Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T11:56:51.622Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New light on the early Islamic West African gold trade: coin moulds from Tadmekka, Mali

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2011

Sam Nixon ,
Thilo Rehren  and
Maria Filomena Guerra
Sam Nixon
Affiliation:
1UCL Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H OPY, UK (Email: [email protected])
Thilo Rehren
Affiliation:
2UCL-Qatar, P.O. Box 23689, Georgetown Building, Education City, Doha, Qatar (Email: [email protected])
Maria Filomena Guerra
Affiliation:
3UMR 171 CNRS, Laboratoire du Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, Palais du Louvre, 14 quai François Mitterrand, 75001 Paris, France (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Tadmekka, a town at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, has produced good evidence for making gold coins in the ninth–tenth century AD, the first concrete proof of coinage in pre-colonial West Africa. These were produced by melting gold dust or nuggets in ceramic moulds, similar to those used for the first pellet-like coinage of the European Iron Age. The authors suggest these coins were not political statements, but were probably blank and intended to facilitate the busy early Islamic caravan trade to destinations north, south or east. On arrival at the Mediterranean coast, these blank pieces would have been melted down or converted into inscribed coins by the local authorities.

Keywords

SaharaTadmekkaEssoukTimbuktuninth–tenth century ADearly Islamiccoinsgoldtrade
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 330 , December 2011 , pp. 1353 - 1368
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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

Bacharach, J. 1967. A study of the correlation between textual sources and numismatic evidence for Mamluk Egypt and Syria. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Benjaminsen, T. & Berge, G.. 2004. Myths of Timbuktu: from African El Dorado to desertification. International Journal of Political Economy 34: 31–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanchard, I. 2001. Mining, metallurgy and minting in the Middle Ages. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.Google Scholar
Brown, R. (ed.) 1896. The history and description of Africa and the notable things therein contained. By Leo Africanus, done into English in the year 1600 by John Pory. London: Hakluyt.Google Scholar
Devisse, J. (ed.) 1983. Tegdaoust III. Recherches sur Aoudaghost. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations.Google Scholar
Devisse, J. 1988. Trade and trade routes in West Africa, in El Fasi, M. (ed.) General history of Africa, Volume 3: Africa from the seventh to the eleventh century: 367–435. Berkeley (CA): University of California.Google Scholar
Devisse, J. 1993. L'or, in Devisse, J. (ed.) Vallées du Niger: 344–57. Paris: Editions de la Réunions des Musées Nationaux.Google Scholar
Eagleton, C., Fuller, H. & Perkins, J.. 2009. Money in Africa. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Ehrenkreutz, A. 1953. Extracts from the technical manual on the Ayyubid mint in Cairo. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 15: 423–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehrenkreutz, A. 1992. Monetary change and economic history in the medieval Muslim world (Variorum collected studies series CS371). Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Garrard, T. 1982. Myth and metrology: the early trans-Saharan gold trade. Journal of African History 23: 443–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gebhard, R., Lehrberger, G., Morteani, G., Raub, C., Wagner, F. & Wagner, U.. 1995. Coin moulds and other ceramic material: a key to Celtic precious metal working, in Morteani, G. & Northover, P. (ed.) Prehistoric gold in Europe: 273–301. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gondonneau, A. & Guerra, M.F.. 1999. The gold from Ghana and the Muslim expansion. A scientific enquiry into the Middle Ages using ICP-MS combined with a UV laser, in Young, S., Pollard, A., Budd, P. & Ixer, R. (ed.) Metals in antiquity (British Archaeological Reports international series 792): 262–70. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Gondonneau, A., Guerra, M.F. & Cowell, M.R.. 2001. Searching for the provenance of gold. The methodology of gold analysis by ICP-MS: first developments, in Barba, L. (ed.) Proceedings of the 32nd International Symposium on Archaeometry, 15–19 May 2000, Mexico City. Mexico City: University of Mexico (CD-ROM).Google Scholar
Griaule, M. & Lebeuf, J-P.. 1948. Fouilles dans la région du Tchad. Journal de la Société des Africanistes 18: 1–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guerra, M.F. 2004. Fingerprinting ancient gold with proton beams of different energies. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms 226: 185–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guerra, M.F. & Calligaro, T.. 2004. Gold traces to trace gold. Journal of Archaeological Science 31: 1199–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guerra, M.F. & Rehren, Th.. 2009. In-situ examination and analysis of the gold jewellery from the Phoenician tomb of Kition (Cyprus). ArcheoSciences- Revue d'Archéométrie 33: 151–8.Google Scholar
Heinrichs, J. & Rehren, Th.. 1996. Keltische Münzschrötlingsformen aus Bonn. Metalla (Bochum) 3: 83–100.Google Scholar
Hinrichs, J-C. 1997. Blank ‘coins’ from Anatolia. Oriental Numismatic Society Newsletter 154: 13–14.Google Scholar
Horton, M.C., Brown, H.M. & Oddy, W.A.. 1986. The Mtambwe hoard. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 21: 115–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Insoll, T. 1998. Archaeological research in Timbuktu, Mali. Antiquity 72: 413–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Insoll, T. 2003. The archaeology of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. 1968. The nineteenth-century gold ‘Mithqal’ in West and North Africa. The Journal of African History 9: 547–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joire, J. 1943. Archaeological discoveries in Senegal. Man 43: 49–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khan, A. 1990. Al-Mansurah: a forgotten Arab metropolis in Pakistan. Karachi: Kifayat.Google Scholar
Launois, A. & Devisse, J.. 1983. Poids de verre découverts a Tegdaoust, chronologie du site et histoire des étalons de poids en Afrique occidentale, in Devisse, J. (ed) Tegdaoust III. Recherches sur Aoudaghost: 399–419. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations.Google Scholar
Levtzion, H. 1968. Ibn-Hawqal, the cheque, and Awdaghost. The Journal of African History 9(2): 223–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levtzion, N. & Hopkins, J.F. (ed.). 2000. Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history. Princeton (NJ): Markus Wiener.Google Scholar
Macdonald, K.C. In press. A view from the south: sub-Saharan evidence for contacts between North Africa, Mauritania and the Niger, 1000 BC-AD 700, in Dowler, A. (ed.) Money, trade and trade routes in pre-Islamic North Africa. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Mcintosh, S.K. (ed.) 1995. Excavations at Jenné-Jeno, Hambarketolo, and Kaniana (Inland Niger Delta, Mali), the 1981 season (University of California Publications in Anthropology 20). Berkeley (CA): University of California.Google Scholar
Mauny, R. 1958. Anciens ateliers monétaires Ouest-Africains. Notes Africaines 78: 34–5.Google Scholar
Messier, R. 1974. The Almoravids. West African gold and the gold currency of the Mediterranean basin. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17: 31–47.Google Scholar
Mitchell, P.J. 2005. African connections. Archaeological perspectives on Africa and the wider world. Walnut Creek (CA): Altamira Press.Google Scholar
De Moraes Farias, P.F.. 2003. Arabic medieval inscriptions from the Republic of Mali. Epigraphy, chronicles and Songhay-Tuāreg history. Oxford: Oxford University Press for The British Academy.Google Scholar
Nicolaou, I. 1990. Paphos II. The coins from the House of Dionysos. Nicosia: Department of Antiquities.Google Scholar
Nixon, S. 2009. Excavating Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali): new archaeological investigations of early Islamic trans-Saharan trade. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 44: 217–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nixon, S. 2010. Before Timbuktu: the great trading centre of Tadmakka. Current World Archaeology 39: 40–51.Google Scholar
Ramage, A. & Craddock, P.. 2000. King Croesus' gold: excavations at Sardis and the history of gold refining. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Robbins, K. & Bayley, J.. 1997. Metallurgical analysis of coin pellet moulds and crucible fragments, in Elsdon, S.M. (ed.) Old Sleaford revealed. A Lincolnshire settlement in Iron Age, Roman, Saxon and medieval times: excavations 1882–1995: 59–64. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Roux, C. & Guerra, M.F.. 2000. La monnaie almoravide: de l'Afrique à l'Espagne. Revue d'archéométrie 24: 39–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spufford, P. 1988. European silver and African gold, in Spufford, P. (ed.) Money and its use in medieval Europe: 163–86. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tournaire, J., Buchsenschutz, O., Henderson, J. & Collis, J.. 1982. Iron Age coin moulds from France. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 48: 417–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanacker, C. 1984. Perles de verre découvertes sur le site de Tegdaoust. Journal des Africanistes 54: 31–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilding, R. 1989. The pottery, in Munro-Hay, S. (ed.) Excavations at Aksum: 235–316. London: British Academy.Google Scholar