Hello,
I was wondering at what point in history did glass windows start to become a thing, at all really, in African history? To focus the question, North and West Africa would be my priority. I imagine some Romans in the area might have them in a limited degree, and later Muslim states might have also? But what about among the native peoples, as a local thing? And how common would things like curtains be? Thanks for any answer. I am very curious about this topic because I don't think native African history and culture is well covered in the West. I feel like somewhat in the dark about where to start on finding answers.
I've noticed African history questions frequently go unanswered here - as many of us don't know the answer, which is of course a by-product of African history not being well covered in the West as you said. To quote from the Cambridge University Press (2015) "urban archaeological survey in Africa is rarely undertaken and relatively little is known about early sites and their development." This article is behind a paywall - which is another issue.
As for finding answers, research papers are often available for free on sites such as Researchgate, Semantic Scholar and OpenEdition. Other research sites require you to sign up despite offering free papers such as JSTOR and Academia.edu. Using Google, try adding the term 'pdf' to your search - it increases your chances of getting well researched sources.
The 12th Century geographer Al-Idrisi described the King of Ghana (Wagadu) as having glass windows in his palace - this palace has never been found however.
As for archaeology, the remains of window glass have been found at the Songhai city of Gao-Saney. One fragment of glass was dated from the 9th to 11th centuries which is the earliest find for glass windows in West Africa. Another undated fragment 'may have come from a round window'. There was also fragments of alabaster which may have been a window frame for coloured glass panels (alternatively it may have simply been a window screen). Source - The Archaeology of Islamisation in Sub-Saharan Africa [Insoll 2015 - linked above]
While it's normally against the rules to rely on sources older than 20 years - given the lack of sources I hope I'll be forgiven for linking these older papers for Further Reading :