Costa, Mafalda;
Barrulas, Pedro;
Lopes, Maria da Conceição;
Barreira, João;
de Jesus, Maria da Piedade;
da Silva Domingos, Sónia;
Vandenabeele, Peter;
Mirão, José
Personal adornments in West-Central Africa—the case study of a talc bead from the Kongo Kingdom (Mbanza Kongo, Angola)
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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Personal adornments in West-Central Africa—the case study of a talc bead from the Kongo Kingdom (Mbanza Kongo, Angola)
Contributor:
Costa, Mafalda;
Barrulas, Pedro;
Lopes, Maria da Conceição;
Barreira, João;
de Jesus, Maria da Piedade;
da Silva Domingos, Sónia;
Vandenabeele, Peter;
Mirão, José
imprint:
Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2023
Published in:Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>A mustard-gold-colored talc bead was recovered during the 2014 excavation campaign carried out in Lumbu (Mbanza Kongo, Angola) together with the nineteenth-century glass trade beads imported from Bohemia and Venice. Results from this multi-analytical and minimally invasive study suggest that this bead may have been brought to the kingdom’s capital by means of an established intra-kingdom trade network or as an offering intended for the king or a member of the nobility. However, it was undoubtedly manufactured within the Kongo kingdom using talc sources known by the local population. As such, this talc bead constitutes the first evidence of local production of personal adornment objects in the Kongo kingdom and one of the first examples of craft specialization for personal adornment purposes in central and southern Africa since pre-historic times.</jats:p>