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Brass Casting and its Antecedents in West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Merrick Posnansky
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Type
Review Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 1977 , pp. 287 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

* Icon and Image, by Williams, Denis, London, Allen Lane, 1974. Pp. 331 + xv, 221, figs., 6 tables, £8.50.Google Scholar

1 Von Luschan, F., Die Altertümer von Benin (Berlin, 1919).Google Scholar

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3 Connah, Graham, The Archaeology of Benin (Oxford, 1975), 67.Google Scholar

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5 Posnansky, Merrick and McIntosh, Roderick, ‘New Radiocarbon Dates for Northern and Western Africa’ J. Afr. Hist., xvii (1976), 168, 171–2.Google Scholar

6 Tylecote, R. F., ‘The origin of Iron smelting in West Africa’ West Afr. J. Archaeol., v (1975), 4.Google Scholar

7 Pole, Len M., Iron Smelting in Northern Ghana (National Museum of Ghana, Occ. Paper no. 6, 1974)Google Scholar, and ‘Iron-working Apparatus and Techniques: Upper Region of Ghana’ West Afr. J. Archaeol., V (1975), 11–35Google Scholar, records yields as low as 2–3.5 kg. Per smelt.

8 Penfold, D. A., ‘Excavation of an Iron smelting Furnace at Cape Coast’ Trans. Hist. Soc. Ghana, xii (1971), 1–15Google Scholar (see particularly 13–14).

9 Pole, op. cit.

10 Pole, op. cit., 1974.

11 Tylecote, op. cit., 6.

12 Pole, op. cit.

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15 Connah, Graham, ‘The coming of Iron: Nok and Daima’ in Nigerian Prehistory and Archaeology, ed. Shaw, Thurstan (Ibadan, 1969), 34.Google Scholar

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18 Posnansky and McIntosh, op. cit., 187.

19 Diop, L. M., ‘Metallurgie et l'a^ge du fer en Afrique’ Bull. IFAN (série B), xxx (1968), 10–38Google Scholar. One of the main advocates of this view is Dr B. W. Andah to whom I am indebted for stimulating ideas.

20 See in particular dates of the ninth to twelfth century for Ife (Willett, F., J. Afr. Hist., xii (1971), 367)Google Scholar and of the first quarter of the second millennium A.D. for Benin (Connah, op. cit., 1975, 248) and Begho (Posnansky and McIntosh, op. cit., 166).

21 Lambert, Nicole, ‘Les Industries sur Cuivre dans 1'Ouest Saharien’ West Afr. J. Archaeol., i (1971), 9–21Google Scholar, and Willett, op. cit., 359.

22 Thilmans, G. and Descamps, C., ‘Excavations at De Ndalane (Sine Saloum) 27 November–14 January 1972’Google Scholar report privately duplicated and circulated by IFAN, Dakar; and paper given at 7th Pan Afr. Prehist. Congress at Addis Ababa 1971 by Cyr Descamps.

23 As those at Rao: for these and the tumuli above Segou see Mauny, R., Les Siècles Obscurs de l'Afrique Noire (Nancy, 1970).Google Scholar

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35 Posnansky and McIntosh, op. cit. 169–70.

36 Connah, op. cit., 1975, 138–47.

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38 Private communication from Dr J. Charles, Cambridge.

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42 Figured on a rather fine gold weight in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

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44 Private communication from Tim Garrard.

45 Williams in discussing a Nubian gold object wrote (p. 182) it ‘is solid and therefore probably not cast cire-perdue’. This is a non sequitur as most small objects made by the are-perdue method (such as gold weights) are solid.

46 Farmer, H. G., ‘Early references to music in the Western Sudan’ Oriental Studies Mainly Musical (London, 1953), 10.Google Scholar

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51 I am most grateful to Miss Christine Fox, the sculptress who worked with brass casters in Kumasi and who works extensively in brass, for these points.

52 Westcott, R. W., ‘Ancient Egypt and Modern Africa’ J. Afr. Hist., ii (1961), 311–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Merrick Posnansky, op. cit., 1971, 122.

54 Margaret Webster Plass, African Miniatures: The Gold Weights of the Ashanti (London, 1967)Google Scholar, and McLeod, Malcolm, Ashanti Gold-Weights (British Museum Publications Limited, London, 1976)Google Scholar, give the impression that gold weights were made exclusively by the Asante. Though responsible perhaps for some of the finest figurative pieces, the weights began long before the Asante State came into being. They were also made by the Akan of the Ivory Coast.

55 Information from Mr Tim Garrard to whom I am grateful for his insights into the gold weight system.