Sam Nixon
Biographic Data
| ID | 3643041 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sam Nixon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sam |
| FAMILY NAME | Nixon |
| SIGNATURE | NIXON S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of East Anglia |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Multiple metallurgies in Medieval Tamdult, a mining, smelting and caravan town in southern Morocco
The early Islamic settlement of Tamdult in southern Morocco is at the centre of an archaeological mining-metallurgical landscape with strong evidence for the production and working of lead, silver, copper and brass. Here, we provide an overview of the various metallurgies identified, and discuss their likely common origin from a sulfidic complex lead-zinc-copper ore mineralisation, leading to two distinct primary products: silver pellets and bras…
Mowaa Archaeology Project
Pre-construction archaeology in West Africa presents new avenues for understanding historic urban development. Excavation of two building plots for the Museum of West African Art, Benin City, Nigeria, provides new perspectives on the Kingdom of Benin, a significant polity in the West African forest zone during the second millennium AD
West Africa
The Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Market Towns of West Africa
In the early Islamic period, trade across the Sahara escalated to new levels as the rich resources of West African gold, slaves and ivory were imported on camel caravans to the markets of North Africa and the wider Islamic world trade system, these goods being exchanged for products from North Africa such as copper, textiles and glasswares. The immediate destinations for Trans-Saharan camel caravans coming from North Africa were the market towns …
The Sahara
This chapter introduces the neglected Islamic archaeology of the Sahara. First, it draws together for the first time some of the important but little-known archaeological sites of the early Islamic Sahara. This is then followed by an exploration of key research themes: trade; urban planning and architecture; technology; religion and the early Islamization of the Sahara. The chapter is framed in reference to the particular conditions of Islam in t…
The Essouk-Tadmekka Locality
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
Excavation Programme and Methods
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
Plant Remains
The Essouk-Tadmekka Ruins and Their Prospection
Debating Trans-Saharan Commerce and Culture
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
H Vessel and Bead Glass Chemical Compositional Analysis
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
Pottery
Excavated Sequence
N Species Counts of Plant Remains
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
A New Cultural History of Essouk-Tadmekka
Chronology
Preliminary Material
Glass Vessels
E Pottery Analysis Tables and Additional Illustrative Materials
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
Index
Excavations in the Mosque Quarter (Unit Ek-A)
Crucible-steel Making and Other Metalworking Remains
An Unexplored Market Town of the Early Trans-Saharan Trade
Overview
Architecture
Excavating Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali)
This paper reports the first systematic excavations at Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali), one of the major West African trading towns that enabled the unprecedented flourishing of trans-Saharan trade during the early Islamic era (c. AD 650–1500). The 6.5 m excavated sequence (dating from the mid-first millennium AD to c. 1400) significantly improves understanding of Essouk-Tadmakka's ‘prehistoric’ and historic periods and, in doing so, provides a wealth of …
New light on the early Islamic West African gold trade
Tadmekka, a town at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, has produced good evidence for making gold coins in the ninth-tenth century AD, the first concrete proof of coinage in pre-colonial West Africa. These were produced by melting gold dust or nuggets in ceramic moulds, similar to those used for the first pellet-like coinage of the European Iron Age. The authors suggest these coins were not political statements, but were probably blank and i…
Essouk - Tadmekka
Essouk-Tadmekka presents the first archaeological exploration of one of the most important market towns on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes in the early Islamic period, supplying West African gold, slaves, and ivory to the Mediterranean world. Excavation of Essouk-Tadmekka’s ruins – in Saharan West Africa – has enabled Sam Nixon and a team of scholars to better understand this town described by early Arabic geographers, therein providing in…
Plant use at an early Islamic merchant town in the West African Sahel
Refining gold with glass – an early Islamic technology at Tadmekka, Mali
We describe two crucible fragments from an early Islamic context at the West African site of Tadmekka, in the Republic of Mali. They are made from a very sandy fabric and contain numerous gold particles and mineral grains in a matrix of lightly-coloured glass-based crucible slag. We interpret these as remains of a process separating freshly-panned gold concentrate from residual mineral inclusions, by melting the concentrate together with crushed …
The settlement mound of Birnin Lafiya
Tadmekka. Archéologie d’une ville caravanière des premiers temps du commerce transsaharien
Cet article présente les premières fouilles systématiques de Tadmekka, une des villes commerçantes majeures d’Afrique de l’Ouest, qui a participé à la croissance du commerce transsaharien durant les premières années de l’ère islamique (vers 650-1500). En 2005, des fouilles sur les ruines de Tadmekka (Essouk), dans le Nord du Mali, ont fourni une stratigraphie de 6,5 m, depuis le milieu du premier millénaire jusque vers 1400. Les analyses effectué…
Excavating Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali)
This paper reports the first systematic excavations at Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali), one of the major West African trading towns that enabled the unprecedented flourishing of trans-Saharan trade during the early Islamic era (c. AD 650–1500). The 6.5 m excavated sequence (dating from the mid-first millennium AD to c. 1400) significantly improves understanding of Essouk-Tadmakka's ‘prehistoric’ and historic periods and, in doing so, provides a wealth of …
Plant use at an early Islamic merchant town in the West African Sahel
New light on the early Islamic West African gold trade
Tadmekka, a town at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, has produced good evidence for making gold coins in the ninth-tenth century AD, the first concrete proof of coinage in pre-colonial West Africa. These were produced by melting gold dust or nuggets in ceramic moulds, similar to those used for the first pellet-like coinage of the European Iron Age. The authors suggest these coins were not political statements, but were probably blank and i…
Tadmekka. Archéologie d’une ville caravanière des premiers temps du commerce transsaharien
Cet article présente les premières fouilles systématiques de Tadmekka, une des villes commerçantes majeures d’Afrique de l’Ouest, qui a participé à la croissance du commerce transsaharien durant les premières années de l’ère islamique (vers 650-1500). En 2005, des fouilles sur les ruines de Tadmekka (Essouk), dans le Nord du Mali, ont fourni une stratigraphie de 6,5 m, depuis le milieu du premier millénaire jusque vers 1400. Les analyses effectué…
Oursi hu-beero. A medieval house complex in Burkina Faso, West Africa
Oursi hu-beero is part of a settlement mound complex in the north of the West African nation of Burkina Faso (Oudalan province) where excavations commencing in 2000 revealed a spectacularly preserv
Refining gold with glass – an early Islamic technology at Tadmekka, Mali
We describe two crucible fragments from an early Islamic context at the West African site of Tadmekka, in the Republic of Mali. They are made from a very sandy fabric and contain numerous gold particles and mineral grains in a matrix of lightly-coloured glass-based crucible slag. We interpret these as remains of a process separating freshly-panned gold concentrate from residual mineral inclusions, by melting the concentrate together with crushed …
The settlement mound of Birnin Lafiya
The Essouk-Tadmekka Locality
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
Excavation Programme and Methods
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
Plant Remains
The Essouk-Tadmekka Ruins and Their Prospection
Debating Trans-Saharan Commerce and Culture
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
H Vessel and Bead Glass Chemical Compositional Analysis
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
Pottery
Excavated Sequence
N Species Counts of Plant Remains
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
A New Cultural History of Essouk-Tadmekka
Chronology
Preliminary Material
Glass Vessels
E Pottery Analysis Tables and Additional Illustrative Materials
In Essouk-Tadmekka Sam Nixon and a team of scholars present the first archaeological exploration of the southern Saharan town of Essouk-Tadmekka, in early Islamic times an important market centre on the trans-Saharan camel-caravan routes linking the Mediterranean and West Africa.
Index
Excavations in the Mosque Quarter (Unit Ek-A)
Crucible-steel Making and Other Metalworking Remains
An Unexplored Market Town of the Early Trans-Saharan Trade
African Studies and Geopolitics (23 works) · Archaeology (22 works) · Geography (20 works) · History (18 works) · Ancient history (11 works) · African Studies and Ethnography (10 works) · Islam (10 works) · Animal Diversity and Health Studies (9 works) · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis (9 works) · Art (8 works)