Searching For the Garamantian Emerald: Reconsidering the Green-Colored Stone Beads Trade In the Ancient Sahara
| Autor: | Pietro Vignola, Andrea Zerboni, Maria Carmela Gatto, Andrea Risplendente, Lucia Mori |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
Amazonite
060102 archaeology green-colored stone beads amazonite eghei zuma geochemical analysis garamantes saharantrade routes 06 humanities and the arts engineering.material 010502 geochemistry & geophysics Emerald 01 natural sciences Archaeology Garamantes Mining engineering Geochemistry and Petrology Eghei Zuma engineering 0601 history and archaeology Saharan trade routes Geology Pegmatite 0105 earth and related environmental sciences |
| Zdroj: | Canadian mineralogist 55 (2017): 651–668. doi:10.3749/canmin.1600052 info:cnr-pdr/source/autori:Andrea Zerboni Pietro Vignola Maria Carmela Gatto Andrea Risplendente Lucia Mori/titolo:SEARCHING FOR THE GARAMANTIAN EMERALD: RECONSIDERING THE GREENCOLORED STONE BEADS TRADE IN THE ANCIENT SAHARA/doi:10.3749%2Fcanmin.1600052/rivista:Canadian mineralogist/anno:2017/pagina_da:651/pagina_a:668/intervallo_pagine:651–668/volume:55 |
| ISSN: | 1499-1276 0008-4476 |
| DOI: | 10.3749/canmin.1600052 |
| Popis: | In the current literature, Saharan green-colored stone beads are identified with the term emeraude garamantique , while several archaeological investigations on Garamantian contexts referred to them as amazonite. Moreover, according to the hypothesis proposed by Monod, authors identify the only source of amazonite to be the pegmatite swarm at Eghei Zuma (northern Tibesti, Libya). To check this assumption, we characterized the composition of green-colored stone beads found at Fewet, a Garamantian site (2 nd century BC – 1 st century AD) in the Libyan Sahara. We performed electron microprobe analyses on stone beads from Fewet and ethnographic contexts of Mali, Mauritania, and Sudan. Furthermore, lacking a regional database on amazonite to compare the geochemical properties of archaeological beads, we analyzed amazonite crystals from several African pegmatites, including samples from Eghei Zuma. The results show that green-colored stone beads from Fewet consist of serpentinite and amazonite. The K/Rb versus Rb diagram reveals that the source of the amazonite from Fewet could not be the pegmatite at Eghei Zuma. The raw material for amazonite beads traded in Garamantian times originated from Egypt and Mauritania. We discuss the archaeological implications of our results, which concerns the directions of ancient trade routes for elite goods in Garamantian times. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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