Date:
Location:
Thursday, February 25, 2021, 12:00pm to 1:00pm EST
Harvard Archeology Seminar Series
Anne Haour (University of East Anglia), "Global Networks and the Trade in Cowries, 800-1400."
To register for the Zoom link: https://lnkd.in/eRxBU8x
Between the 1500s and the 19th century, cowrie shells were among the items used as money by Europeans in their trade with West African coastal groups. The most sinister aspect of those relations was the Atlantic slave trade. But what was the use of cowries before the 1500s?
In her forthcoming lecture, Professor Haour will discuss the monetary and symbolic value of cowries (Cypraea moneta) before the advent of the slave trade. Cowries have been prized for their shiny shells for millennia. They have been used in rituals and incorporated into clothing and jewellery in African and South Asian cultures because of their associations with notions of womanhood, fertility, birth, and wealth.
