Human world
Hunting horn
Sapi-Portuguese, Sierra Leone, 16th century
Accession Number M13014
For centuries West Africa traded with the Arab world and Europe along land-routes. Europe’s maritime trade along the Atlantic coast of Africa began in the 15th century and dealt mainly with coastal middlemen. The slave trade of the 17th-19th centuries between Europe, West Africa and the Americas strengthened some African societies but helped weaken and destroy others. (You can find out more about the Slave Trade at the International Slavery Museum).
Detail on the Hunting Horn
Accession Number M13014
After the slave trade Europeans switched to trade in agricultural produce and began to bypass coastal middlemen to deal directly with people inland. This reduced the importance of African trade routes, changed political relations between groups and made European conquest easier. Most of the African artefacts in the gallery date from after the slave trade.
Portuguese merchants commissioned beautifully carved ivory hunting horns like this one from African craftsmen in the 15th and 16th centuries. European aristocrats bought them and gave some of them as gifts to kings and popes.