords", "long_name": "Yemen - Era of Warlords", "start_year": 1038, "end_year": 1174 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": null }, { "id": 370, "polity": { "id": 359, "name": "ye_ziyad_dyn", "long_name": "Yemen Ziyadid Dynasty", "start_year": 822, "end_year": 1037 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " The Ziyad state, ruled by a Sunni dynasty, was a breakaway state from the Abbasid Empire and so retained the tradition of Arabic literacy.§REF§(Stookey 1978, 45, 57) Stookey, Robert W. 1978. Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Boulder: Westview Press. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GIDWD7R3\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GIDWD7R3</a>.§REF§" }, { "id": 371, "polity": { "id": 610, "name": "gu_futa_jallon", "long_name": "Futa Jallon", "start_year": 1725, "end_year": 1896 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " \"In the field of religion and culture, the nineteenth century is said to have witnessed the golden age of Islam in the Futa Jalon. It was the century of great scholars and the growth of Islamic culture. All the disciplines of the Quran were known and taught: translation, the hadiths, law, apologetics, the ancillary sciences such as grammar, rhetoric, literature, astronomy, local works in Pular and Arabic, and mysticism. Nineteenth-century European visitors were highly impressed by the extent of the Islamization, which was visible in the large number of mosques and schools at all levels, the degree of scholarship, the richness of the libraries, and the widespread practice of Islamic worship. All this seems to have been facilitated by the use of the local language, Pular, as a medium of teaching and popularization of Islamic rules and doctrine.\" §REF§(Barry 2005: 539) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/6TXWGHAX/item-list§REF§" }, { "id": 372, "polity": { "id": 627, "name": "in_pandya_emp_3", "long_name": "Pandya Empire", "start_year": 1216, "end_year": 1323 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": "" }, { "id": 373, "polity": { "id": 629, "name": "sl_anuradhapura_4", "long_name": "Anurādhapura IV", "start_year": 614, "end_year": 1017 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “The most valuable source of knowledge for scholars probing the legends and historical heritage of Sri Lanka is still the Mahavamsa (Great Genealogy or Dynasty), a chronicle complied in Pali, the language of Theravada Buddhism, in the sixth century. Buddhist monks composed the Mahavamsa, which was an adaptation of an earlier and cruder fourth century epic, the Dipavamsa (Island Genealogy or Dynasty). The latter account was compiled to glorify Buddhism and is not a comprehensive narrative of events. The Mahavamsa, however, related the rise and fall of successive Buddhist kingdoms beginning with Vijaya, the legendary coloniser of Sri Lanka and primogenitor of the Sinhalese migrant group.” §REF§ (Ross and Savada 2002,98) Ross, Russel R. and Savada, Andrea Matles 2002. Sri Lanka: Current Issues and Historical Background edited by Walter Nubin. New York: Nova Science Publishers Inc. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/JQ8T59TD/collection §REF§ “On the history of the island up to the end of the first millennium, and indeed for three centuries of the second, there is a wealth of historical data. Of these the first category consists of the Pali chronicles, the Dīpavaṁsa and Mahāvaṁsa with its continuation the Cūlavaṁsa, which together provide scholars with a mass of reliable data, not available for other parts of south Asia for most the period under study. Next come the archaeological remains of the civilizations of Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the magnificent array of religious and secular monuments written about in the chronicles mentioned earlier, and the irrigation works. […] “On the history of the island up to the end of the first millennium, and indeed for three centuries of the second, there is a wealth of historical data. Of these the first category consists of the Pali chronicles, the Dīpavaṁsa and Mahāvaṁsa with its continuation the Cūlavaṁsa, which together provide scholars with a mass of reliable data, not available for other parts of south Asia for most the period under study. Next come the archaeological remains of the civilizations of Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the magnificent array of religious and secular monuments written about in the chronicles mentioned earlier, and the irrigation works.” §REF§ (De Silva 2005, 3) De Silva, K.M. 2005. A History of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka: Vijitha Yapa Publications. Seshat URL:https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/BHJ4G3V7/collection §REF§ “Although its authorship is unknown, the Dīpavaṃsa is believed to have been compiled in the fourth century CE, while the Mahāvaṃsa has been argued to have been written by various monks of the Mahāvihāra and compiled into a single document by the Buddhist monk Mahānāma in the fifth to sixth century CE. It narrates the history of the island from its colonization by Prince Vijaya through to the reign of King Mahāsena (r. 275–301 ce). The Cūḷavaṃsa was a continuation of this narrative, detailing the island’s history up to the eighteenth century CE. Initially scholars believed these narratives to be legends, but the rediscovery of palm leaf manuscripts by George Turnour at Mullgirigalla near Tangalle led to the serious reconsideration of their contents as historical. Sir James Emerson Tennent, Colonial Secretary of Ceylon between 1845 and 1850 CE, stated that this ‘long lost chronicle... thus vindicated the claim of Ceylon to the possession of an authentic and unrivalled record of its national history’.” §REF§ Coningham et al. 2017, 21) Coningham et al. 2017. ‘Archaeology and cosmopolitanism in early historic and medieval Sri Lanka.’ Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History. Edited by Zoltán Biedermann and Alan Strathern. London: UCL Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/DCQMW8E3/collection §REF§ “Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”§REF§(Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection.§REF§ " }, { "id": 374, "polity": { "id": 630, "name": "sl_polonnaruva", "long_name": "Polonnaruwa", "start_year": 1070, "end_year": 1255 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “One of the distinctive features of the literature of the Polonnaruva period was the continued vitality of Pāli as the language of Sinhalese Buddhism. The tradition was still very much in favour of writing in Pāli rather than Sinhalese. The Pāli works of this period were mainly expositions or summaries of the works of the Pāli canon. There were also the tīkās explaining and supplementing the commentaries composed in the Anurādhapura era. The Dāṭhavaṁsa, a history of the tooth relic, was one of the more notable literary in the Pāli language. Its author, Mahānāma, is also credited with the first part Cūlavaṁsa, the continuation of the Mahāvaṁsa. The Pāli literature of this period bears the impression of the strong tonic effect of Sanskrit, which had not a no less significant influence on contemporary Sinhalese writing. The bulk of the Sinhalese works of this period are glossaries and translations from the Pāli canon. There were also two prose works by a thirteenth century author, Gurulugomi, the Amāvatura and the Dharmapradīpikāva, of which the former was more noteworthy; and two poems (of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century), the Sasadāvata and the Muvadevadāta, both based on Jātaka stories, and both greatly influenced by the Sanskrit works of Kālidāsa and Kumāradāsa.” §REF§ (De Silva 1981, 74) De Silva, K.M. 1981. A History of Sri Lanka. London: C. Hurst & Company, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/4R6DQVHZ/collection §REF§ “The Vesaturudā Sanne, an exegetical work written in the period of the Polonnaruva kingdom, compares people clad in gold-coloured clothes and wearing golden ornaments to kiṇihiri trees in full bloom. It also states that kiṇihiri trees in bloom looked as if they were covered with golden nets.” §REF§ (Gunawardana 1990, 61). Gunawardana, R.A.L.H. 1990. ‘The people of the lion: the Sinhala identity and ideology in history and historiography’. Sri Lanka History and the Roots of Conflict. Edited by Jonathan Spencer. London and New York: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/B3GVR8EH/collection §REF§ " }, { "id": 375, "polity": { "id": 631, "name": "sl_anuradhapura_3", "long_name": "Anurādhapura III", "start_year": 428, "end_year": 614 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “Although its authorship is unknown, the Dīpavaṃsa is believed to have been compiled in the fourth century CE, while the Mahāvaṃsa has been argued to have been written by various monks of the Mahāvihāra and compiled into a single document by the Buddhist monk Mahānāma in the fifth to sixth century CE. It narrates the history of the island from its colonization by Prince Vijaya through to the reign of King Mahāsena (r. 275–301 ce). The Cūḷavaṃsa was a continuation of this narrative, detailing the island’s history up to the eighteenth century CE. Initially scholars believed these narratives to be legends, but the rediscovery of palm leaf manuscripts by George Turnour at Mullgirigalla near Tangalle led to the serious reconsideration of their contents as historical. Sir James Emerson Tennent, Colonial Secretary of Ceylon between 1845 and 1850 CE, stated that this ‘long lost chronicle... thus vindicated the claim of Ceylon to the possession of an authentic and unrivalled record of its national history’.” §REF§ Coningham et al. 2017, 21) Coningham et al. 2017. ‘Archaeology and cosmopolitanism in early historic and medieval Sri Lanka.’ Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History. Edited by Zoltán Biedermann and Alan Strathern. London: UCL Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/DCQMW8E3/collection §REF§ “On the history of the island up to the end of the first millennium, and indeed for three centuries of the second, there is a wealth of historical data. Of these the first category consists of the Pali chronicles, the Dīpavaṁsa and Mahāvaṁsa with its continuation the Cūlavaṁsa, which together provide scholars with a mass of reliable data, not available for other parts of south Asia for most the period under study. Next come the archaeological remains of the civilizations of Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the magnificent array of religious and secular monuments written about in the chronicles mentioned earlier, and the irrigation works.” §REF§ (De Silva 2005, 3) De Silva, K.M. 2005. A History of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka: Vijitha Yapa Publications. Seshat URL:https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/BHJ4G3V7/collection §REF§ “Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”§REF§(Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection.§REF§ " }, { "id": 376, "polity": { "id": 632, "name": "nl_dutch_emp_1", "long_name": "Dutch Empire", "start_year": 1648, "end_year": 1795 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " \"The country’s relative press freedom attracted authors and engravers from all parts of Europe. Besides Latin, which was the main language for scholarly works, more and more works were printed in the regional languages, in the first instance in Dutch, but also in French and other European languages – even in Hebrew and Arabic.\" §REF§(Emmer and Gommans 2020: 80) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/AI9PPN7Q/collection.§REF§" }, { "id": 377, "polity": { "id": 633, "name": "sl_anuradhapura_1", "long_name": "Anurādhapura I", "start_year": -300, "end_year": 70 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “On the history of the island up to the end of the first millennium, and indeed for three centuries of the second, there is a wealth of historical data. Of these the first category consists of the Pali chronicles, the Dīpavaṁsa and Mahāvaṁsa with its continuation the Cūlavaṁsa, which together provide scholars with a mass of reliable data, not available for other parts of south Asia for most the period under study. Next come the archaeological remains of the civilizations of Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the magnificent array of religious and secular monuments written about in the chronicles mentioned earlier, and the irrigation works.” §REF§ (De Silva 2005, 3) De Silva, K.M. 2005. A History of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka: Vijitha Yapa Publications. Seshat URL:https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/BHJ4G3V7/collection §REF§ “Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”§REF§(Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection.§REF§ " }, { "id": 378, "polity": { "id": 634, "name": "sl_jaffa_k", "long_name": "Jaffna", "start_year": 1310, "end_year": 1591 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": "" }, { "id": 379, "polity": { "id": 637, "name": "so_adal_sultanate", "long_name": "Adal Sultanate", "start_year": 1375, "end_year": 1543 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Before Harar became the Adalite capital in the early fourteenth century, it was still an important trading town in the Adal Sultanate interior. “Some of the Arabic inscriptions on tombstones collected between the modern towns of Harar and Dire Dawa bear thirteenth-century dates, and show the existence of fairly well-developed Muslim communities in the region of Harar, which probably was an important centre of dispersal for many of the founders of other Muslim settlements further inland.” §REF§ (Tamrat 2008, 140) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Tamrat/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list §REF§" }, { "id": 380, "polity": { "id": 638, "name": "so_tunni_sultanate", "long_name": "Tunni Sultanate", "start_year": 800, "end_year": 1200 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " In Barawa (also known as Brava) on the Benadir coast, there are various examples of Arabic inscriptions from the early 12th Century. “Cerulli reports an Arabic inscription from Brava, commemorating the death of a Muslim resident in 1104/5, which certainly indicates the existence of a highly developed Muslim community there in the eleventh century.” §REF§ (Tamrat 2008, 137) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/search/tam/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list §REF§" }, { "id": 381, "polity": { "id": 640, "name": "so_habr_yunis", "long_name": "Habr Yunis", "start_year": 1300, "end_year": 1886 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Written Arabic genealogies of Somali lineage were held by Sheikhs. “Only the Shaykhs maintained written Arabic manuscripts that recorded the genealogical connections at the highest levels, among various clan founders.” §REF§ (Cassanelli 1982, 129) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library §REF§" }, { "id": 382, "polity": { "id": 642, "name": "so_geledi_sultanate", "long_name": "Sultanate of Geledi", "start_year": 1750, "end_year": 1911 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Written Arabic genealogies of Somali lineage were held by Sheikhs. “Only the Shaykhs maintained written Arabic manuscripts that recorded the genealogical connections at the highest levels, among various clan founders.” §REF§ (Cassanelli 1982, 129) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library §REF§" }, { "id": 383, "polity": { "id": 644, "name": "et_harla_k", "long_name": "Harla Kingdom", "start_year": 500, "end_year": 1500 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": "“A Muslim community was also indicated by the recovery of 2 undated Arabic inscriptions, one part on an inscription from the Quran 48:31-1, which if complete would read ‘In the name of the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful’ and on the second line, ‘We have given you a glorious victory’, the other only bearing the words ‘on God’”. §REF§ (Insoll 2017, 209) Insoll, Timothy. 2017. ‘First Footsteps in Archaeology of Harar, Ethiopia’. Journal of Islamic Archaeology. Vol 4:2. Pp 189-215. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VQ38B374/collection §REF§" }, { "id": 384, "polity": { "id": 646, "name": "so_ifat_sultanate", "long_name": "Ifat Sultanate", "start_year": 1280, "end_year": 1375 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “In the meantime, the sons and grandsons of Yekunno-Amlak were deeply involved in bitter wars of succession, and a valuable Arabic document for 1299 reports what seems to have been a considerable territorial concession to an Ifat leader by one of the sons of Yekunno-Amlak.” §REF§ (Tamrat 2008, 143-144) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Tamrat/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list §REF§" }, { "id": 385, "polity": { "id": 647, "name": "er_medri_bahri", "long_name": "Medri Bahri", "start_year": 1310, "end_year": 1889 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “The liturgical language of the Orthodox Church and the name for the Tigrinya writing system [Ge’ez]. Ge’ez developed as the language of the Aksumite Empire, derived from the merger of a Semitic South Arabian language and one or more Cushitic languages, but there is some dispute as to whether it was the original root of all the Ethiopic Semitic languages, (including Tigre, Tigrinya, and Amharic) or simply a regional dialect that acquired political predominance during the Aksumite period.” §REF§ (Connell and Killion 2011, 269) Connell, Dan and Killion, Tom. 2011. Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. Second Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/24ZMGPAA/collection §REF§" }, { "id": 386, "polity": { "id": 652, "name": "et_harar_emirate", "long_name": "Emirate of Harar", "start_year": 1650, "end_year": 1875 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “Ancient Harari literature is mostly religious. The author of at least one text is known and can be dated in the middle of the eighteenth century. It is not impossible, however, that some texts are even older. In written texts the ancient form of the language was used until the second half of the nineteenth century.” §REF§ (Wagner 1997, 486) Wagner, Ewald. 1997. ‘Harari’ In The Semitic Languages. Edited by Robert Hetzron. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/V9HWX5VP/collection §REF§" }, { "id": 387, "polity": { "id": 654, "name": "so_isaaq_sultanate", "long_name": "Isaaq Sultanate", "start_year": 1300, "end_year": 1886 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Written Arabic genealogies of Somali lineage were held by Sheikhs. “Only the Shaykhs maintained written Arabic manuscripts that recorded the genealogical connections at the highest levels, among various clan founders.” §REF§ (Cassanelli 1982, 129) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library §REF§" }, { "id": 388, "polity": { "id": 655, "name": "ni_proto_yoruba", "long_name": "Proto-Yoruba", "start_year": 301, "end_year": 649 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. \"Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary.\"§REF§(Ogundiran 2020: 391)§REF§" }, { "id": 389, "polity": { "id": 656, "name": "ni_yoruba_classic", "long_name": "Classical Ife", "start_year": 1000, "end_year": 1400 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. \"Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary.\"§REF§(Ogundiran 2020: 391)§REF§" }, { "id": 390, "polity": { "id": 657, "name": "ni_formative_yoruba", "long_name": "Late Formative Yoruba", "start_year": 650, "end_year": 1049 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. \"Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary.\"§REF§(Ogundiran 2020: 391)§REF§" }, { "id": 391, "polity": { "id": 659, "name": "ni_allada_k", "long_name": "Allada", "start_year": 1100, "end_year": 1724 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " “In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” §REF§Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection§REF§" }, { "id": 392, "polity": { "id": 661, "name": "ni_oyo_emp_2", "long_name": "Ilú-ọba Ọ̀yọ́", "start_year": 1601, "end_year": 1835 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “No written records of the Ọyọ themselves survive from the period before the collapse of the Ọyọ empire in the 1830s, though it is likely that some once existed. The Ọyọ empire was certainly not a wholly illiterate society. It is known that Islam began to spread among the Ọyọ from countries to the north as early as the sixteenth or seventeenth century, and individual Ọyọ could well have acquired literacy in Arabic along with the Islamic religion. The Ọyọ also imported numbers of slaves from the Muslim countries to the north. Some of these were certainly literate in Arabic, and some Ọyọ probably used literate northern slaves as secretaries. The French trader Landolphe records that a party of Ọyọ ambassadors whom he met in the Benin area in c. 1787 were literate in Arabic: such ambassadors would probably have been royal slaves, and those met by Landolphe may well have been northerners. […] If the existence of written records in the Ọyọ capital during the imperial period is somewhat speculative, there can be no question that such records were kept in Ilọrin, the subordinate town of the Ọyọ kingdom whose revolt in the late eighteenth century played a crucial role in the collapse of the Ọyọ empire. […] To date, however, the only Ilọrin document which has come to light from this period is a letter to ‘Abd al-Salām, the Emir of Ilọrin, from Abdullāh, the Emir of Gwandu, written in 1829, which deals with the illegality of castration.” §REF§Law, R. (1977). The Oyo Empire c. 1600 – c. 1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Oxford University Press: 12–13. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB32ZPCF/collection§REF§" }, { "id": 393, "polity": { "id": 663, "name": "ni_oyo_emp_1", "long_name": "Oyo", "start_year": 1300, "end_year": 1535 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. \"Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary.\"§REF§(Ogundiran 2020: 391)§REF§" }, { "id": 394, "polity": { "id": 664, "name": "ni_proto_yoruboid", "long_name": "Proto-Yoruboid", "start_year": -300, "end_year": 300 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. \"Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary.\"§REF§(Ogundiran 2020: 391)§REF§" }, { "id": 395, "polity": { "id": 666, "name": "ni_sokoto_cal", "long_name": "Sokoto Caliphate", "start_year": 1804, "end_year": 1904 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “The Sokoto Caliphate was certainly the largest, most territorially extensive and literate state in African History.” §REF§Okene, Ahmed Adam, and Shukri B. Ahmad. “Ibn Khaldun, Cyclical Theory and the Rise and Fall of Sokoto Caliphate, Nigeria West Africa.” International Journal of Business and Social Science, vol. 2, no. 4, 2011, pp. 80–91: 81. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/H7J2NC37/collection§REF§ “In the city of Sokoto there was a small bureaucracy headed by the vizier who in his own house had some scribes to receive and write short (one-page) letters in classical Arabic to those emirs he was in charge of overseeing (Last 1967:190-97) . Imported paper and local ink were used, and letters from the Amir al-mu'minin had his personal stamp on them (the vizier and the emirs had no stamp of their own). The letters were never dated, but they were folded in a precise way and carried in a pouch by a messenger; it could take a week or more for a letter to reach the addressee, since fifteen miles a day was a good speed and distances were huge.”§REF§Last, Murray. “Contradictions in Creating a Jihadi Capital: Sokoto in the Nineteenth Century and Its Legacy.” African Studies Review, vol. 56, no. 2, 2013, pp. 1–20: 6. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5RUPN5VI/collection§REF§ " }, { "id": 396, "polity": { "id": 667, "name": "ni_igala_k", "long_name": "Igala", "start_year": 1600, "end_year": 1900 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “Available records reveal that Ochalla Angna and Olimamu Attah both [had] Islamic clerics served as court scribes (what is today known as court clerks) and records of proceedings were written and kept in Arabic.” §REF§Jacob, Audu. “Pre-Colonial Political Administration in the North Central Nigeria: a Study of the Igala Political Kingdom.” European Scientific Journal, vol. 10, no. 19, 2014, pp. 392–402: 399. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5AN8R7UW/collection§REF§" }, { "id": 397, "polity": { "id": 669, "name": "ni_hausa_k", "long_name": "Hausa bakwai", "start_year": 900, "end_year": 1808 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “The history of Kano is undoubtedly the best known, thanks to its chronicles and the wealth of oral tradition.20” §REF§Niane, D. T., & Unesco (Eds.). (1984). Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. Heinemann; University of California Press: 271. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ERZKPETN/collection§REF§ “[Footnote] 20. The Kano Chronicle, written in Arabic, was apparently composed about 1890, but it is based upon earlier, pre-djihäd records. It gives an account of 48 Hausa (after 1807, Fulani) sarakuna or kings, from Bagauda to Muhammad Bello.” §REF§Niane, D. T., & Unesco (Eds.). (1984). Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. Heinemann; University of California Press: 271. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ERZKPETN/collection§REF§" }, { "id": 398, "polity": { "id": 670, "name": "ni_bornu_emp", "long_name": "Kanem-Borno", "start_year": 1380, "end_year": 1893 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " “One of the most famous episodes of Bornoan history was the correspondence between mai Idriss Alooma and the Ottoman Sultan Murad III during the 1570s, as Mai Idriss desired to renew an alliance with the Ottomans.” §REF§Hiribarren, Vincent. “Kanem-Bornu Empire.” The Encyclopedia of Empire, edited by Nigel Dalziel and John M MacKenzie, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2016, pp. 1–6: 2. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/KNHK5ANQ/collection§REF§ “Furthermore, the practice of recording orally the names and genealogies of the kings of Kanem seems to have existed since the 9th century. The introduction of Islam and the Arabic script codified this tradition by making it possible to write down the names of the kings. This list or chronicle of kings, the diwan or girgam, was written from the 13th or 16th century until the19th and contained the names of 67 kings from the 9th to the 19th century. It constitutes one of the most important sources for the history of Kanem-Bornu and has been extensively used by historians of the empire. This is a rare type of document in sub-Saharan Africa, because of the lack of precise written sources but also because of the period that the document covered.” §REF§Hiribarren, Vincent. “Kanem-Bornu Empire.” The Encyclopedia of Empire, edited by Nigel Dalziel and John M MacKenzie, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2016, pp. 1–6: 3. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/KNHK5ANQ/collection§REF§" }, { "id": 399, "polity": { "id": 671, "name": "ni_dahomey_k", "long_name": "Foys", "start_year": 1715, "end_year": 1894 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " “The question as to the manner in which a record of the age of these children was kept by a people who had no writing, poses itself here.” §REF§HERSKOVITS, M. J. (1932). POPULATION STATISTICS IN THE KINGDOM OF DAHOMEY. Human Biology, 4(2), 252–261: 258. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8T74FM7D/collection§REF§" }, { "id": 400, "polity": { "id": 680, "name": "se_futa_toro_imamate", "long_name": "Imamate of Futa Toro", "start_year": 1776, "end_year": 1860 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " Communications between Senegambian groups and the French and English colonists were made in Arabic and French. “There was a series of treaties, frequently negotiated with great care and written up in French and Arabic.” §REF§ (Klein 1972, 425) Klein, Martin A. 1972. ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia.’ The Journal of Africa History. Vol. 13:3. Pp 419-441. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZJRN8UJ8/collection §REF§" }, { "id": 401, "polity": { "id": 682, "name": "se_jolof_k", "long_name": "Kingdom of Jolof", "start_year": 1549, "end_year": 1865 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "present", "comment": null, "description": " \"All correspondence in Senegambia was in Arabic, and literate marabouts were the official secretaries.\" §REF§(Charles 1977: 19) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/NRGZDV3Z/collection§REF§" }, { "id": 402, "polity": { "id": 684, "name": "ug_toro_k", "long_name": "Toro", "start_year": 1830, "end_year": 1896 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Written_record", "written_record": "absent", "comment": null, "description": " \"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words.\" §REF§(Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection.§REF§" } ] }