Copper metallurgy in Africa

Copper metallurgy in Africa is the study of how people made and used copper across the continent. It helps us learn more about the history and culture of ancient African societies.

Making copper was an important skill because it allowed people to create tools, jewelry, and other useful items. This skill spread and changed over time, influencing many areas of life.

By studying copper objects and remains, experts can understand how early African communities lived, traded, and developed. This knowledge gives us valuable insights into the past and shows how clever and resourceful ancient people were.

Origins

Scholars once thought that people in sub-Saharan Africa didn't start using copper until the 1800s, or that they began working with iron and copper at the same time. But we now know that people were smelting copper much earlier.

Evidence shows that copper smelting happened in Nubia around 2686–2181 BC, during the early Old Kingdom. An Egyptian outpost at Buhen around 2600 BC was used to smelt copper from Nubia. Later, around 2300–1900 BC, a furnace for making bronze was found at Kerma in Sudan, though we don't know where the tin came from.

In the Agadez Region of Niger, signs of copper metallurgy date back to 2000 BC, which is 1,000 years before iron was used there. This seems to have been a local invention, as there is no evidence of influence from Northern Africa. People there first used natural copper and tried different ways to smelt it between 2500 and 1500 BC.

Copper working has also been found at Akjoujt in western Mauritania, dating to around 850 BC. There is evidence of mining there from 850 to 300 BC. In Tropical Africa, finding exact dates has been hard. The earliest known dates south of the equator are from around 345 AD near Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Later mining sites are known in Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.

Ore sources

Copper can be found in only a few places in western, central, and southern Africa, and some of these areas have some of the richest copper deposits in the world. In the west, copper is found in dry areas of the Sahel and southern Sahara. Key sources include:

1. Akjoujt in Mauritania
2. Nioro du Sahel to Sirakoro in Northern Mali
3. The Aïr Massif near Azelik and Agadez in Niger

There are no known mines in tropical West Africa, but copper and lead have been found in the Benue Trough in southeastern Nigeria. Apart from a few spots near Kilembe in Uganda and Rwanda, East Africa has no copper sources. The biggest copper area in Africa is the Lufilian Arc. This is a huge, curved belt that stretches for eight hundred kilometers from the Copperbelt in Zambia to southern Shaba Province in Congo.

Mining and processing

Early African miners used copper oxides and carbonates because these could be turned into copper metal easily. They did not use sulfides because turning these into metal was more difficult and needed many steps.

The mines were often open pits or pits with shafts, but shafts were not common in African copper mining. The ways miners worked depended on the rocks and what they could do. There were many ways to melt the copper, especially in big copper areas. In West Africa, there isn’t much proof of melting copper, but people still made things from it. The most common ore was malachite, and they used hardwood charcoal to help melt it.

Copper throughout Africa

In West Africa, copper came from two main places: Dkra near Nioro in Mali and Takedda in Niger. Another place, Akjoujt, had copper but lost importance because it lacked timber. Copper in West Africa was also brought from Morocco, northwestern Mauritania, the Byzantine Empire, and Central Europe.

People in West Africa used copper for trading, as symbols of importance, and for making jewelry. In Central and Southern Africa, copper was also very important. It was used for decoration and showed status. Even in places where copper wasn’t found, people still used it, showing that they traded it with others. In some areas like Zimbabwe, copper was valued more than gold before the fifteenth century. Later, trade with India and Portugal brought more gold, but copper remained important.

In East Africa, copper was rare except in a few places like Kilwa and some medieval sites. There isn’t enough information yet about copper use along the Swahili Coast.

Symbolism

People valued copper because of its bright red color, shiny look, and pleasant sound. In many African cultures, the red color was linked to life and change, which is why copper was often used in special ceremonies. Copper could also reflect sunlight, showing strength and important borders between places. Because copper was used to make bells and drums, people believed it helped call spirits when the instruments were played.