VIIIᵉ siècle av. J.-C. – IIᵉ siècle av. J.-C.
Western Mauritania
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Akjoujt was a major copper-mining and smelting centre in western Mauritania. Archaeological discoveries included a mining gallery, radiocarbon-dated activity, copper tools and weapons, furnaces with tuyeres, and copper slag. The extract associates the site with first-millennium BC metallurgy and wider Saharan contact networks.
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Akjoujt occupies a central place in the extract's account of early copper metallurgy in western Mauritania. Archaeological discoveries there transformed a scattered record of copper objects into evidence for organised extraction and processing. The region contained rich copper ore, and mining activity was pursued through galleries cut into the ground.
At the Cave of the Bats, near Guelb-Moghrein, excavations revealed a gallery dug by miners following a particularly rich vein of copper ore. Radiocarbon samples produced dates including the fifth century BC, alongside other results from the sixth and ninth centuries. The chronology is not entirely secure, since the earliest of the reported dates was considered too early.
A second site at Lemdena supplied evidence for both mining and smelting. Excavators found fragments of a furnace equipped with tuyeres, nearby copper slag, and forty-two copper arrowheads from the first millennium. Together with the concentration of artefacts around Medinet Sbat, these finds indicate that the Akjoujt area was an important metallurgical landscape, although the external origins of its technology remain a hypothesis.
VIIIᵉ siècle av. J.-C. – IIᵉ siècle av. J.-C.
Western Mauritania
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
Akjoujt was a major copper-mining and smelting centre in western Mauritania. Archaeological discoveries included a mining gallery, radiocarbon-dated activity, copper tools and weapons, furnaces with tuyeres, and copper slag. The extract associates the site with first-millennium BC metallurgy and wider Saharan contact networks.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
Akjoujt occupies a central place in the extract's account of early copper metallurgy in western Mauritania. Archaeological discoveries there transformed a scattered record of copper objects into evidence for organised extraction and processing. The region contained rich copper ore, and mining activity was pursued through galleries cut into the ground.
At the Cave of the Bats, near Guelb-Moghrein, excavations revealed a gallery dug by miners following a particularly rich vein of copper ore. Radiocarbon samples produced dates including the fifth century BC, alongside other results from the sixth and ninth centuries. The chronology is not entirely secure, since the earliest of the reported dates was considered too early.
A second site at Lemdena supplied evidence for both mining and smelting. Excavators found fragments of a furnace equipped with tuyeres, nearby copper slag, and forty-two copper arrowheads from the first millennium. Together with the concentration of artefacts around Medinet Sbat, these finds indicate that the Akjoujt area was an important metallurgical landscape, although the external origins of its technology remain a hypothesis.