Short answer: visual source
Mansa Musa on the Catalan Atlas, 1375
- Unit 1
- 3 points
- About 13 minutes
You look at an image, artwork, photograph, map or chart (described in words here) and answer three or four short parts about what it shows, the developments behind it and connections across the course. On the exam: Section II, short-answer question 2 of 3 (required); the three short-answer questions share a suggested 40 minutes and are 18% of the score. In 2025 and 2026 this question had 3 parts (A–C).
The question and its sources
This source is an image, described here in words. Study the description, then answer parts A, B and C in a few complete sentences each; you don't need a thesis.
Source (image described in words)
This detail comes from a large, hand-painted map of the known world made on the Mediterranean island of Majorca. The section shows North and West Africa. A wavy band representing the Atlas Mountains runs across the top. Across the middle are small drawings of walled towns, labeled with names that include the city of Mali (“Ciutat de Melly”), Timbuktu (“Tenbuch”) and Gao (“Geugeu”), and the salt-mining town of Taghaza (“Tagaza”).
On the right, a Black African ruler sits on a throne. He wears a gold crown and a long robe, holds a gold sceptre in one hand and raises a large gold disc or nugget in the other. On the left, a rider with a veiled face, sitting on a camel, approaches him.
Beside the ruler, a caption in the Catalan language reads (in English translation): “This Black lord is called Musse Melly [Mansa Musa], lord of the Black people of Guinea. This king is the richest and noblest lord of all this region because of the abundance of gold that is gathered in his land.”
Source: Detail of the Catalan Atlas, attributed to the mapmaker Abraham Cresques, Majorca, 1375 (Bibliothèque nationale de France). Caption translated for this exercise.
Suggested time: 13 minutes
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Part (A)
1 pointDescribe what the image suggests about how European mapmakers viewed the Mali Empire in the 1300s.
0 / 2,500 characters
Part (B)
1 pointDescribe the significance of Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324.
0 / 2,500 characters
Part (C)
1 pointExplain how Portuguese voyages along the West African coast in the 1400s were connected to the wealth shown in the image.
0 / 2,500 characters
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