Sao culture

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Terracotta figure
Terracotta figure

Sao was a pre-Islamic, Iron Age culture in Africa , which can be traced in northeast Nigeria , in the north of Cameroon and in western Chad .

history

The name "Sao" refers to a city-state culture south and west of Lake Chad , the origin of which is related to the emergence and expansion of the Kanem-Bornu Empire . In both cases, the bearers of the state and city culture seem to have been immigrants from Syria - Palestine , who died when the Assyrian empire fell at the end of the seventh century BC. Immigrated to sub-Saharan Africa . From the beginning, the immigrants created independent city-states, whose different traditions of origin point to origins from the ancient Near East . In the early modern period, the city-states of Sao-Kotoko , which still exist today, were threatened by Baguirmi and conquered by Kanem-Bornu .

archeology

The Sao culture south of Lake Chad has been extensively researched archaeologically. According to the results available so far, it began around 500 BC. And reached its peak between the 10th and 16th centuries. The production of large urns and small terracotta figures is typical of the culture . The urns , known as Sao pots, some more than one meter high , were used for burial, beer production and storage. Bronze jewelry and ceramic vessels are found as additions to the funeral burials. The mostly strongly stylized figures represent people and animals. The descendants of the Sao south of Lake Chad are called Kotoko by the Kanuri Makari and by the Shoah Arabs .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lange, "Immigration of the Chadic-speaking Sao", (PDF; 7.3 MB) 101-4.
  2. ↑ Lebeuf, Principautés , 53-102; Lange, "Immigration of the Chadic-speaking Sao", (PDF; 7.3 MB) 87-104.
  3. ↑ Lebeuf, Archeology , 39-40; 121-2; Connah, Three Thousand Years , 55-57, 179, 239.

literature

  • Connah, Graham: Three Thousand Years in Africa: Man and his Environment in the Chad Region of Nigeria , London 1981.
  • Forkl, Hermann: The relations of the central Sudanese empires to their neighbors with special consideration of the Sao problem , Munich 1983.
  • Holl, Augustin: The Land of Houlouf: Genesis of a Chadic Polity (1900 BC - AD 1800) , Ann Arbor 2002.
  • Lange, Dierk: "Préliminaires à une histoire des Sao", in: Journal of African History , 30 (1989), 189-210.
  • - "The Emergence of social complexity in the southern Chad Basin towards 500 BC: Archaeological and other evidence," (PDF; 660 kB) Borno Museum Society Newsletter , 68-71 (2007), 49-68.
  • - "Immigration of the Chadic-speaking Sao towards 600 BCE", (PDF; 7.3 MB) Borno Museum Society Newsletter , 72–75 (2008), 84–106.
  • Lebeuf, Annie: Les principautés kotoko , Paris 1969.
  • Lebeuf, Jean-Paul: Archéologie tchadienne: Les Sao du Cameroun et du Tchad , Paris 1962.
  • Lebeuf, Annie and Jean Paul: Les arts des Sao. Cameroun, Tchad, Nigeria , Paris 1977.

Web links