Demands in the Nile Valley for tin (for bronze alloying) and for silver, both of which occur in the ores exploited, deserve consideration. The bronzes stored and buried at Igbo-Ukwu might be regarded as by-products of this export activity. The essential items of merchandise deriving from Igbo-Ukwu are unlikely to be those commonly assumed for sub-Saharan Africa, notably ivory and slaves, but would have been more local and precious, presumably metals. African Archaeological Review, 14:9–23), through Gao on the Niger bend and across the west-central Sahara, seems less likely on grounds of geography and chronology. (1997) Gao and Igbo-Ukwu: Beads, interregional trade and beyond.
The alternative direction suggested recently (Insoll, T., and Shaw, T. Igbo Ukwu and Nok, the Benin bronze and ivory workers are still active today. A preference is repeated here for an eastern Sahelian routing from Lake Chad to the Middle Nile kingdoms (Alwa and Makuria/Dongola), then at their height, thus avoiding the Sahara. The companion piece of the British Museum ivory pendant mask is now at the.
The identification of these commodities, however, and the routes by which they-and in the reverse direction the beads-would have traveled, remain unsatisfactorily resolved. Although the metals were mined locally, the labor and the expert alloying and casting of numerous ritual or ornamental objects indicate an accumulation of wealth derived from distant trade of special commodities. The external connections of Igbo-Ukwu, in the forest belt of south-eastern Nigeria, around the ninth century AD, are demonstrated by the large numbers of glass beads, apparently of Egyptian manufacture, and are implicit in the rich collection of bronze artwork that lacks known prototypes. Igbo-Ukwu and the Nile Igbo-Ukwu and the Nile