Matonda Igor sakala

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Kinshasa

This article IS a report of an archaeological mission carried out along the Kasaï River, a tributary of the Congo River (DRC).

This article seeks to challenge the identity of the Pamzelunguos community. Bontinck (1980) proposed that it was the same rebel group of 1491 and also between 1506-1526 who attacked the Kongo kingdom. Our view is that the two rebellions would not have the same perpetrators. This term rather refers to a group of dissidents from the Kongo kingdom dur...

History, archaeology and memory of the Swahili-Arab in the Maniema, Democratic Republic of Congo - Volume 94 Issue 375 - Noemie Arazi, Suzanne Bigohe, Olivier Mulumbwa Luna, Clément Mambu, Igor Matonda, Georges Senga, Alexandre Livingstone Smith

This article presents the first detailed account of a previously unknown Early Iron Age pottery group from the Kongo Central Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ceramic group is named Kitala ware, after the site where it was first discovered, and excavated in 2014 and 2015. Dated between cal AD 230 and 524 at Kitala, the ware is also...

En ayant recours aux registres baptismaux des capucins pour reconstruire la population totale du royaume Kongo, J. K. Thornton (1977) rejetait la thèse jusqu’alors retenue par, entre autres, William G. L. Randles (1968) que la population totale du royaume avait subi un déclin extraordinaire suite à la traite négrière, aux guerres civiles et aux épi...

The increasing number of expeditions in Africa from the fifteenth century and the desire to represent the new space led to the productions of a series of maps of Africa. In this endeavor, the Kongo kingdom, which was one of the important states of Central Africa, was not forgotten by mapmakers and engravers. In this context, the old maps are among...

In an article published in 1977, John K. Thornton examined the baptismal records of the Capuchins to reconstruct the total population of the Kingdom of Kongo and rejected the thesis previously defended, among others, by William G. L. Randles (1968) regarding the extraordinary decline of this population due to the slave trade, civil wars and epidemi...

Bien que le royaume Kongo figure parmi les plus importants royaumes précoloniaux d’Afrique Centrale, le mieux documenté, le processus menant à sa création est méconnue. Certains chercheurs, s’appuyant sur les sources historiques, ont essayé de déterminer la région d’origine de son fondateur mythique. Deux thèses en sont issues: l’une, la plus génér...

We present results, analyses, and an in-depth historical contextualization of the fieldwork undertaken in 2012 and 2013 at the Kindoki site in the Lower Congo (DRC). This site is linked to Mbanza Nsundi, one of the Kongo Kingdom’s provincial capitals, which turns out to be archaeologically ‘elusive’. Pinpointing its location proved to be particular...

Une équipe interdisciplinaire et interuniversitaire des chercheurs belges et congolais a entrepris des fouilles archéologiques en 2012 et 2013 sur le site de Kindoki dans la province du Bas-Congo en RDC. Cet article fait état des résultats obtenus sur ce site qui est associé à Mbanza Nsundi, l'une des capitales provinciales de l'ancien royaume Kong...

Nous présentons ici les résultats des fouilles archéologiques entreprises à Kindoki (Bas-Congo/RDC) en 2012-2013. Ce site est associé à Mbanza Nsundi, l’une des capitales provinciales du royaume Kongo. Localiser ses vestiges archéologiques s’est avéré être un vrai défi. Pour ce faire, nous avons développé une méthodologie de fouilles qui s’inspire...

Ngongo Mbata, the main and most affluent center of the Kongo kingdom’s Mbata province in the seventeenth century, is well known from the historical sources, but virtually unexplored in archaeological publications. Ngongo Mbata is unique in that it hosted a monumental stone building about which the historical record remains silent. This makes it par...

In order to understand the origins of the Kongo kingdom, the KongoKing research group conducted a first survey in the area usually regarded as the former kingdom’s provincial capital sites of Mbanza Nsundi and Mbanza Mbata in the Lower Congo Province of the DRC during the summer of 2012. Several test excavations and radiocarbon dates are starting t...