Glass Technology Was Known In Sahara Centuries Before The Arrival Of Europeans

AncientPages.com - Scientists have found evidence people in Sahara were familiar with glass technology centuries before the arrival of Europeans.

During excavations at Igbo Olokun, located on the northern periphery of Ile-Ife in southwestern Nigeria, archaeologists uncovered more than 12,000 glass beads and several kilograms of glass-working debris.

These artifacts offer evidence that glass production at Igbo Olokun dates to the 11th through 15th centuries A.D., well before the arrival of Europeans along the coast of West Africa.

Glass Technology Was Known In Sahara Centuries Before The Arrival Of Europeans

Sahara Desert

Scientists say the area served as a glass-working workshop for more than a century.

“The glass-encrusted containers and beads that have been uncovered there were viewed for many years as evidence that imported glass was remelted and reworked,” lead author Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, a recent graduate of Rice with a Ph.D. in anthropology and a visiting fellow at Harvard University said.

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However, 10 years ago this idea was challenged when analyses of glass beads attributed to Ile-Ife showed that some had a chemical composition very different from that of known glass production areas. Researchers raised the possibility of local production in Ife, although direct evidence for glassmaking and its chronology was lacking.

"The Igbo Olokun excavations have provided that evidence," Babalola said.

Glass Technology Was Known In Sahara Centuries Before The Arrival Of Europeans

Photo of glass beads. Credit: Abidemi Babatunde Babalola

Analysis of 52 glass beads from the excavated assemblage revealed that none matched the chemical composition of any other known glass-production area in the Old World, including Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Asia.

The beads have a high-lime, high-alumina (HLHA) composition that reflects local geology and raw materials. The presence of the HLHA glass at other important early West African sites suggests that it was widely traded.

Hopefully this research will cast more light on the innovation and development of glass in early sub-Saharan Africa and how the regional dynamics in glass production connect with the global phenomenon of glass invention and exchange.

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