The Cowrie Shells

Home , Cowrie, Monetaria annulus, Monetaria moneta

Chapter 21 The Cowrie Shells

Annalisa Christie and Anne Haour

1 Introduction Table 21.1 Sites from which cowries were evaluated

Cowrie shells Monetaria moneta (Linnaeus, 1758) and # Site code No. of specimens Monetaria annulus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Figure 21.1; formerly known in the literature as Cypraea moneta and Cypraea 1 KOZ-14-SI 1 annulus), as well as unidentified Cypraea Sp. shells were 2 TOU-14-SI 4 recovered from 11 archaeological sites excavated during 3 TOW-14-SI 3 the Crossroads of Empires project:1 Kozungu, Tomboutou, 4 GOB-14-SI 3 Tondo windi (Birni Lafia), Gorouberi-14, Bogo Bogo, 5 GOG-14-SI 1 Kargui, Molla, Toutokayeri, Boyeri, Kompanti and Tin 6 KGI-14-SI 3 Tin Kanza2 (Table 21.1). These sites cover a range of dates 7 MOL-14-SI 2 from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries AD. This 8 TTO-14-SI 2 chapter summarises the preliminary outcomes of the 9 BOY-14-SI 2 assessment and highlights areas for further work and 10 PTI-14-SI 1 investigation. 11 TTK-13-SII 1 Cowries’ importance to the West African past is undeni- able: they are inevitably mentioned as markers of Africa’s global connections (e.g. Mitchell 2005), and their role that cowries are among the most sought-after commodi- within the West African social fabric suggests a deep his- ties in Kugha, which is seemingly an early capital of the tory. Cowries in West Africa are first mentioned in the mid- Songhai empire, in present-day Mali or Niger (in Levtzion tenth century, as ornaments in women’s hair (Levtzion & & Hopkins 2000: 83). By the fourteenth century, cowries Hopkins 2000: 35). In the eleventh century, al-Bakri states are described as currency, and an import on which vast profits were made (al Umari, in Levtzion & Hopkins 2000: 260, 269). In the same century, ibn Battuta saw 1150 cowries sold for one gold dinar in Mali. Simon Lucas, in the late eighteenth century, explicitly writes that sub-Saharan consumers valued cowries for both ritual and currency usage (Le Coeur 1985: 44). Oral traditions today evidence the centrality of cowries to West African thought (see es- pecially Iroko 1987), while archeology confirms the antiq- uity of cowrie usage. They are routinely recovered, some well-known instances being the first-millennium necrop- Figure 21.1 Differences in teeth morphology and shape on olis of Kissi, Burkina Faso (Magnavita 2009), the eleventh M. annulus (left) and M. moneta (right). Note the to fourteenth century ‘lost caravan’ from the Mauritanian more pronounced teeth and wider aperture of Sahara (Monod 1969), the mound of Yohongou in Atakora M. annulus, and the rhomboidal shape of M. moneta (Petit 2005), and the fifteenth/sixteenth century site of Durbi Takusheyi, Nigeria (Gronenborn 2011). 1 This analysis of the cowrie shells from Benin was undertaken as part of the Cowrie Shells: An Early Global Commodity project (award from the Leverhulme Trust RPG-2014-359 to Anne Haour as PI with 2 Methodology Alastair Grant, University of East Anglia, as Co-I). 2 We might also note, anecdotally, the recovery of a cowrie pen- dant made of blue plastic from the upper levels (0–20cm) at Molla The shells were assessed to determine their species, size (SF 2014-12) as well as one occurring as a surface find within the and condition, and to identify any evidence for anthropo- modern village of Birni Lafia. genic modification.

Table 21.2 Summary of visual factors used to determine species

Feature Description

Teeth/aperture The length and protrusion of the collumellar and labial teeth differ between the two species. In M. annulus, the teeth are generally longer and the grooves between them more defined. In M. moneta the teeth are generally shorter and finer. This is clearly demonstrated in Figure 21.1. Figure 21.1 also highlights the differences in the size of the aperture with the aperture of M. annulus being generally wider than that of M. moneta. Shape In general (but not exclusively) M. annulus tends to be more ovular whereas M. moneta tends to be more rhomboidal. While M. moneta often has two tubercles on either side of the posterior of the dorsum, this feature is not always present or visible in archaeological assemblages. Colouration/shell On intact specimens it was often possible to identify the distinctive gold ring of M. annulus, even when the pattern shells are bleached and the ring is no longer coloured.

2.1 Species 2.3 Condition Shell species was determined by visual assessment using The condition of the remains was a factor both of process- a combination of features summarised in Table 21.2. Due es likely the result of natural taphonomy and of those con- to the preservation of the shells, the teeth were often sidered the result of anthropogenic modifications. These the most important factor for differentiating between the were classified and a coding system devised to speed the two species. recording process. Classifications of shell condition influenced by natural 2.2 Size factors included: natural wear/bleaching (W), friability The length, width and height of each intact specimen (F), cracked lustre (CL) or natural dorsum perforation (Figure 21.2) was measured using Vernier callipers. In in- (DP). These are likely a result of preservation conditions stances where the dorsum had been removed as a result on sites. of either natural or cultural modifications, it was not pos- As many of the shells were fragmentary (Fr), this clas- sible to record shell height. sification was further divided to clarify the portion of the shell that remained (Table 21.3, Figure 21.3).

Table 21.3 Cowrie fragment classification coding

Region of shell surviving Code

Base Labial (Intact) 1a Base Labial (Anterior) 1b Base Labial (Posterior) 1c Base Labial (Unknown) 1d Base Columellar (Intact) 2a Base Columellar (Anterior) 2b Base Columellar (Posterior) 2c Base Columellar (Unknown) 2d Base Unknown 3a Figure 21.2 Base Intact 3b Shell measurements taken Base (Anterior) 3c on intact specimens Base (Posterior) 3d Dorsum 4