A Unique Twelfth- to Fourteenth-Century AD Iron Nail Assemblage from Kanem, Chad

Iron nails are still a poorly researched group of African archaeological artefacts. Probably because of preservation issues and their ordinary nature, archaeologists have in general not dealt analytically with such objects. A brief survey of the published evidence shows that, compared to North Africa and the Middle Nile Valley, iron nails are late occurrences in sites south of the Sahara, dating to the late first and the second millennia AD. This paper presents the first trait analysis of an iron nail assemblage from sub-Saharan Africa. Based on a collection of recently excavated and well-preserved samples from 12th to 14th century Kanem, the analysis distinguishes four main nail types being used east of Lake Chad at that time. It is concluded that, as any other archaeological artefacts, nails should be properly illustrated and analyzed as a means of warranting the retrieval of relatable data for future comparative studies.