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Glass Beads from Songo Mnara, Tanzania: Chemical Composition and Evidence for Local Bead Manufacture

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Abstract

The fourteenth-to-sixteenth-century AD site of Songo Mnara, in the Kilwa archipelago in southern Tanzania, is a stone town with many standing coral buildings. Extensive excavations at the site have produced over 9,000 beads, 7,444 of which are glass. A subset of 140 of these was chemically analyzed using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, revealing a notably diverse assemblage that included four main glass types: mineral soda-high alumina (m-Na-Al), vegetable soda-high alumina (v-Na-Al), high lead glasses, and vegetable soda-lime (v-Na-Ca) glass. Here we present these types, giving the first tightly dated assemblage for the fifteenth-century coast. We then focus on two notable features of the assemblage. Among the high-lead glass beads are two types from China: one dates to the early fifteenth century and the other from about 1600. These later Chinese beads were accompanied by some of the earliest European beads (v-Na-Ca) found in eastern Africa. Their provenance and meaning are examined. Then, we discuss large folded beads that were decorated with trails of colored glass. Such beads have been recorded only at Songo Mnara and Kilwa Kisiwani, and we suggest they may have been made locally from imported v-Na-Al glass.

Résumé

Le site de Songo Mnara, dans l’archipel de Kilwa au sud de la Tanzanie, daté du 14ème au 16ème siècle de notre ère, est une ville de pierre avec de nombreux bâtiments coralliens encore debout. Des fouilles importantes ont produit plus de 9 000 perles, dont 7 444 en verre. Un sous-ensemble de 140 perles de verre a été analysé chimiquement à l’aide de la spectrométrie de masse à plasma inductif couplée à l’ablation laser. Cette étude révèle un assemblage particulièrement diversifié qui comprend quatre principaux types de verre: verre sodo-alumineux à la soude minérale (m-Na-Al), verre sodo-alumineux à la soude végétale (v-Na-Al), verre à haute teneur en plomb et verre calco-sodique à la soude végétale (v-Na-Ca). Nous présentons ici ces types, pour le premier assemblage de la côte est de l’Afrique étroitement daté du 14-15ème siècle. Nous nous concentrons sur deux caractéristiques notables de l’assemblage. Parmi les perles de verre à haute teneur en plomb, provenant très certainement de Chine, deux groupes ont été identifiés, l’un datant du début du 15ème siècle et l’autre du début du 17ème siècle. Ces perles chinoises plus récentes étaient accompagnées des premières perles européennes (v-Na-Ca) que l’on trouve en Afrique de l’Est. Leur provenance et leur signification sont examinées. Ensuite, nous discutons de grosses perles obtenues par pliage du verre qui ont été décorées de traînées de verre coloré. De telles perles ont été identifiées uniquement à Songo Mnara et Kilwa Kisiwani et nous suggérons qu’elles pourraient avoir été fabriquées localement à partir de verre v-Na-Al importé.

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Acknowledgements

This research was conducted in collaboration with the Antiquities Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Tanzania, under COSTECH permit number 2013-219-NA-2009-46. The Songo Mnara Urban Landscape Project was funded by the National Science Foundation (United States of America: grant BCS 1123091) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (United Kingdom). We would also like to thank the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Marilee Wood

  2. Field Museum, Chicago, IL, USA

    Laure Dussubieux

  3. Department of Archaeology, University of York, King’s Manor, York, YO1 7EP, UK

    Stephanie Wynne-Jones

  4. University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

    Stephanie Wynne-Jones

  5. Department of Anthropology, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA

    Jeffrey Fleisher

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  1. Marilee Wood
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Correspondence to Marilee Wood.

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Supplementary Information

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Supplementary file1 (XLSX 133 KB) Online Resource 1 Data from LA-ICP-MS analysis of Songo Mnara glass beads

Supplementary file2 (XLSX 21.5 KB) Online Resource 2 Descriptions of analyzed Songo Mnara beads

10437_2022_9484_MOESM3_ESM.pdf

Supplementary file3 (PDF 8460 KB) Online Resource 3 Plates with images of all analyzed beads plus others of interest arranged by glass groups (all photos by Marilee Wood). Plate 1: m-Na-Al drawn beads sub-types 1, 6 & 2. Plate 2: m-Na-Al drawn beads sub-types 4, 7 & 10. Plate 3: m-Na-Al wound beads sub-types 2 & 7. Plate 4: v-Na-Al folded beads and glass rods plus associated terracotta and wound glass beads. Plate 5: v-Na-Al wound beads. Plate 6: v-Na-Al & v-Na-Ca wound beads plus v-Na-Al and v-Na-Ca high Ti drawn beads. Plate 7: European beads and high lead beads of unknown origin. Plate 8: Chinese high lead beads

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Wood, M., Dussubieux, L., Wynne-Jones, S. et al. Glass Beads from Songo Mnara, Tanzania: Chemical Composition and Evidence for Local Bead Manufacture. Afr Archaeol Rev 40, 357–376 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-022-09484-8

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