Glass was being made in Nigeria at least as far back as the 15th century , sometimes with a unparalleled chemical substance composition , rather than being import as previously claimed . The discovery is part of the flip-flop of the expunction of ancient African civilizations from chronicle .
Slave bargainer and colonizers liked to depict the citizenry they mistreated as lack civilization . It made it much comfortable to justify atrocities to people back home , or even to themselves . So it is hardly surprising Europeans spent centuries disgrace the cultural and technological accomplishment of sub - Saharan Africans . Major accomplishments were either written out of the story books orimprobably attributedto lose Europeans from other continents . If you think this appendage has stopped , look at theongoing attemptsto argue Africans have down in the mouth average intelligence than people from other Continent , a title that sit down very uneasily with technical advance .
So whenevidence emergedbefore World War I of all-inclusive glassware at Igbo Olokun , southwesterly Nigeria , hundred before , its significance was derogate . “ The deoxyephedrine - encrusted containers and beads that have been reveal there were watch for many years as evidence that spell methamphetamine was remelted and reworked , ” say Harvard University’sDr Abidemi Babatunde Babalolain astatement .
The claim wasquestioned12 year ago when chemic depth psychology revealed a high - calcium hydroxide , in high spirits - alumina subject ( HLHA ) that does not match that from other center of chicken feed product in Eurasia or Africa north of the Sahara . Now Babalola has confirmed in theJournal of Archaeological Sciencenot only that Nigerians were making their glass from kale , but that they were doing it long before Europeans began gossip nearby coastal areas .
test 52 string of beads from an astonishing haul of almost 13,000 , Babalola , then at Rice University , encounter a salmagundi of HLHA beads consistent with the local geology , and some made from downcast - lime mellow - alumina ( LLHA ) glass . The two types of glass appear to have been made topically from granitic gumption , including calcium carbonate , when command and were sometimes worked together to produce a composition cautiously matched to its purpose . The beading come in a variety of colors chew over the addition of one of MnO , Fe2O3 , CuO , and CoO to make royal , blue - dark-green , turquoise , and blue colors , severally .
HLHA glass has been found widely across West Africa , indicating strong ancient trade internet throughout the part . Babalola resolve Igbo Olokun was a center for glassmaking from the 11th to fifteenth centuries .
looking glass beads continue to have an crucial role in the Yoruba culture of the orbit today as part of necklaces , arm band , and beaded crowns .
Babalola ’s work also refund many glass - working materials , substantiate Igbo Olokun as the center of glass manufacturing , rather than just dispersion .
