NIANI

village, northeastern Guinea. It lies on the left bank of the Sankarani River (a tributary of the Niger). A former administrative centre of Kangaba (a small state subservient to the old Ghana empire), it was named the capital of the new empire of Mali by its Mandingo (Malinke) founder, King Sundiata Keita (Mari Djata; reigned c. 123055). Niani remained the capital of the Muslim Mandingo empire for 300 years; it reached its zenith as Mali's political, commercial, and caravan centre (gold, salt, kola nuts, slaves) in the reign of Mansa Musa (130732). Raids by Songhai cavalrymen in the early 15th century marked the beginning of Niani's gradual decline. The site of the medieval Malian capital was not confirmed until excavations were made in the mid-1960s around present-day Niani, which lies in a valley irrigated for rice and occasionally mined for alluvial gold.