Early African Ivories

Abstract

| african arts SUMMER 2022 VOL. 55, NO. 2 Based on archaeological excavations conducted in the 1970s by Merrick Posnansky in Begho (Ghana), this paper outlines a new cluster of early African ivories located in central Ghana.1 This group dates from the same time of other clusters widely recognized by the literature on early African ivories, such as those located on Serra Leoa,2 Owo, Benin, Calabar, and Kongo.3 Ivories belonging to some of these clusters are well documented in historical sources of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including records in European collections as early as the mid-sixteenth century. Fragments of other ivories were found in archaeological contexts dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, namely in Portugal (Manso, Casimiro and Gomes 2021) and Ghana (Posnansky 1976). When compared against each other, the internal cohesiveness of these clusters becomes clearer, as well as their differences. We structured this paper into three sections in order to present our arguments for outlining Ghana’s cluster of early African ivories. First, we discuss the position of Begho in the trans-Saharan trade and how it fostered the development of local industries, including the production of small ivory objects. Second, we present evidence for considering the two fragments of side-blown ivory trumpets found by Posnansky in Begho as a product of the Akan peoples4 and we rebut the arguments of Ezio Bassani, who classified them as a subset of the Kongo cluster (2008: 35–38). Our reasoning stems from the relevance of Posnansky’s archaeological findings and from a deeper stylistic analysis of these objects. Third, we contrast Ghana’s ivory trumpets with trumpets from other early African clusters—namely Serra Leoa, Benin, Calabar, Kongo and another cluster in West Africa whose specific location remains undetermined, in order to strengthen the idiosyncrasy of Ghana’s ivories.5