5 Gold Rings

In honor of the holiday season, we are re-releasing our 12 Days of Christmas special! For the next 12 days, we will re-release one episode a day, each one with our own spin on the classic holiday theme, "The 12 Days of Christmas."

Katie tells the story of Mansa Musa.

Chapters

• 0:12 Richest Man in History
• 9:43 The Search for Mansa Musa's Treasure

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

all right, everyone say it with me now five golden rings, that's some bling, let me tell you. And with that, cindy, I have to ask who do you think is the wealthiest person in all of history? Lil Wayne? No, no, I'm just kidding. I was thinking didn't he actually come up with the term bling? No, he's not the inventor of bling. Oh, okay, so the richest person Minus no, he's mythical. But good guess, I give up. Well, I wouldn't have been disappointed if you had said Bill Gates, jeff Bezos or even Elon Musk. As of May 2021, jeff Bezos' value is about 18,. Excuse me, jeff Bezos' value is about $187 billion, with a B dollars US dollars. So I mean, that's no sum to really shake a stick at. However, that's less than half the amount of money that the richest person in all of history was worth estimated.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Does the name Mansa Musa ring any bells? Yes, it actually does ring a bell, but don't know why. I really have heard that's. Oh, I know why I've heard of it because it's in our podcast. I was okay, spoiler alert, I was going to cover him in another. We do have a running list of, like our podcast, topics that we'd like to cover and people in history we'd like to cover, and so when this opportunity presented itself, I said you know what? Let me just jump on it and get it out of the way.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So yeah, so Mansa Musa was the king of the Mali Empire during the 14th century CE. During the 14th century CE. So he began his reign in 1312. Which, if you ask me, I think he has the most interesting ascension to power story that I have ever heard. So his family was no stranger to power. This isn't a rags to riches kind of story, by any stretch of the imagination. The emperor who preceded him was Abu Bakari II, and Musa was asked to become his like a vice president, almost in case something happened to him or something like that. And this was very, very common at this time period for leaders in Mali. You have, like your backup guy. So one day Abu Bakari II decides he wants to find out what's on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. He wants to find out what's on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. So he gets approximately 2,000 ships together and he sets sail. He gets about 2,000 ships together and sets sail west to see what is on the other side of the horizon, and he never returns. So Musa becomes king and Mansa is actually it's an honorary title just like Khan is or like Genghis Khan. So he becomes the leader of the Malian Empire, and at the height of his power. This includes the modern countries of Senegal, Gambia, guinea, niger, nigeria, chad, martorinia, mali, burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

Speaker 1: 4:05

So Musa had made quite a bit of money from the salt and gold trade, the area of the world in which Mali is located. To the north, you have have the Sahara Desert and you've got salt mines, and then to the south, you've got rich deposits of gold, and he was able to capitalize on taxing both of those items, as they were traded in opposite directions. And so he didn't just make his money by mining these items, but also taxing them as well. Very smart guy. Items, but also taxing them as well Very smart guy.

Speaker 1: 4:42

But he wasn't really that well known until he went on a hajj, which is a journey to Mecca in 1324. He traveled. So to get to Mecca from the Malian Empire he had to travel approximately 4,000 miles, and let me tell you, mansa Musa did it in style, and he didn't do it alone. He had about 60,000 people, so we're talking slaves, servants, soldiers, supporters, who journeyed along with him across the Sahara, the Sahara. They stopped in Cairo, they stopped in Mecca. And he was so wealthy and so just generous with his wealth and just gave it out so freely that he, single-handedly, was able to cripple the economy of Cairo for a decade because he gave out so much gold and devalued gold so much in that Egyptian city by his one visit. That's how wealthy he was. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. One visit. Well, you figure, 60,000 people just come upon the city for one trip and they use all their gold and everybody's got some gold. You get gold. It's like the ultimate version of the Oprah holiday episode.

Speaker 1: 6:12

And, by all accounts, he treated everyone who traveled with him very well. Even his slaves were said to be outfitted in the finest silks. They carried golden spears, they were literally dripping with wealth and extravagance. Because if you have $400 billion with a B in modern money, that's like your children's children's children never have to ever worry about money. You can just bandy about like it's nothing. I can't even conceptualize having that much wealth. It's insane.

Speaker 1: 6:53

But he also used his money for a number of charitable purposes and furthering education within his own country, um, furthering the arts. He built they said that he built a mosque every single Friday during his reign, and one of the mosques that he was, that he built still stands today and you can go visit it in Timbuktu. Yes, really so he built them all at like a cross throughout his travels Throughout the empire. As far as I know, not during his travels, but more just like across the Malian empire, which spans hundreds and hundreds of miles. So just anywhere you can throw up a mosque. It sounds like he was putting them up. He also. He also founded a number of universities, some of which are still in existence today, and he did quite a bit to enrichen his country. And at that time period, timbuktu was considered the epicenter of culture of learning. A center of culture of learning. It attracted thousands of scholars from around Africa and parts of the Middle East to come and study and learn and enrich themselves. That's incredible, mm-hmm. And I'm not sure exactly when he died. I've seen conflicting dates. I've seen 1332. I've seen 1332. I've also seen 1337.

Speaker 1: 8:22

And because of his travels on the Hodge, his reputation eventually made its way to Europe. Have maps from like the 14th and 15th centuries that he literally put the Malian Empire on European maps, just based on this one enormous trip that he took and it's been viewed as like the Eldorado of Africa, that a lot of Europeans had this idea that it was literally a city, you know, covered in gold, based on how wealthy he was and how much he did to build up the city itself. And for a lot of Europeans it sounded it was a very attractive. Some people thought of it almost as a myth because at this time period, you know the 1300s Europeans are dealing with the bubonic plague, they're dealing with civil wars left and right, they're dealing with just like their economy is absolutely crippled. So it's no wonder that the idea of this golden city state on a hill would sound so attractive. He became almost like a mythological figure. So that begs the question what happened to all his money? So that begs the question what happened to all his money? I guess it just got spent.

Speaker 1: 9:43

No-transcript is generations, generations of children, and are there any like legends out there about where gold might be hidden? No, it's like it's all gone. It's all gone. There's no fairy tale, it's all gone. No, no. But I have seen some um youtube videos that have gone into a number of the mosques in Timbuktu that were built by him. Texts from the date all the way back from. You know 1100, um, just that have not been translated into any other languages besides arabic. So, if you ask me, the treasure is really there. We need I don't. I have to do more research. I don't know if any of these texts have been scanned. Scanned the treasure, the treasure five golden rings, not five books of information. The real treasure is friendship, cindy, you and I making this podcast together. This is Mansa Musa's legacy friendship. I want money. This podcast together. This is Mansa Musa's legacy Friendship. I want money. I want 400 billion dollars. That's what I want and that's the story of Mansa Musa Five Golden Rings, thank you.