scholarly journals Glass Beads, Markers of Ancient Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa: Methodology, State of the Art and Perspectives

Heritage ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 2343-2369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farahnaz Koleini ◽  
Philippe Colomban ◽  
Innocent Pikirayi ◽  
Linda C. Prinsloo
Keyword(s):  
Glass Production ◽  
Glass Beads ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Secondary Phases ◽  
Ancient Trade ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Production Technologies ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Sub Saharan

Glass beads have been produced and traded for millennia all over the world for use as everyday items of adornment, ceremonial costumes or objects of barter. The preservation of glass beads is good and large hoards have been found in archaeological sites across the world. The variety of shape, size and colour as well as the composition and production technologies of glass beads led to the motivation to use them as markers of exchange pathways covering the Indian Ocean, Africa, Asia, Middle East, the Mediterranean world, Europe and America and also as chronological milestones. This review addresses the history of glass production, the methodology of identification (morphology, colour, elemental composition, glass nanostructure, colouring and opacifying agents and secondary phases) by means of laboratory based instruments (LA-ICP-MS, SEM-EDS, XRF, NAA, Raman microspectroscopy) as well as the mobile instruments (pXRF, Raman) used to study glass beads excavated from sub-Saharan African sites. Attention is paid to the problems neglected such as the heterogeneity of glass (recycled and locally reprocessed glass). The review addresses the potential information that could be extracted using advanced portable methods of analysis.

Christianity in the Twentieth Century

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Regional Survey ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Different Parts

This book charts the transformation of one of the world's great religions during an age marked by world wars, genocide, nationalism, decolonization, and powerful ideological currents, many of them hostile to Christianity. The book traces how Christianity evolved from a religion defined by the culture and politics of Europe to the expanding polycentric and multicultural faith it is today—one whose growing popular support is strongest in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, China, and other parts of Asia. The book sheds critical light on themes of central importance for understanding the global contours of modern Christianity, illustrating each one with contrasting case studies, usually taken from different parts of the world. Unlike other books on world Christianity, this one is not a regional survey or chronological narrative, nor does it focus on theology or ecclesiastical institutions. The book provides a history of Christianity as a popular faith experienced and lived by its adherents, telling a compelling and multifaceted story of Christendom's fortunes in Europe, North America, and across the rest of the globe. It demonstrates how Christianity has had less to fear from the onslaughts of secularism than from the readiness of Christians themselves to accommodate their faith to ideologies that privilege racial identity or radical individualism.

scholarly journals Africa and the wider world: creole communities in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans

Tempo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-481
Author(s):  
Malyn Newitt
Keyword(s):  
Technology Transfer ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Cultural Appropriation ◽  
The World ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract: Portuguese creoles were instrumental in bringing sub-Saharan Africa into the intercontinental systems of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. In the Atlantic Islands a distinctive creole culture emerged, made up of Christian emigrants from Portugal, Jewish exiles and African slaves. These creole polities offered a base for coastal traders and became politically influential in Africa - in Angola creating their own mainland state. Connecting the African interior with the world economy was largely on African terms and the lack of technology transfer meant that the economic gap between Africa and the rest of the world inexorably widened. African slaves in Latin America adapted to a society already creolised, often through adroit forms of cultural appropriation and synthesis. In eastern Africa Portuguese worked within existing creolised Islamic networks but the passage of their Indiamen through the Atlantic created close links between the Indian Ocean and Atlantic commercial systems.

Clause-final negative markers in Bobo and Samogo

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitry Idiatov
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Lateral Transfer ◽  
Focus Particles ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Almost All

As many other languages of northern sub-Saharan Africa, almost all Bobo and Samogo languages (two distantly related Mande groups) exhibit prominently clause-final negative markers (CFNMs), a cross-linguistically uncommon property. Unlike negators in other parts of the world, CFNMs in the area prove to be rather unstable diachronically and relatively easy to borrow, similar to discourse markers, focus particles and phasal adverbs, with which they also happen to share peculiarities of morphosyntax and paths of historical development. This article first provides an exhaustive overview of the data available on the use of CFNMs in these languages. Building on these data, I advance an account of the history of the default CFNMs in these languages. In particular, I argue that the default CFNMs of Jo, Seen and probably Kpeen (all Samogo) go back to the phasal adverbial *kè ‘(not) yet; still’, whereas the default CFNMs of Bobo and Dzuun, Ban and Kpaan ultimately go back to a phasal adverbial *kÚDà(C)á ‘(not) again’. However, the default CFNMs of Dzuun, Kpaan and Ban turn out to be only indirect reflexes resulting from a lateral transfer of the Bobo CFNM, which expanded an already rich system of semantically more specific CFNMs in these languages.

scholarly journals The Position of Sub-Saharan Countries in the World Economy

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (33) ◽  
pp. 5-16
Author(s):  
Boris Baumgartner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Direct Investment ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Direct Investment ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
World Export ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract Most of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa belong to the most underdeveloped and poorest countries in the world economy. This region consists of forty-nine countries but at world GDP, world export, world import and inflow of foreign direct investment share only by small percent. There are some positive facts in the recent history of sub- Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has grown faster than the world economy in the past ten years. The predictions are also positive. There is an expectation of another growth till the 2020. If the sub-Saharan countries want to keep the growth in the future they have to invest to infrastructure, in educational system, in research and science to make their economies more competitive.

scholarly journals Design And Production of A Visual Document Depicting The Chronological Develoment of The Asante Kingdom

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Okyere Kwesi Barnabas
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Metal Surface ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Transformational Development

<p><em>The Asante kingdom is one of the famous and surviving kingdoms in sub-Saharan Africa. The kingdom came on the world stage in the late 16<sup>th</sup> century and gradually expanded its territorial boundaries through wars to cover almost the present day Ghana and some portion of Togo and Cote d’Ivoire.  Much is known about ancient Egyptian society than most other ancient cultures because of their hieroglyphics (picture writing). Even though the history of the Asante kingdom has been preserved in oratory and in written documents, an alternative method can also be made to safeguard its rich historical facts just like that of the Ancient Egyptian society. This research looks into the ancient methodology of preserving historical facts to design and produce a mural that would serve as an alternative to available sources in gathering historical facts about the Asante kingdom. Qualitative research design approach was used and the descriptive and studio based research methodologies were employed. The history of the Asante kingdom was explored from the 16<sup>th</sup> to the 21<sup>st</sup> century to encode the salient facts about their transformational development into a mural of symbols and pictorial imagery, using sketching and Repoussage technique. It was found that symbols and imagery can be used to present facts of the history and also intricate visuals can be Repoussage unto a large metal surface using 0.8mm copper thickness upon a suitable working support.</em></p>

Financial History of Sub-Saharan Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Financial Systems ◽  
Financial History ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan

African financial history is often neglected in research on the history of global financial systems, and in its turn research on African financial systems in the past often fails to explore links with the rest of the world. However, African economies and financial systems have been linked to the rest of the world since ancient times. Sub-Saharan Africa was a key supplier of gold used to underpin the monetary systems of Europe and the North from the medieval period through the 19th century. It was West African gold rather than slaves that first brought Europeans to the Atlantic coast of Africa during the early modern period. Within sub-Saharan Africa, currency and credit systems reflected both internal economic and political structures as well as international links. Before the colonial period, indigenous currencies were often tied to particular trades or trade routes. These systems did not immediately cease to exist with the introduction of territorial currencies by colonial governments. Rather, both systems coexisted, often leading to shocks and localized crises during periods of global financial uncertainty. At independence, African governments had to contend with a legacy of financial underdevelopment left from the colonial period. Their efforts to address this have, however, been shaped by global economic trends. Despite recent expansion and innovation, limited financial development remains a hindrance to economic growth.

Wheeled transport in pre-colonial West Africa

Africa ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Cost Of Transport ◽  
The World ◽  
Abundant Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphOne of the most important differences in technology between Africa south of the Sahara during the pre-colonial period and many other areas of the world, it is frequently suggested, was the almost complete absence in the former of any form of wheeled transport. The transport of goods overland in pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa was normally done by pack animals, where these were available, or more generally by human porterage. This lack of wheeled transport, it might be argued, had crucial implications for the history of sub-Saharan Africa, since the high cost of transport by pack animals and human porterage has often been presented as one of the principal constraints upon the expansion of trade, and hence of economic growth generally, in pre-colonial times. The lack of wheels in sub-Saharan Africa, it is clear, cannot have been due simply to ignorance, since many areas of the continent had been in contact with wheel-using civilizations outside Africa for several centuries before the colonial conquest at the end of the nineteenth century. Indeed, as this article will show, there is abundant evidence that, in West Africa at least, the technology of wheeled transport was quite widely known, though put to only very limited use, in the pre-colonial period. The reasons why this technology, although readily available, was nevertheless not generally adopted are, however, very far from being clear.

From sand to sea: tracing the production and trade in glass beads from the 10th-century Cirebon shipwreck in the Java Sea

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Swan
Keyword(s):  
Glass Production ◽  
Glass Beads ◽  
Rock Crystal ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Merchant Ship ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Java Sea ◽  
Indian Ocean World ◽  
Long Distance Movement ◽  
Lapis Lazuli

Around the year 970 CE, a merchant ship carrying an assortment of goods from East Africa, Persia, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and China foundered and sank to the bottom of the Java Sea. Thousands of beads made from many different materials—ceramic, jet, coral, banded stone, lapis lazuli, rock crystal, sapphire, ruby, garnet, pearl, gold, and glass—attest to the long-distance movement and trade of these small and often precious objects throughout the Indian Ocean world. The beads made of glass are of particular interest, as closely-dated examples are very rare and there is some debate as to where glass beads were being made and traded during this period of time. This paper examines 18 glass beads from the Cirebon shipwreck that are now in the collection of Qatar Museums, using a comparative typological and chemical perspective within the context of the 10th-century glass production. Although it remains uncertain where some of the beads were made, the composition of the glass beads points to two major production origins for the glass itself: West Asia and South Asia.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document