Archaeology Magazine - October 1973 - 70

that zinc was virtually absent in con- of Guinea and was basically a contrast to the "brasses"of Beninand that tinuation of an intermittent commerce
the almostpure copper pieceshad been which probablygoesback to the second
manufactured largely by smithing and millenniumb.c. It is difficultto see why
chasing. It is evident that the society ivory from Southern Nigeria should
responsiblefor the manufacture of all have entered into the Saharan trade
these items possessed a sophisticated when there were abundant supplies
bronze technologyand that the burial nearly a thousandmiles to the north in
was that of a chief, whosepeople were the Lake Chad region which would not
able to accumulate a vast amount of have needed head porterage through
wealth and presumablypolitical power. the forest. That the elephant was imSimilaritiesto burial customsof recent portant is seen from the burial of tusks
ritual leadersin the area (the Eze Nri), at the feet of the chief and its featuring
suggest that the chief probably also on four of the twelve pendants. This
performeda religiousrole, which is, of need not necessarilyimply trade but
course, quite common in Africa where rather a chief's "monopoly"over ivory
religiousand political roles were often and perhaps an attendant reverencefor
closelyentwined.The bronzeobjectsare the natural might of the elephant.
Shaw has also postulated on the
highly decorated with naturalistic, anthropomorphic,schematic and abstract origins of the cire-perdue technique
designs.As art, they fall short of the which he sees as exotic, perhaps introIfe material, but neverthelessthey add duced by an experienced slave craftsyet another significant chapter to the man who married his technical skill to
"African traditions and African forms"
Nigerian cultural achievement.
Four radiocarbondates (out of five) (page 283) such as the calabash, the
suggestedto Shaw an age around the shell, wood carvings, "plaited" and
ninth or tenth century after Christ, a "twisted string bindings" and pots on
dating which carries some remarkable stands. He sees the possibilitythat the
implications.It is thought that the use filigreework and detailed overall decoof bronze at Ife was not earlier than ration came from the Arab world. The
the eleventh century, and in fact prob- glass beads may be of Indian and to
ably later, while at Benin the earliest, some extent Venetian origin, though
rather thin and scarce brass castings our knowledgeof certain middle Eastern
were probably made in the late four- sourcesof beads is so scant that places
teenth or fifteenth centuries. If the like Hebron in Israel may also have
dates are acceptable it means that, as supplied the North African market.
neither copper is found in Nigeria nor
It would thus seem certain that the
is there evidence of early glass-making Igbo Ukwu art is connected with the
in West Africa, there must have been a expansion of trade within the Muslim
well-establishedtrade in both copper world and across the Sahara. If this is
and glass by a.D. 900. Shaw suggests the case, the reviewer would prefer a
that the glass beads and copper were twelfth or fifteenth century date when
exchangedfor ivory and possiblyslaves, there is evidence from the East
£nd cites the later (sixteenth century) African coast and other parts of the
importance of Cairo's ivory market as Islamicworld for an expansionof trade
one indication of the importanceof the and also when there is evidencefor the
eastern Sahara route. There are, how- results of that trade in the areas, like
ever, reasons why the dates, though the Sudan, between Southern Nigeria
acceptable on strictly archaeological and North Africa. Shaw supports the
grounds,are difficultto accept.Nowhere results of the radiocarbon dates by
elsein West Africa do we have evidence pointing to the absenceof tobaccopipes,
of such a well establishedtrade by the whose presence would indicate a postninth century. The scale of trade cer- seventeenth-centurydate, rouletted dectainly accelerated following the Arab oration on pottery and cowries. The
Conquestof North Africa and the drive latter were certainly common in the
into Southern Morocco after a.d. 734, Western Sahara by the twelfth century.,
but the indicationsare that it affected where 3,260 cowries of Indian Ocean
the Western Sudan rather than the origin were found associatedwith 2,085
routes from Tripoli or Tunisia which one pound copper rods at Ma 'Den
might have led to the area north of Ijâfen in what is believedto have been
an abandoned caravan load. The bindIgbo.
The earliest descriptionsof the state ing ropes around the cloth bound packof Ghana (in present Mauretania) date ages have provided radiocarbon dates
from the ninth century. The Western of a.D. 1090± 180 and 1165±110.
Sudanic trade was centered on the gold
The sheer quantity of copper objects
310

and glass beads makes the early date
implausible.In Zambia and Rhodesia
the number of beads found on first millennium sites is very small, being numbered in hundreds from many sites.
However, copper and gold were easier
to transport and presumably brought
higher returns than ivory, and the
routes to the coast were shorter and
more direct than those linking Igbo
Ukwu to North Africa. It is perhaps
worthwhile noting that the Ingombe
Ilede site on the Kafue in Zambia,
which was once dated to the eighth or
ninth centuries on the basis of a series
of radiocarbon dates and similar arguments, has been redated to the fourteenth century. On the East African
coast glass beads were rare before the
thirteenth century. It is also worth
noting that A. P. du Toit who examined
both the Igbo Ukwu and IngombeIlede
beads assigneddates for them later than
the radiocarbondates suggested.A further date of a.D. 1450±70 (Hv-1516)
from the Igbo Jonah disposalpit wasrejected, while a date of a.D. 1495±95
(GK-0942) has been obtainedfrom the
Ifeka Garden site at Ezira, also in eastern Nigeria, where bronze bells with
stylistic affinities to the Igbo Ukwu
bronzes were found. The Igbo Ukwu
material could not be much later than
the early sixteenth century; otherwise
one would expect to find some Portuguese elementsin the art as are found
at Benin. Certainly a late fifteenthcentury date would allow for the
quantity in copper of the large number
of objects, as copper was then arriving
from the coast.
Even if one does not push the date
forward to the fifteenthcentury,a later
date would certainly fit what we know
about West African trade. Though the
cire-perdue technique is complicated,
one wonders if the skill involved in
making Nok and later Ife terracottas
could not have led to an independent
invention of the method, though the
technique involved could have spread
from the Sudanic towns where artisans
with north African experience were
probably providing servicefacilitiesfor
the trans-Saharan caravans. Trade in
tropical goods, kola, civet, specialized
woodsand even medicinalplants as well
as slaves,with copper, salt and textiles
being sent in return, was probablyconducted betweenthe Sudanic towns and
the Forest belt and allowed for the
cultural contacts that could have made
possiblethe diffusionof the cire-perdue
technique to wealthy forest patrons.
The Igbo site, as Shaw points out

Archaeology Magazine - October 1973

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