Characterization of Glass, Shell, and Fishbone Beads on Ibo Island (Northern Mozambique) in the Context of the Indian Ocean Trade

Abstract

Suggested running head (80 characters or less): Beads of glass, shell and fishbone from the Ibo Island-northern Mozambique.Archaeological time period: Pre-European Swahili trade (11 th to 12 th centuries AD).Country and region discussed: Mozambique, East Africa.

Crafting Swahili Beads: Exploring a New Glass Bead Assemblage from Northern Zanzibar, Tanzania

“…Recognizing the variability within bead assemblages, Wood (2011) has divided the Indo-Pacific beads from various southern African sites into sub-groups or series based on their morphology and chemical composition. These include East Coast Indo-Pacific, Khami Indo-Pacific, and K2 Indo-Pacific series beads, all of which are chemically similar, being made from a glass type known as mineral-soda-high-alumina or m-Na-Al, thought to have been produced in South Asia (Dussubieux et al, 2008;García-Heras et al, 2021;Robertshaw et al, 2006;Siu et al, 2021). While most of the East Coast Indo-Pacific beads described in Wood's (2011) article were recovered from southern African sites, they are similar to many of the drawn monochrome beads found on the East African coast.…”

“…The first, m-Na-Al 1, is associated with beads from first millennium sites in East Africa, such as Unguja Ukuu in Zanzibar, and are some of the earliest glass beads imported into East Africa (McIntosh et al, 2020;Wood, 2018). The m-Na-Al 2 glass beads seem to have been imported from the fourteenth century AD onward (García-Heras et al, 2021;Robertshaw et al, 2010), while a newly identified group, m-Na-Al 6, may have been in circulation between the ninth and thirteenth centuries (Dussubieux & Wood, 2021). Although a relationship between the different chemical sub-groups and the Indo-Pacific bead series outlined above has been suggested by Dussubieux and Wood (2021), further analysis is needed to understand the relationship between bead morphology, bead series, and their chemical composition.…”

“…While I have been unable to find any photos of this bead type, the description fits the translucent teal Mkokotoni bead, and the date of Ndagoni/ Ras Mkumbuu settlement is estimated to be around the tenth to sixteenth centuries. Finally, some large red glass beads similar in shape and size to Mkokotoni beads were excavated from Ibo Island, a site in Mozambique dated to the eleventh to twelfth centuries AD (García-Heras et al, 2021).…”