The Mali Empire was not far south of Egypt, it overlapped with the Sahara and was relatively late, 1235-1610, and is primarily known for its rich natural resour

The Mali Empire was not far south of Egypt, it overlapped with the Sahara and was relatively late, 1235-1610, and is primarily known for its rich natural resources, namely gold, which cannot be said to be an achievement. It was significantly large and did last for centuries, at least. It had lots of contact with others, such as regarding the empire more or less adhering to Islam. There are some mosques there, but some of them are adobe buildings, and some of them were reconstructed in the 1900s. Apart from gold, which is not an achievement, what achievements did the Mali empire have that comes close to that of the Aztecs and other Amerindians? Manding languages did not have their own script as far as I can tell, only Arabic and Latin. . Great Zimbabwe's Great Enclosure is something, but it seems much less impressive than that of for instance Chichen Itza, despite being younger. And Great Zimbabwe must have had international trade, given artifacts from China was found there. On the other hand, archeologists and Europeans accidentally damaged it, and time wore it down, and thus it might have been more impressive than the current ruins indicate. The building approach with small, mortarless stones, and wooden lintel instead of arches or huge stones, despite the time period being 1100s to 1500s, might have limited what could be constructed, but perhaps the original edifices employed other techniques as well than wooden lintel. Though I do not understand how the wooden lintel survived that many centuries. Dry climate?