Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:29:18.487Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Indian’ metalwork in East Africa: the bronze lion statuette from Shanga

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

M.C. Horton  and
T.R. Blurton
M.C. Horton
Affiliation:
St Hugh's College, Oxford OX2 6LE
T.R. Blurton
Affiliation:
Department of Oriental Antiquities, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There are few frontiers from later periods whose archaeology is more beguiling than the east African coast. To the east are the sea-routes of the Indian Ocean, to the Islamic world, to India, to Indonesia, to China. To the west are the distinctive cultures of medieval Africa. And on the coast are the settlements where the east and the west touch. This paper works towards the wider issue of circum-maritime cultures from a single find from the new excavations at Shanga which have revealed mosques of a remarkably early date.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 62 , Issue 234 , March 1988 , pp. 11 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmad, S.M. 1960. India and neighbouring territories in the ‘Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fi’khtiraq al-‘afaq’ of al-Sharif al-Idrisi. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Allen, J. de V. 1976. The Siwas of Pate and Lamu: two antique side-blown horns from the Swahili Coast, Art and Archaeology Research Papers 9: 38–47.Google Scholar
Alpers, E.A. 1976. Gujarat and the trade of East Africa, International Journal of African Historical Studies 9: 22–44.Google Scholar
Anonymous. 1968. Banbhore, Pakistan Archaeology 5: 176–9.Google Scholar
Ansary, A.L. al-, 1982. Qaryat al-Fau: a portait of pre-Islamic civilisation in Saudi-Arabia. Riyadh: University Press of Riyadh.Google Scholar
Bergquist, A. & Taylor, T.. 1987. The origin of the Gundestrup Cauldron, Antiquity 61: 10–24.Google Scholar
Braudel, F. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Phillip II. English edition. London: W. Collins.Google Scholar
Brown, W. Ll. 1960. The Etruscan lion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chittick, H.N. 1961. Kisimani Mafia. Dar es Salaam: Antiquities Division, Occasional Papers.Google Scholar
Chittick, H.N. 1974. Kilwa, an Islamic trading city on the East African coast. Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa.Google Scholar
Contenson, H. de. 1963. Les fouilles à Axoum en 1958; rapport préliminaire, Annales d’Ethiopie 5: 1–40.Google Scholar
Creswell, K.A.C. 1968. A short account of early Muslim architecture. Reprint. Beirut: Librairie du Liban.Google Scholar
Dallapiccola, A.L. 1984. The sacred and the profane: bell metal casting in the folk art of India. Heidelberg.Google Scholar
Devic, L.M. 1883. Les pays des Zendjs. Paris.Google Scholar
During Caspers, E.C.L. 1987. A copper-bronze animal in Harran style from Bahrain: evidence of mercantile interaction, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 30: 30–46.Google Scholar
Duyvendak, J.J.L. China’s discovery of Africa. London: School of African and Oriental Studies.Google Scholar
Elliot, W. 1886. Coins of southern India. London: Trübner.Google Scholar
Féhervari, G. 1976. Islamic metalwork in the Keir collection. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Freeman-Grenville, G.S.P. 1963. Coins from Mogadishu, Numismatic Chronicle (7th series) 3: 179–200.Google Scholar
Freeman-Grenville, G.S.P. 1966. The East African coast: select documents. 2nd edition. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Garlake, P. 1973. Great Zimbabwe. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Garrard, T.F. 1980. Akan weights and the gold trade. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Goitein, S.D. 1966. Studies in Islamic history and institutions. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Goitein, S.D. 1973. Letters of medieval Jewish traders. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, M. & Borland, C.H. 1982. The Indian connection: an assessment of Hromnik’s ‘Indo-Africa’, South Africa Archaeological Bulletin 37: 75–80.Google Scholar
Herbert, E.W. 1984. Red gold of Africa. Madison: Wisconsin University Press.Google Scholar
Hirth, F. & Rockhill, W.W.. 1911. Chao Ju-kua. St Petersburg.Google Scholar
Horton, M. 1987. Early Muslim trading settlements on the East African coast, Antiquaries Journal 67.Google Scholar
Horton, M., Brown, H.W. & Oddy, W.. 1986. The Mtambwe hoard, Azania 21.Google Scholar
Hromnik, C.A. 1981. Indo-Africa: towards a new understanding of the history of sub-Saharan Africa. Cape Town.Google Scholar
Hromnik, C.A. 1983. African history and Africanist orthodoxy, South Africa Archaeological Bulletin 38: 36–9.Google Scholar
Knappert, J. 1979. Four centuries of Swahili verse. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Lippe, A. de. 1978. Indian medieval sculpture. Amsterdam: North Holland.Google Scholar
Mukherjee, M. 1978. Metalcraftsmen of India. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India.Google Scholar
Munsterberg, H. 1967. Chinese Buddhist bronzes. Rutland: C.F. Tuttle.Google Scholar
Riederer, J. 1984. Materialanalysen an Bronze- und Messingstatuetten des Staatlichen Museums für Volkerkunde in München, in Mallebrein, C. (ed.) Skulpturen aus Indien: 231–36. Munich.Google Scholar
Sachau, E.C. 1910. Alberuni’s India. London.Google Scholar
Sacleux, C. 1939. Dictionnaire Swahili-Français. Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P. & Avery, D.H.. 1983. More evidence for advanced prehistoric iron technology in Africa. Journal of Field Archaeology 10: 421–34.Google Scholar
Segalen, V. 1978. The great statuary of China. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Segall, B. 1958. The lion-riders from Timna, in Brown, R. & Albright, F.B. (ed.), Archaeological discoveries in South Arabia: 155–64. Baltimore: American Foundation for the Study of Man.Google Scholar
Smith, V.A. 1906. Catalogue of coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, H.M. 1878. Through the dark continent. New York.Google Scholar
Summers, R. 1969. Ancient mining in Rhodesia. Salisbury: National Museum.Google Scholar
Trimingham, J.S. 1975. The Arab geographers and the East African coast, in Chittick, H.N. & Rotberg, R.I. (ed.), East Africa and the Orient: 115–46. New York: Africana.Google Scholar
Welch, S.C. 1985. India: art and culture, 1300–1900. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Wilding, R. 1973. The ceramics of the Lamu archipelago. Doctoral dissertation, University of Nairobi.Google Scholar