Mine of Ophir

Mount Meru Holistic, Ltd. works with the Tamashek or Tuareg and their Inaden or Imraden artisan classes. They are an ancient people widely spread from the countries of the Sudan and Maghreb to east Africa and Arabia a thousand years ago and largely responsible
for the Almoravid Islamic dynasty of Iberia and Africa. Early Arabic, Berber and Hebraic sources of the period also say these people whose men are veiled were descendants of the peoples once known as Canaanites, Amalekites, Israelites and Phoenicians.
Josephus and the Targums of the first century includes them among the people of “Hevila” and “Dedan”.

Many of their jewelry designs reflect their connection to ancient Carthage, a settlement of ancient Canaanite peoples, and to the writing in the rock art of the Libyan Sahara and Canary Islands in the Mediterranean. This script, known as the TiFinagh,
is considered a remnant of the Punic one and in fact is said to mean “belonging to the Phoenicians”. Although Niger is presently a poor country, Agadez, like a hundred other towns across the Sahel and Sudan, has a rich history of metal working and
trade in silver and gold. The true TaMashek still work with the purest silver as their ancestors have for thousands of years.

I met a Tuarek young man of Niger on-line after asking about the jewelry and swords appearing on his page. He happened to be the son of the King of the smith clans of Agadez. This is how our Etsy shop started. Hopefully we can help stimulate the artisan
production and trade in the region that once flourished in this area of the Sahel or Niger as part of the Songhai and Ghana empires, the most affluent of their time. Our production group sells and works only with pure silver (not sterling or solid)
and high quality stones. Our prices reflect this quality. The items you will find in our shop, however, are in actuality priceless collectibles, stemming from people who have been using the same unique designs and symbols that have been documented
in artifacts and sources for thousands of years. Please enjoy and cherish the work of these artisans!