Preliminary report on locally manufactured pottery at Christiansborg Castle in Osu, Accra, Ghana

Abstract

Since 2014, my research has focused on Christiansborg Castle, a 17th-century former trading post, Danish and British colonial seat of government and Office of the President of the Republic of Ghana. Christiansborg Castle is a United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. Today, it is locally known as simply ‘The Castle’. This is the first archaeological excavation at Christiansborg Castle. Work was conducted under the guise of the Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project (CAHP) (www.christiansborgarchaeologicalheritageproject.org) (Fig. 1). This brief preliminary report directs close attention to locally manufactured pottery. Certainly, European colonial written accounts document local manufacture and trade, but they rarely provide detailed descriptions and illustrations of locally manufactured pottery. This note examines the criteria necessary for developing a locally manufactured pottery typology classification for the Christiansborg Castle site. As materially distinct deposits, locally manufactured pottery is the most abundant dataset found at the site. In the past, pottery was commonly employed for a number of purposes and within reach of most households economically. Pottery is a durable material and, though it fractures and breaks into sherds, it does not disintegrate. Since pottery fragments retain their material form, they can be studied. Archaeological analysis is still ongoing, yet some preliminary observations can still be made. BredwaMensah has proposed a typological sequence for local pottery ceramics from Frederiksgave, a Danish plantation site nearby in the Akwapim Hills. Once a detailed study is complete, it will be possible to ascertain whether Bredwah-Mensah’s typology is appropriate for this study. Clearly, this topic finds resonance with existing archaeological scholarship in the region.