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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Igbo-Ukwu and the Nile
Author:Sutton, John E.G.ISNI
Year:2001
Periodical:African Archaeological Review
Volume:18
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:49-62
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:mercantile history
trade routes
Bronze Age
Anthropology and Archaeology
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006792806737
Abstract:The external connections of Igbo-Ukwu, in the forest belt of southeastern Nigeria, around the 9th century AD, are demonstrated by the large numbers of glass beads, apparently from Egyptian manufacture, and are implicit in the rich collection of bronze artwork that lacks known prototypes. Although the metals were mined locally, the labour and the expert alloying and casting of numerous ritual or ornamental objects indicate an accumulation of wealth derived from distant trade of special commodities. The identification of these commodities, however, and the routes by which they - and in the reversed direction the beads - would have travelled, remain unsatisfactorily resolved. A preference is repeated in this paper for an eastern Sahelian routing from Lake Chad to the Middle Nile kingdoms then at their height, thus avoiding the Sahara. The alternative direction suggested recently (T. Insoll and T. Shaw, 1997), through Gao on the Niger bend and across the west-central Sahara, seems less likely on grounds of geography and chronology. Bibliogr., notes, sum. in French and English.
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