Along the lower Logone and the Chari delta stood the mound towns whose later heirs were the Kotoko principalities (Kousseri, Logone-Birni, Makari, Goulfey, Afade).
Each later Kotoko town had its own ruler, sacred and secluded, with a council of title-holders; whether that order already held in 1200 is not known. The Lebeuf excavations at Mdaga and other mounds and Holl's at Houlouf give the material culture: walled mounds, bronze and terracotta.
Who holds it
- Title
- town rulers
- Confidence
- low
Overlord
None recorded
How things stand that morning
Independent towns.
Customs
Town rulers and title-holders (later Kotoko); river fishing rights held by lineages.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Archaeology and later Kotoko tradition.
On the map: Rough outline of the river plains.
Primary sources for Sao
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Diwan of the Sultans of Bornu (the Sayfawa king list) (kept and extended to the nineteenth century; Lange argues its core was first written down in the thirteenth century). A list of the Sayfawa mais with reign lengths, parentage, mothers' names and burial places, and the odd event.
- The Book of Geography, Ibn Said al-Maghribi (Ali ibn Musa ibn Said) (about 1250 to 1275). Written two generations after 1200 but drawing on the travels of Ibn Fatima, a merchant who had been in the Sudan, Ibn Said gives the first clear picture of Kanem as an empire: the mai Dunama Dibalemi (reigned about 1210 to 1248), his capital Njimi, his Muslim subjects and his reach to the Fezzan, Tajuwa and the Zaghawa, with the Sao and other peoples on his borders. Read online
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia: Sao civilisation (city-states peaking 9th-15th centuries; walled towns; divine rulers behind a screen after Stride; queen mothers; Kotoko as heirs)
- Wikipedia (fr): Sao (civilisation) (mud-brick ramparts 3.5-4 m wide at the base; mound settlements; Lebeuf's Mdaga excavations 1960-1968)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.