People or land · The Sao towns · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Sao of Bornu

West of the Logone, on the plains of the Ngadda and the Yedseram round the later Dikwa, Ngala and Maiduguri, stood further mound settlements of the Sao type.

Daima, near Ngala, excavated by Connah, is the best known: occupied from before the Common Era, with a phase of about 700-1050 that shows long-distance trade goods, weaving and a defensive ditch. These plains became the heart of later Bornu after the Kanuri conquest.

Who holds it

Title
town rulers
Confidence
low

Overlord

None recorded

How things stand that morning

Independent towns, exposed to Kanem's raids from the lake shore.

Customs

Mound towns with their own rulers (inferred).

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Archaeology (Daima) and later tradition.

On the map: Rough outline.

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

  1. UNESCO General History of Africa III, pp. 458, 462 (Connah's Daima sequence: phase III about 700-1050 with long-distance trade goods, weaving, large jars associated with the Sao; ditch and possible walls)
  2. Wikipedia: Sao civilisation (city-states peaking 9th-15th centuries; walled towns; divine rulers behind a screen after Stride; queen mothers; Kotoko as heirs)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.