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Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time

 Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa

References

Exhibition Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a scholarly publication co-published by the Block Museum and Princeton University Press. The book Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa draws on the latest archaeological discoveries and art historical research to construct a compelling look at medieval trans-Saharan exchange and its legacy. Contributors from diverse disciplines present case studies that form a rich portrayal of a distant time.

Works Cited

  1. Jennifer Wallace, Digging the Dirt: The Archaeological Imagination (London: Duckworth and Co., 2004); Michael Shanks, The Archaeological Imagination (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2012).

  2. For more on cultural heritage preservation and protection efforts in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria, see Mamadi Dembélé, Ahmed Ettahiri, Youssef Khiara, and Yousuf Abdallah Usman, “Fragments at Risk: The Protection of Cultural Heritage in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria,” in Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, ed. Kathleen Bickford Berzock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 75-87.

  3. The Imazighen (singular, Amazigh) are also widely called Berber.

  4. “The Tuareg: Nomads of the Sahara,” The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (website), accessed May 26, 2019, https://www.peabody.harvard.edu/node/2248

  5. Kristyne Loughran, “The Stuff of Life: Tent, Food, Weapons,” in Art of Being Tuareg: Sahara Nomads in a Modern World, ed. Thomas K. Seligman and Kristyne Loughran (Los Angeles: Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University and UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 2006) 90–91.

  6. Eric S. Charry, Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 128-29.

  7. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 95.

  8. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 22.

  9. For more on the excavations at Sijilmasa, see Ronald A. Messier and James A. Miller, The Last Civilized Place: Sijilmasa and Its Saharan Destiny (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015).

  10. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 64–5.

  11. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 85.

  12. Essouk-Tadmekka: An Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Market Town, ed. Sam Nixon, vol. 12, Journal of African Archaeology Monograph Series, ed. Peter Breunig, Sonja Magnavita, and Katharina Neumann (London: Brill, 2017), xii–xiii and 3–6.

  13. Raymond Mauny, Tableau géographique de l’Ouest africain au Moyen Age, d’après les sources écrites, la tradition et l’archéologie (Dakar: IFAN, 1961), 448, fig. 102; P. F. de Moraes Farias, Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali: Epigraphy, Chronicles, and Songhay-Tuāreg History (Oxford: The British Academy for Oxford University Press, 2003), fig. 4.

  14. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 21.

  15. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 87.

  16. Timothy Insoll, “Iron Age Gao: Archaeological Contribution,” Journal of African History 38, no. 1 (1997): 1–30; Mamadou Cissé, “The Trans-Saharan Trade Connection with Gao (Mali) during the First Millennium AD,” in Trade in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond, ed. David Mattingly et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 101–30.

  17. Mamadou Cissé, “The Trans-Saharan Trade Connection with Gao (Mali) during the First Millennium AD,” in Trade in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond, ed. David Mattingly et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 102, fig. 4.1(b).

  18. Mamadi Dembélé, “Urbanization and Trade Networks in the Inland Niger Delta,” in Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, ed. Kathleen Bickford Berzock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 156–57.

  19. Ignacio Soriano et al., “Goldwork Technology at the Arabian Peninsula: First Data from Saruq al Hadid Iron Age Site (Dubai, United Arab Emirates),” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 22 (2018): 1–10.

  20. “Talismanic Textile,” Art Institute of Chicago (website), accessed May 26, 2019, https://www.artic.edu/artworks/155969/talismanic-textile.

  21. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 270.

  22. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 282.

  23. Georges Grosjean, Mapamundi: The Catalan Atlas of the Year 1375 (Dietikon-Zurich: Urs Graf, 1978), 63.

  24. Timothy F. Garrard, “Myth and Metrology: The Early Trans-Saharan Gold Trade,” Journal of African History 23 (1982): 443–61.

  25. Ronald A. Messier, “Dinars as Historical Texts,” in Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, ed. Kathleen Bickford Berzock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 208.

  26. Sarah M. Guérin, “Gold, Ivory, and Copper,” in Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, ed. Kathleen Bickford Berzock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 184.

  27. Sarah M. Guérin, “Gold, Ivory, and Copper,” in Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, ed. Kathleen Bickford Berzock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 181; Guérin suggests that 67 pages reside in Tunisia, though that number is unconfirmed.

  28. For more on the circulation of West African ivory through medieval trade routes, see Sarah M. Guérin, “‘Avorio d’ogni ragione’: The Supply of Elephant Ivory to Northern Europe in the Gothic Era,” Journal of Medieval History 36 (2010): 156–74, and Sarah M. Guérin, “Forgotten Routes: Italy, Ifrīqiya, and the Trans-Saharan Ivory Trade,” Al-Masāq 25 (2013): 71–92.

  29. “Introduction to English Embroidery,” Victoria and Albert Museum (website), accessed May 28, 2019, http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/english-embroidery-introduction/.

  30. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 287.

  31. Roger Atwood, "The Nok of Nigeria," Archaeology Archive 64, no. 4 (July/August 2011), accessed May 28, 2019, https://archive.archaeology.org/1107/features/nok_nigeria_africa_terracotta.html.

  32. For more on local glass bead production at Igbo Olokun, see A.B. Babalola, L. Dussubieux, S. K. McIntosh, and Th. Rehren, “Ife-Ife and Igbo Olokun in the History of Glass in West Africa,” Antiquity 91, no. 357 (2017): 732–50.

  33. Detlef Gronenborn et al, “Durbi Takusheyi: A High-Status Burial Site in the Western Central Bilād al-Sūdān,” Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 47 (2012): 256–71; Detlef Gronenborn, “Polities and Trade in Medieval Northern Nigeria,” in Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, ed. Kathleen Bickford Berzock (Princeton University Press, 2019), 166–69.

  34. Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2000), 39.

  35. R. T. Fenn, “Chemical and Isotopic Analyses of Metals,” in Gold, Slaves, and Ivory: Medieval Empires in Northern Nigeria/Gold, Sklaven und Elfenbein: Mittelalterliche Reiche im norden Nigerias, ed. Detlef Gronenborn (Mainz: Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 2011), 104–05.

  36. Théodore Monod, “Le Maden Ijâfen: Une épave caravanière ancienne dans la Majâbat al-Koubrâ,” in Actes du premier colloque international d’archéologie africaine, Fort Lamy, République du Tchad, 11–16 décembre 1966 (Fort Lamy: Institut national tchadien pour les sciences humaines, 1969), 286–320.

  37. Sam Nixon, “Essouk-Tadmekka” (presentation at the program “From the Field: International Archaeologists in Conversation,” The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, April 24, 2019).

  38. F. Willett, The Art of Ife: A Descriptive Catalogue and Database (Scotland: Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, 2004).

  39. Raymond A. Silverman, “Akan Kuduo: Form and Function,” in Akan Transformations: Problems in Ghanaian Art History, ed. Doran H. Ross and Timothy F. Garrard (Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, University of California, 1983), 10–29.

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