Heritage with Related Tags
Sudanese style mosques in northern Côte d’Ivoire
The eight small adobe mosques at Tenggerira, Kuto, Sorobongo, Samatijira, Mbengue, Kong and Kawara feature prominent wooden structures, vertical buttresses topped with pottery or ostrich eggs, and tapering minarets. They represent an architectural style thought to have originated in the town of Djenné around the 14th century, when it was part of the Mali Empire, which prospered on the gold and salt trade across the Sahara to North Africa. From the 16th century onwards in particular, the style spread southward from the desert regions to the Sudanese savannah, where buildings became shorter and buttresses more substantial due to a wetter climate. The mosques are the best preserved of 20 such structures still in existence in Côte d’Ivoire, which at the beginning of the last century had hundreds of them. The mosques have a distinctive Sudanese style, endemic to the West African savannah region, and developed between the 17th and 19th centuries, when merchants and scholars expanded southwards from the Mali Empire, extending trans-Saharan commercial routes into forested areas. They are important testaments to the trans-Saharan trade that facilitated the expansion of Islam and Islamic culture, and reflect a fusion of Islamic and local architectural forms that continues to this day.
Erfurt's Medieval Jewish Heritage
The heritage site is located in the medieval old town of Erfurt, the capital of the Free State of Thuringia, and consists of three ancient buildings: the old synagogue, the baptistery, and the stone house. They show the life of the Jewish community in Central Europe in the Middle Ages (from the end of the 11th century to the middle of the 14th century AD) and its coexistence with the majority Christian community.