African Art

living who claim to have received them from their most distant

ancestors, beads to which the Negroes attribute a very great

value which strangely resemble in form, colouration and

material, analogous beads worn by the Egyptians and with

which they often decorated their mummies. In the 16thand 17th

centuries, this sort of bead, generally cylindrical, was the

object of an active commerce on the part of English and espe-

cially Dutch navigators, who bought them from the natives of

the countries where they were relatively abundant and sold

them at a profit in the countries where they were rarer. These

navigators gave them the name of “pierres d‘aigris” or “aggry

beads”, the exact origin of which is not known. At various

times the glass-workers of Venice and of Bohemia have

manufactured counterfeits by which the Negroes did not allow

themselves to be deceived.

However it be, the presence among the African Negroes of these

certainly very ancient beads, the value which they represent in

their eyes and the mystery which surrounds their original prove-

nance are not sufficient for forming a conclusion as to the existence

of commercial relations between the Egypt of the Pharaohs and

western and central Africa. On the one hand, in fact, Assyrian and

Phoenician tombs contain identical beads, so that we are left

perplexed as to the place of their manufacture and, in conse-

quence, as to the point of departure which might be sought at

Nineveh or Tyre as well as at Memphis. On the other hand, they

have been found in northern Europe and eastern Asia, which

indicates a considerable area of dispersion, certainly out of

proportion to the limits which might be reasonably assigned to the

influence of Egyptian civilisation.

In most of the countries where, even today, the Negroes find

“aggry beads” by ransacking ancient burial places, there is a

tradition that these beads have been imported by long-haired

men of light colour who, according to legend, came from the sky

and whom their congeners interred after decorating their corpses

with the beads in question. At first this tradition suggested to me

the possibility of caravan relations between the ancient

Egyptians and populations as far removed from the Nile as

those, for example, of the Gold Coast and the Ivory Coast. I

have reflected since, that, if it be admitted that men of the white

race, carriers of “aggry beads”, advanced at one time as far as

those distant regions, it would be much more probable that they

came from Berbery – in the geographical sense today given to

the word – than from Egypt. It has not come to our knowledge

that the Egyptians had a great amount of commerce with the

Negroes, except those of the Nile valley from among whom they

procured slaves for themselves, while at all times, as at the

present, the inhabitants of what Herodotus called Libya and

what we denominate as Berbery or the Barbary Coast (Tripoly,

Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) have not hesitated to cross the

Head (Sokoto), c. 200 BCE-200 CE.
Nigeria.
Terracotta.
Private collection.

Sokoto sculptures are sometimes limited in ornament. The delicate features and
heavy brow combined with a fine beard offer a severe aspect. The thin pottery
walls of this head bear witness to a highly developed technique.