Dia | |
|---|---|
Town | |
  Dia Location in Mali | |
| Coordinates: 14°21′7″N 4°57′25″W / 14.35194°N 4.95694°W | |
| Country |  Mali |
| Region | Mopti Region |
| Cercle | Ténenkou Cercle |
| Commune | Diaka |
| Time zone | UTC+0 (GMT) |
Dia (Jà[1]) is a small town and seat of the commune of Diaka in the Cercle of Ténenkou in the Mopti Region of southern-central Mali.[2] It is situated at the western edge of the Inland Delta floodplain, and is watered by the Diaka, one of the Niger River's major distributaries and the only permanent watercourse in the region.[3]
Tigemaxo and also some Fulfulde are spoken in Dia.[1]
The three-settlement mound complex of Dia, located at the western edge of the Inland Niger Delta of Mali, is known for rich oral and written resources, and predates the much better-known cities of nearby Djenne and Timbuktu.[3] According to Levtzion, the Diakhanke "remember Dia in Massina as the town of their ancestor, Suware, a great marabout, and a saint."[4] This vast site thus offers the possibility of studying the beginning of urbanization in this part of Africa and the structure of an early West African city.[5]
Favorable climate and water supply have favored human settlement for centuries, and the history of the region is linked to that of former western Sudan with the successive empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhay. The water system provided a favorable route for trade between the southern and northern Sahara, making Dia as one of the key trade sites in the region.[6]
- ^ a b Moran, Steven; Forkel, Robert; Heath, Jeffrey, eds. (2016). "Dia". dogonlanguages.org. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
- ^ Communes de la Région de Mopti (PDF) (in French), Ministère de l’administration territoriale et des collectivités locales, République du Mali lfulde]] are, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-09.
- ^ a b Arazi, Noemie. "Tracing History in Dia, in the Inland Niger Delta of Mali -Archaeology, Oral Traditions and Written Sources" (PDF). University College London. Institute of Archaeology.
- ^ Levtzion, Nehemia (1973). Ancient Ghana and Mali. New York: Methuen & Co Ltd. p. 168. ISBN 0841904316.
- ^ Bedaux, Rogier; MacDonald, Kevin; Person, Alain; Polet, Jean; Sanogo, Kléna; Schmidt, Annette; Sidibé, Samuel (2001). "The Dia archaeological project: rescuing cultural heritage in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)". Antiquity. 75 (290): 837–848. doi:10.1017/s0003598x00089419. ISSN 0003-598X.
- ^ Zeitoun, V.; Gatto, E.; Rougier, H.; Sidibé, S. (2004). "Dia Shoma(Mali), a medieval cemetery in the inner Niger delta". International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 14 (2): 112–125. doi:10.1002/oa.716. ISSN 1047-482X.