The Great Mosque of Djenné
The Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali, the world's largest mudbrick building, rebuilt in its present form in 1907 on the footprint of a 13th-century original.
Tradition holds that the ruler of Djenné built the first great mosque on this site around the 1240s after converting to Islam, at a moment when the city was flourishing as a hub of trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and slaves, and as a center of Islamic scholarship. Built almost entirely of sun-dried mud brick (banco) coated in plaster, the mosque cannot survive the region's rainy season unscathed, so each year the whole community takes part in a festival of replastering its walls, climbing the permanent wooden scaffolding beams that jut from its facade. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988. Read more in our piece on the Great Mosque of Djenné.
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