Resumo
Handoga is the only known medieval site in Djibouti and one of the most important medieval cities in the Horn of Africa. The site was briefly investigated by French teams in the 1970s and 2007, but no major excavations had taken place. Between 2021-2023 a team of archaeologists from INCIPIT-CSIC led by Jorge de Torres completed a series of systematic surveys and three excavation campaigns in a large area of Handoga. The findings shed light on the urbanism, material culture and way of life of its inhabitants, suggesting that Handoga was an important urban centre on the medieval routes linking the Gulf of Tadjoura with the interior of Africa, of which very little is known. The archaeological materials found in Handoga (ceramic, metal, glass...) are temporarily available at INCIPIT-CSIC for analysis, with the aim of determining their composition and manufacturing techniques, and therefore inform geographical origin. This research will generate new and relevant knowledge about the medieval trade routes in the region and, more broadly, about the role played by Handoga within the sultanates of the Horn of Africa and their similarities or differences with other sites from the same period in other regions.While ceramic and metal samples are being studied at INCIPIT with in-house analytical instruments (microscopes and pXRF), the characterisation of the glass samples requires instrumentation that is sensitive to very light elements, as well as specific expertise about medieval Islamic glass. Therefore, access to the Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) techniques at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradoras (CNA) through the Spanish node of E-RIHS will allow us to characterise in detail over twenty glass samples from Handoga, strategically selected by typology (beads, bracelets and slag), colour, suspected origin (Egypt, Indo-Pacific...), location within the city and chronology. The CNA team´s experience studying medieval Islamic glass will support interpretation of the results and contextualisation of the materials.
Palabras chave
Glass. Ion Beam Analysis. PIXE-PIGE. MA-XRF. Handoga. Medieval trade routes.
Colabora
Centro Nacional de Aceleradores