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‘Indian’ metalwork in East Africa: the bronze lion statuette from Shanga

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

M.C. Horton  and
T.R. Blurton
M.C. Horton
Affiliation:
St Hugh's College, Oxford OX2 6LE
T.R. Blurton
Affiliation:
Department of Oriental Antiquities, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG.
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Abstract

There are few frontiers from later periods whose archaeology is more beguiling than the east African coast. To the east are the sea-routes of the Indian Ocean, to the Islamic world, to India, to Indonesia, to China. To the west are the distinctive cultures of medieval Africa. And on the coast are the settlements where the east and the west touch. This paper works towards the wider issue of circum-maritime cultures from a single find from the new excavations at Shanga which have revealed mosques of a remarkably early date.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 62 , Issue 234 , March 1988 , pp. 11 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1988

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