KONGOKING : Workshops

26 February 2015: Mbanza Kongo excavations

The aim of this workshop was to exchange scientific information between the two teams working on the Kongo kingdom ancient history using archaeology as their main approach.

Prof. Maria Conceiçao Lopes from Coimbra University (Portugal) is a member of the team excavating in Angola Mbanza Kongo the capital of the old Kongo kingdom. She came to Ghent University to explain the main results obtained since December 2011. The excavations stopped in 2014. She gave several presentations on various aspects of the archaeological research.

Members of the KongoKing research project presented their results regarding historical linguistics (Gilles-Maurice de Schryver), history (Inge Brinkman), and archaeology (Bernard Clist). The project has been working since 2012 in the Kongo Central province of the Democratic Republic of Congo excavating major sites like Kindoki/Mbanza Nsundi and Ngongo Mbata, and surveying large tracts of the countryside.

This first connection should hopefully bring more interaction between the two teams and lead to several common publications.