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 MALDIVES

The importance of cowries in the West African
past is well known. They are inevitably mentioned as
markers of Africa’s global connections (e.g., Johnson 1970; Mitchell 2005; York 1972), and their role
within the West African social fabric suggests a deep
history. Cowries in West Africa are first mentioned in
the mid-10th century, as ornaments in women’s hair
(Hopkins and Levtzion 2000: 35). In the 11th century
al-Bakri states (in Hopkins and Levtzion 2000: 83)
that cowries are among the most sought-after commodities in Kugha (seemingly an early capital of theSonghai Empire, in present-day Mali or Niger); by
the 14th century, cowries are described as currency,
and an import on which vast profits were made (alUmari, in Hopkins and Levtzion 2000: 260, 269). In
the 14th century, ibn Battuta saw 1150 cowries soldfor one gold dinar in Mali. Simon Lucas, in the late
18th century, explicitly writes that sub-Saharan consumers valued cowries for both ritual and currency
usage. Oral traditions today evidence the centralityof cowries to West African thought (see especiallyIroko 1987), while archaeology confirms the antiquity of cowrie usage. They are routinely recovered,some well-known instances being the first-millennium necropolis of Kissi, Burkina Faso (Magnavita2009), a 10th century burial at Akumbu, Mali (Togola 2008), the 11th century ‘lost caravan’ from theMauritanian Sahara (Monod 1969), the mound of
Yohongou in the Atakora mountains of Benin (Petit
2005, 9th/10th century), and the 15th/16th century siteof Durbi Takusheyi, Nigeria (Gronenborn 2011).

Tracking the Cowrie Shell:
Excavations in the Maldives,
2016
Anne Haour*, Annalisa Christie,
Shiura Jaufar
Sainsbury Research Unit for theArts of Africa, Oceania and theAmericas
University of East Anglia, Norwich
NR47TJ, United Kingdom.
*corresponding author:
a.haour@uea.ac.uk
Introduction
This note reports on archaeological fieldwork
undertaken in early 2016 in the Maldives archipelago, involving excavation at three sites and wider
surveys. The aim was to identify sites likely to dateto the medieval Islamic period, as part of a research
project investigating the timescale and nature of theimportation of cowrie shells (Cypraea) into West Africa, 1150 to 1900 AD. The Maldives are often assumed to have been a main source of these shells;
this has never been archaeologically tested. From the
9th century onwards, sporadic mentions were made ofthese islands, their trade links, and the importance of
cowries. Such allusions were made by Arab authors
such as al-Bakri and ibn Battuta (Carswell 197577; Hiskett 1966a,1966b; Hogendorn and Johnson
1986), many, incidentally, also describing West Africa. But apart from a survey of pottery unearthedin the Maldivian capital Malé (Carswell 1975-77),
no archaeological work had ever investigated the Islamic period.

Although cowries occur throughout the IndoPacific, it is the Maldives specifically which havebeen described as main exporters of these shells,
and we wanted to discover whether this was likely
to be accurate. This presumed long-distance connection needed to be adequately tested. The key studyof the cowrie trade remains the book by Hogendorn
and Johnson (1986), who combined fieldwork in theMaldives with first-hand knowledge of West African
economic history to offer detailed data on cowrie
flows for the 16th to 19th centuries. Through the cowrie, they sketch a compelling picture of daily life in
Asia, Europe, and Africa, and of the succession ofmerchant groups who brought the shells to West Af69

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rica. This is the only detailed synthesis of the topic
but, useful as it is, it remains concerned with fluctuations in currency rates following global markets, andgives little in-depth information on local constructions of value. But because in preindustrial societies
the value of a medium of exchange may be inextricably linked to social, political or spiritual significance,
this economic approach to cowries can only give avery partial story (for this, see especially Ogundiran2002). Finally, most problematically, beyond the oftcited medieval sources Hogendorn and Johnson’sbook gives little insight into the longer time-scale forcowrie usage in West Africa.

tigation for two principal reasons: the island’s documented importance in the history of the Maldives,
and reports that a cowrie hoard, and various artefacts
apparently indicative of medieval trade, had been recovered, both in the palace area and during the development of a field nearby. Our work involved the
excavation of five test pits, of which Units 3, 4 and 5
were the most productive and will be discussed here.
Unit 3 was placed in a currently uninhibitedzone of the island, slated for development as a tourist
zone while Units 4 and 5 were placed within the palace. This palace is a historically significant structure,home of the mid-16th century leader Mohammed
Thakurufaanu, who resisted Portuguese occupationof the Maldives.

Survey and Excavations
As mentioned above, very little archaeology
has taken place in the Maldives, and it has mainly
focused on Buddhist times (see e.g., Bell 1940; Mikkelsen 2000; Skjølsvold 1991). Apart from examinations of (largely surface) potsherds recovered in the
1970s during public works in Malé (Carswell 197577), none at all had concerned the medieval period,
so we must use other clues to identify locales for excavation. Guidance came from an unpublished reporton Maldives cultural heritage (RCRM 2011), historical sources, etymology (Ragupathy and Mohammed
2008), and to some degree from the location andnature of islands and currents (Forbes 1981). The
traditionally accepted date for the conversion of theMaldives to Islam is the mid-12th century.

At Unit 3, excavation strategy was first guided by the execution of 12 shovel test pits. This excavation revealed the presence of two layers: Context
1, grey-brown sand with plentiful rootlets, and below
it (at 20-30cm below the surface in most of the pits)
Context 2, grey-brown soil with many coral nodules.
We placed a 1.5x2m unit near the centre of the area,
which allowed us to expose two large coral stone
blocks, bearing traces of possible limestone plaster. The slabs are in good condition, and show someevidence of the use of tongue and groove technique.
Both lie on a slight incline, and thus seem to havebeen disturbed from their original position, either
due to a collapse of the structure or post-depositional
subsidence (Figure 2). The pottery is largely coarse
orange-brown low-fired ware, primarily incised andquite thin; and the very occasional potsherd of seeming Chinese origin. The work was left incompletedue to lack of time and we plan to return to this location in 2017.

Fieldwork in the Maldives took place January to March 2016. In association with the Maldives
Department of Heritage, we conducted excavations
on three islands – Utheemu in the far north, Malé thecapital, and Veyvah in the centre-south (Figure 1).
We also conducted survey on several other islands
and were able to locate a number of promising sites
for enquiry in the second field season next year. Excavation was by context and all material was sieved.

A 0.75mx3m trench, subsequently extended
to 1mx3m, (Unit 4) was laid out inside the palacenext to the north entrance (Figure 3). Large quantities of cowries had been uncovered in similar locations adjacent to the northeast and south gates when
an electricity cable was laid. It was hoped that a similar cache would be found in Unit 4 enabling us tosystematically evaluate the burial conditions of suchhoards.

Excavations at Utheemu
The island of Utheemu had been selected for inves70

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Figure 1: Location map.

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Figure 2: Coralstone slabs in Utheemu 3 Unit.

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Figure 3: Utheemu palace – location of excavation units.

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Excavations at MaléSix features were uncovered: a linear cut,initially thought to have been intended for a modern cable which bisected the unit from east to west;
a second linear cut in which the modern cable wasactually located, was subsequently identified. Threepits of varying depth, filled with sterile white sand,were noted; ethnographic data from the islands suggest these might represent putrefaction pits for cowrie shells. A final pit cut the sterile layer. It was notpossible to fully excavate the fill of this feature within the time constraints of the excavation, but it is unlikely that it extended much deeper. Archaeologicalremains including earthenware and ceramic pottery,shell, bone and metal were recovered in most contexts, with a high number of Cypraea moneta foundin deeper contexts in the centre of the trench. Despite
the numbers of cowries recovered, they remain too
few and too disparately distributed to be considereda hoard.

Malé is, historically and today, the capital island of the Maldives; it is one of the world’s mostdensely populated islands, and thus offered few prospects for a study of undisturbed remains. Accordingly
we focused our attention on one of the only remaining open spaces, Sultans’ Park, on which once stoodthe sultan’s palace. In the summer of 1974 Carswell
excavated two test pits inside and outside the line ofthe palace walls (inferred by reference to a 1921 map
by HCP Bell), which produced some “limited stratigraphic evidence, and a few sherds” (Carswell 19751977: 144).
We set out two perpendicular lines on an areaadjacent to the only remaining standing palace building and excavated seven 0.5x0.5m units along them
(Figure 6). With the exception perhaps of the final
unit, closest to the extant palace, all uncovered what
seem to be rubble and destruction layers, with little
stratigraphic integrity but plentiful structural remains(bricks, stones, plaster fragments) and small finds(metal objects, glass, and many cowrie shells, especially in one unit, N12, which we extended in sizein order to determine whether we were faced with ahoard).

Unit 5 was a 1mx2m unit excavated within
the alleged kitchen within the women’s quarter inside the palace (Figure 4). The trench was placed
bisecting the southern side of a wall that according
to local informants was constructed about a century
ago as a later addition to mark the kitchen area. At alittle depth below this wall, a second sandstone wallrunning parallel was recovered, possibly the original
foundation of the kitchen. At the northern side of theunit two burnt floors and a possible hearth were identified. A burial was encountered at ca. 1m depth, its
position consistent with an Islamic burial (Figure 5).
It was highly unexpected to find a grave within thepalace complex and according to local informants,
human burials had been encountered during construction of a mosque on an adjacent plot – it therefore seems likely that the cemetery once extended
towards the palace. Therefore, it is believed that thiscemetery could have extended towards the palace
complex. Finds from Unit 5 include lots of metal
pieces from the first few contexts and abundant charcoal throughout the unit. Several potsherds were also
recovered from this unit, most of them being earthenware (including some large rim sherds) and only a
few Chinese ceramics.

Excavations at Veyvah
The island of Veyvah had been selected forinvestigation for two principal reasons: the presence on the island of an old (400 years?) coral stone
mosque described as being in a remote part of the island and thus offering good prospects of undisturbed
levels, and the geographical location of the island,
south of Malé, giving us a good spread of locations
tested. The island lies within the atoll of Mulaku(Meemu), which is mentioned by both ibn Majid andibn Battuta, according to Tibbetts (2002). Our work
involved the excavation of five test pits (Figure 7),of which Unit 5 was the most productive and will be
discussed here.
This 1x1m test pit (Figure 8) was excavatedon the side of the ‘old road’ which runs approximate74

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Figure 4: Utheemu 5 unit at set-up, cutting across kitchen wall.

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Figure 5: Utheemu 5 unit burial.

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Figure 6: Malé Sultan Park – excavation of units underway.
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Figure 7: Plan showing units investigated on Veyvah island.
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Figure 8: Veyvah 5 unit – general situation on the so-called ‘old road’.
ly east-west across the island to the south of the coralstone mosque. The trench was in proximity to theremains of another, potentially older, mosque now
extensively covered by vegetation. A large scatter ofpottery was also identified in the area.

ently glass, were recovered from the upper most fillof this pit in the southwest corner (Context 4). These
are the only beads recovered from any of the excavations conducted in the Maldives this season.
The shell and bone assemblages from Veyvah
5 appear to be very different to those excavated in
Utheemu and Malé, with details of the remains forthcoming. On initial observation, the bone assemblage
appears to have a much higher proportion of complete fish bones (including large vertebra and cranial elements) many of which on first glance appear
to have been from reef fish; this contrasts with thelower proportions of fish cranial elements from othersites. The shell assemblage also appears to have been
more diverse – with Eurosaria erosa and Palmadusta asselus appearing in greater abundance than do
Cypraea moneta, and much more frequently thanthey did in the other test pits. This is particularly in-

Earthenware pottery, shells and bone wererecovered throughout the trench with increasing density from Context 3. Shells and bone were particularly prevalent in the northeast and southwest corners- with pits identified in both areas. The southwest pit
cut the natural soil and contained a strongly cemented
feature. This overlaid a coarse-grey deposit that had
a lot of large diagnostic earthenware sherds, manyshells and numerous large fish bones. The lowermost
layers within the pit were very compacted and difficult to excavate. A wet brown organic deposit was
only part excavated due to time constraints, and was
sampled for further assessment. Two beads, appar79

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No. 85 JUNE 2016teresting in light of the etymological association withcowries of neighbouring (Boli) Mulah island, whichis renowned for being associated with cowrie collection – generally assumed to have been Cypraea moneta (Ragupathy and Mohammed 2008)of West African archaeological cowries, developinga chrono-typology for the ceramics excavated in theMaldives, and exploring the relationship between
gender and various cowrie species in their usage inWest African ethnographic contexts.

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Excavation at three islands of the Maldivesenabled us to recover a good suite of materials. These
include an assemblage of just under 5000 sherds,
both coarse wares and diagnostic imported pottery(Chinese ceramics), which will form the cornerstoneof Jaufar’s thesis, shells (including cowries), metal
objects (ferrous and cuprous), faunal remains (including a range of fish species), and charcoal (eightsamples have been sent for dating). We have several
questions relating to the cowrie assemblages themselves: at Utheemu palace for example, why were
hoards only recovered in front of the northeast andsoutheast gates and not the north gate; was there a socio-symbolic significance to their position? To date,
the front of the southeast gate has yet to be excavated– it is possible that another hoard might be locatedhere that could help address some of these questions.
Generally speaking, can archaeological excavation
detect whether the shells were wrapped or placed inanything before burial, and is there evidence to suggest that hoards might have been added to or emptied
at different periods?

This work was possible thanks to a research
grant, Cowrie Shells: An Early Global Commodity(RPG-2014-359) awarded by the Leverhulme Trust
to Anne Haour with Professor Alastair Grant, University of East Anglia, as co-investigator. Our thanks
go to the Department of Heritage in Malé, the Academy of Dhivehi Language, and to the Councils andinhabitants of the islands we visited.
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