Material Biographies: Saharan Trade and the Lives of Objects in Fourteenth and Fifteenth-Century West Africa
| Autor: | Raymond A. Silverman |
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| Rok vydání: | 2015 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | History in Africa. 42:375-395 |
| ISSN: | 1558-2744 0361-5413 |
| DOI: | 10.1017/hia.2015.4 |
| Popis: | This article explores the lives of several copper alloy vessels (bowls, basins, and ewers), made in Egypt and England, that were carried across the Sahara just before the dawn of the European age of exploration, and that eventually found their way to central Ghana. It considers how and why prestige metal goods, some of them produced for specific individuals, became trade commodities that traveled thousands of kilometers, ending up in Akan communities where they were given new meanings. In thinking about material things and the mutability of meaning, the article attempts to address how we might understand these trade items as discursive “objects of knowledge” connecting peoples living in different times and different places. Resume: Cet article explore l’itineraire de plusieurs recipients en alliage de cuivre (bols, cuvettes et aiguieres) fabriques en Egypte et en Angleterre et transportes a travers le Sahara jusqu’au centre du Ghana, leur destination finale, juste avant le debut de l’ere des explorations europeennes. Comment et pourquoi de luxueux objets en metal, certains fabriques pour l’usage prive d’individus particuliers, voyagerent sur plusieurs milliers de kilometres, et atterrirent dans des communautes Akan qui leur attribuerent de nouvelles significations? En reflechissant a la materialite des objets et a la mutabilite du sens, cet article propose de considerer ces pieces comme “objets de connaissance,” des sortes de “textes” permettant de mettre en relation des personnes vivant a des epoques differentes et dans des endroits eloignes. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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