- Aug 8, 2016
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Read about Mansa Musa, emperor of Mali, who once disrupted Egypt’s economy just by passing through.
From the article...
...Despite his vast wealth, the wider world did not know much about Musa until the devout Muslim pilgrimaged to Mecca in 1324. He didn’t exactly travel lightly....in the introduction to “Caravans of Gold,” it details that Musa took "8,000 courtiers, 12,000 slaves, and 100 camels each carrying 300 pounds of gold” with him on the journey.
When Musa passed through Egypt, so much gold flowed, according to Morgan that it actually devalued the metal and led to a currency crisis that took Egypt 12 years to dig itself out of.
...There’s probably no accurate way to estimate just how rich Musa was in modern terms. In 2015, the late Richard Ware of Ferrum College in Virginia told Jacob Davidson at Money that people had trouble even describing Musa’s wealth. “This is the richest guy anyone has ever seen, that’s the point,” Ware said. “They’re trying to find words to explain that. There are pictures of him holding a scepter of gold on a throne of gold holding a cup of gold with a golden crown on his head. Imagine as much gold as you think a human being could possess and double it, that’s what all the accounts are trying to communicate.”
Continued - New Exhibition Highlights Story of the Richest Man Who Ever Lived | Smart News | Smithsonian
Click on the hyperlinks in the article, too.
From the article...
...Despite his vast wealth, the wider world did not know much about Musa until the devout Muslim pilgrimaged to Mecca in 1324. He didn’t exactly travel lightly....in the introduction to “Caravans of Gold,” it details that Musa took "8,000 courtiers, 12,000 slaves, and 100 camels each carrying 300 pounds of gold” with him on the journey.
When Musa passed through Egypt, so much gold flowed, according to Morgan that it actually devalued the metal and led to a currency crisis that took Egypt 12 years to dig itself out of.
...There’s probably no accurate way to estimate just how rich Musa was in modern terms. In 2015, the late Richard Ware of Ferrum College in Virginia told Jacob Davidson at Money that people had trouble even describing Musa’s wealth. “This is the richest guy anyone has ever seen, that’s the point,” Ware said. “They’re trying to find words to explain that. There are pictures of him holding a scepter of gold on a throne of gold holding a cup of gold with a golden crown on his head. Imagine as much gold as you think a human being could possess and double it, that’s what all the accounts are trying to communicate.”
Continued - New Exhibition Highlights Story of the Richest Man Who Ever Lived | Smart News | Smithsonian
Click on the hyperlinks in the article, too.
