Sosso

The Sosso are a people of West Africa, found particularly in Guinea.

This group descended from a twelfth- and thirteenth-century Takrur kingdom known as the "Sosso." With the fall of the Ghana Empire, the Sosso expanded into a number of its former holdings, including its capital of Koumbi Saleh. Under King Soumaoro Kanté, the Sosso briefly conquered the Mandinka kingdoms of what is now Mali. These gains were lost at the Battle of Kirina (c. 1240) when Mandinka prince Sundiata Keita led a coalition of smaller states to soundly defeat the Sosso, thus beginning the Mali Empire. Sundiata marched on to the city of Sosso itself and destroyed it, marking the kingdom's end.