Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T21:23:23.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The glass beads from Ingombe Ilede

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2017

Peter Robertshaw  and
Marilee Wood
Peter Robertshaw*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, California State University, San Bernardino, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA 92407, USA
Marilee Wood
Affiliation:
School of Geography, Archaeology & Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: proberts@csusb.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Analysis of glass beads from the Ingombe Ilede burials provides additional information that supports McIntosh and Fagan's new dating of burials 3 and 8, and that also clarifies the chronology of some of the other burials. Following an unsuccessful attempt to locate the Ingombe Ilede beads in the Livingstone Museum, we analysed beads from a card with samples of Ingombe Ilede beads that had been originally prepared by A.P. du Toit (1965), and later sold to MuseuMAfricA in Johannesburg (Figure 1). The beads were chemically analysed using LA-ICP-MS, as part of a larger project on ancient African glass bead chemistry (Robertshaw et al.2003). All analysed beads from burials 3 and 8 belong to the Khami series produced in India and traded into southern and south-central Africa from the mid fifteenth to mid seventeenth centuries. Some beads of an earlier type were present in other graves, and may have been kept as heirlooms.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 91 , Issue 358 , August 2017 , pp. 1078 - 1084
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2017 

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

Dussubieux, L., Robertshaw, P. & Glascock, M.D.. 2009. LA-ICP-MS analysis of African glass beads: laboratory inter-comparison with an emphasis on the impact of corrosion on data interpretation. International Journal of Mass Spectrometry 284: 152–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijms.2008.11.003 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dussubieux, L., Gratuze, B. & Blet-Lemarquand, M.. 2010. Mineral soda alumina glass: occurrence and meaning. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 1646–55. https://doi:10.1016/j.jas.2010.01.025 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
du Toit, A.P. 1965. A preliminary survey of the beads of Ingombe Ilede, northern Rhodesia. Man 65 (Jan–Feb): 11–15. https://doi.org/10.2307/2796034 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
du Toit, A.P. 1969. Glass beads from Ingombe Ilede, in Fagan, B.M., Phillipson, D.W. & Daniels, S.G.H., Iron Age cultures in Zambia, volume II: Dambwa, Ingombe Ilede, and the Tonga: 247–53. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar
Fagan, B.M. 1967. Iron Age cultures in Zambia (Kalomo and Kangila), volume 1. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar
Huffman, T.N. 1989. Iron Age migrations. The ceramic sequence in southern Zambia: excavations at Gundu and Ndonde. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Juwayeyi, Y.M. 2010. Archaeological excavations at Mankhamba, Malawi: an early settlement site of the Maravi. Azania 45: 175–202. https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2010.491947 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lankton, J.W. & Dussubieux, L.. 2006. Early glass in Asian maritime trade: a review and an interpretation of compositional analyses. Journal of Glass Studies 48: 121–44.Google Scholar
Robertshaw, P., Glascock, M.D., Wood, M. & Popelka, R.S.. 2003. Chemical analysis of ancient African glass beads: a very preliminary report. Journal of African Archaeology 1: 139–46. https://doi.org/10.3213/1612-1651-10006 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertshaw, P., Wood, M., Melchiorre, E., Popelka-Filcoff, R. & Glascock, M.. 2010. Southern African glass beads: chemistry, glass sources, and patterns of trade. Journal of Archaeological Science 17: 1898–912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.02.016 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Theal, G.M. 1898. Records of south-eastern Africa (volumes 1 & 2). Cape Town: Government of the Cape Colony.Google Scholar
Wood, M. 2009. The glass beads from Hlamba Mlonga, Zimbabwe: classification, context and interpretation. Journal of African Archaeology 7: 219–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, M. 2011. A glass bead sequence for southern Africa. Journal of African Archaeology 9: 67–84. https://doi.org/10.3213/1612-1651-10184 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, M., Dussubieux, L. & Wadley, L.. 2009. A cache of ~5000 glass beads from the Sibudu Cave Iron Age occupation. South African Humanities 21: 239–61. https://doi.org/10.3213/1612-1651-10140 Google Scholar
Wood, M., Dussubieux, L. & Robertshaw, P.. 2012. Glass finds from Chibuene, a 6th to 17th-century AD port in southern Mozambique. South African Archaeological Bulletin 67: 59–74.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Robertshaw and Wood supplementary material

Robertshaw and Wood supplementary material 1

Download Robertshaw and Wood supplementary material(File)
File 47.1 KB