Description:
The knowledge and use of metals has played an important role in the evolution of many African cultures. This bibliography brings together, in one volume, publications on the origins, spread, mining, smelting, smithing, use, functions, aesthetics, significance, and impact of various metals and their alloys on African cultures. Covering African metallurgy from the African Iron Age to the present, this guide is a useful reference tool for archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, history, art, and religion.
Arranged geographically by country, the volume is fully annotated and includes both printed and electronic sources.
Review Quotes: "Lawal's welcome and important reference work contributes to a rapidly growing research field in Afircan studies. Focusing on metalworking, the compiler casts her net widely, treating technical and social aspects of metals and metal objects and citing sources both primarily and peripherally concerned with aspects of the subject. Understanding the complex of metallurgy, trade, and the ideology of power has been essential to recent historical reinterpretations of complex societies in Africa... Highly recommended for research libraries."-Choice