Wikipedia

Bronze Head from Ife

7°28′20″N4°33′20″E/ 7.4722°N 4.5556°E/7.4722; 4.5556

Bronze Head from Ife
The Ife Head on display at the British Museum
Material"Bronze", actuallybrass
Sizeheight: 35 cm
width: 12.5 cm
depth: 15 cm
Weight5.1 kg
Created14th/early 15th century[1]
Present locationBritish Museum,London
RegistrationAf1939,34.1
CultureMedievalYoruba

TheBronze Head from Ife,orIfe Head,[2]is one of eighteen copper alloy sculptures that were unearthed in 1938 atIfeinNigeria,the religious and royal centre of theYorubapeople. It is believed to represent a king. It was probably made in the 12th-13th century CE.[1]The realism and sophisticated craftsmanship of the objects challenged the dismissive and patronising Western conceptions ofAfrican art.The naturalistic features of the Ife heads are unique[3][1]and the stylistic similarities of these works "suggest that they were made by an individual artist or in a single workshop."[3]

Description

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Like most West African "bronzes"the piece is actually made ofcopperalloyed with other metals, described by the British Museum as "heavily leaded zinc-brass". Modern practice in museums andarchaeologyis increasingly to avoid terms such as bronze or brass for historical objects in favour of the all-embracing "copper alloy".[4]The head is made using thelost wax techniqueand is approximately three-quarters life-size, measuring 35 cm high. The artist designed the head in a very naturalistic style. The face is covered with incised striations, but the lips are unmarked. The headdress suggests acrownof complex construction, composed of different layers of tube shaped beads and tassels. This decoration is typical of the bronze heads from Ife.[5]The crown is topped by a crest, with a rosette and a plume which now is slightly bent to one side. The crown's surface includes the remains of both red and black paint. The lifelike rendering of sculptures from medieval Ife is exceptional in Sub-Saharan African art, and initially was considered the earliest manifestation of a tradition that continued in Yoruba art, in earlyBenin artand other pieces.

Excavation & Removal

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The Ife Head was found by accident in 1938 at the Wunmonije Compound,Ife,during house-building works amongst sixteen otherbrassandcopperheads and the upper half of a brass figure. Most of the objects found in the Wunmonije Compound and neighbouring areas ended up in the National Museum of Ife, but a few pieces were taken from Nigeria and are now in the collections of major museums. This particular Ife Head was taken from Nigeria by the editor of theDaily Times of Nigeria,H. Maclear Bate, who probably sold it to theNational Art Collections Fund,[6][7]which then passed it onto theBritish Museumin 1939.

The discovery of the sculptures was the spur for the government to control the export of antiquities from Nigeria. Before this was achieved, this head made its way to London via Paris and another two were sent to America. Attempts to prevent further exports, prompted byLeo Frobenius,were successfully promulgated in 1938, when legislation was enacted by the colonial authorities.[8]Frobenius was a Germanethnologistandarchaeologistwho was one of the first European scholars to take a serious interest in African art, especially that of the Yoruba.

Ife

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Yorubacopper mask for KingObalufon II;circa 1300 CE; copper; height: 29.2 cm; discovered atIfe;Ife Museum of Antiquities(Ife,Nigeria)
Main article:Ifẹ

The Ife head is thought to be a portrait of a ruler known as anOoni or Oni.It was probably made under the patronage of KingObalufon Alayemorewhose famous naturalistic life-size face mask in copper shares stylistic features with this work. Today among the Yoruba, Obalufon is identified as the patron deity of brass casters. The period in which the work was made was an age of prosperity for the Yoruba civilisation, which was built on trade via theRiver Nigerto the peoples of West Africa. Ife is regarded by the Yoruba people as the place where their deities created humans.[3]

These bronze heads are evidence of additional trade since Ife-made glass beads have been found widely in West Africa. The copper is thought to be from local Nigerian ores, although earlier scholars believed it to have come fromCentral Europe,North WestMauritania,theByzantine Empire,or SouthernMorocco.

The bronze casts could have been modelled on contemporaryterracottasculptures.[9]A long[citation needed]tradition of terracotta sculpture with similar characteristics existed in the culture prior to the date of the creation of these metal sculptures.Ivorywas another material used frequently in African art.

The Ife sculptural tradition is one of several West African artistic traditions, including theBuraof Niger (3rd century CE – 10th century CE), Koma ofGhana(7th century CE – 15th century CE),Igbo-Ukwuof Nigeria (9th century CE – 10th century CE), andJenne-Jenoof Mali (11th century CE – 12th century CE), that may have been shaped by the earlier West Africanclayterracottatradition of theNok cultureof central Nigeria.[10]

Impact on art history

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When Frobenius discovered the first example of a similar head it undermined existing Western understanding of African civilisation. Experts did not want to believe that Africa had ever had a civilisation capable of creating artefacts of this quality. Attempting to explain what was thought an anomaly, Frobenius offered his theory that these had been cast by a colony ofancient Greeksestablished in the thirteenth century BC.[11]He made a claim, widely circulated in the popular press, that his hypothesised ancient Greek colony could be the origin of the ancient legend of the lost civilization ofAtlantis.[12][13][14]

It is now recognised that these statues represent an indigenous African tradition that attained a high level of realism and refinement.[3][failed verification][10]The Ife heads are often considered a great achievement of African culture, and it is believed that they were made by an individual artist in a single workshop.[3]

Influence on contemporary culture

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There is widespread use of the Ife Head in logos and branding of Nigerian corporations and educational institutions such asObafemi Awolowo Universityin Ile-Ife.[15]

The Ife Head was the symbol for the 1973All-Africa Gamesin Lagos.[16]

The Ife Head held by the British Museum was included in the 2010 major exhibitionKingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa,developed in partnership with Nigeria'sNational Commission for Museums and Monuments,theMuseum for African Art,New York and the British Museum. The exhibition was part of a series of events that marked the 50th anniversary of Nigerian independence.[17] In 2011 the Ife Head was included in the British Museum/BBC'sA History of the World in 100 Objects[18]

See also

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References

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Notes

  1. ^abcBritish Museum."Object: The Ife Head".British Museum.Archived fromthe originalon 20 April 2021.Retrieved20 April2021.
  2. ^The name used by the British Museum
  3. ^abcde"BBC - A History of the World - Object: Ife head".BBC.2015-07-31.Archivedfrom the original on 2013-09-30.Retrieved2013-11-30.
  4. ^The British Museum collection database "scope note" on "copper alloy", "brass" and "bronze" reads "The term copper alloy should be searched for full retrievals on objects made or bronze or brass. This is because bronze and brass have at times been used interchangeably in the old documentation, and copper alloy is the Broad Term of both. In addition, the public may refer to certain collections by their popular name, such as 'The Benin Bronzes' most of which are actually made of brass."British Museum, "Scope Note" for "copper alloy".Britishmuseum.org. Retrieved on 2014-05-26.
  5. ^ Bronzes from Ife and Benin,Peter Herrmann, Berlin, 2007, retrieved 30 November 2013
  6. ^National Art Collections Fund."Art we've helped buy".Art Fund.Retrieved21 June2021.
  7. ^Ife head Brass head of a ruler,British Museum highlights, retrieved 30 November 2013
  8. ^Hoffman, Barbara T., ed. (2006).Art and cultural heritage: law, policy, and practice(1. publ. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 138.ISBN0521857643.
  9. ^Smith, Robert (1988).Kingdoms of the Yoruba(3rd ed.). Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 25.ISBN0299116042.
  10. ^abRamsamy, Edward; Elliott, Carolyn M.; Seybolt, Peter J. (January 5, 2012).Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa: An Encyclopedia.SAGE Publications. p. 8.ISBN9781412981767.
  11. ^Frank Willet (1960). "Ife and Its Archaeology".The Journal of African History.1(2): 231–248.doi:10.1017/s002185370000181x.S2CID163123186.
  12. ^On the ruins of Atlantis – Leo Frobenius between research and Vision (in German)Archived2013-12-03 at theWayback Machine,freunde-afrikanischer-kultur.de, retrieved 1 December 2013
  13. ^"German Discovers Atlantis in Africa; Leo Frobenius Says Find of Bronze Poseidon Fixes Lost Continent's Place"(PDF).The New York Times.January 30, 1911.Retrieved18 December2013.
  14. ^C. Hercules Read (March 1911)."Plato's" Atlantis "rediscovered".Burlington Magazine.Vol. 18, no. 96. pp. 330–5.Retrieved18 December2013.
  15. ^Platte, Editha (2010).Bronze Head from Ife.Hambolu, M. O. (Musa O.). London: British Museum Press.ISBN9780714125923.OCLC430498709.
  16. ^"Kingdom of Ife: sculptures from West Africa".British Museum.Retrieved2018-11-09.
  17. ^"Kingdom of Ife".British Museum.Retrieved2018-11-10.
  18. ^"BBC - A History of the World - Object: Ife head".www.bbc.co.uk.Retrieved2018-11-10.

Further reading

  • Suzanne Preston Blier, Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Politics, and Identity c.1300, Cambridge University Press, 2015
  • John Mack (ed), Africa, Arts and Cultures, London 2005
  • Editha Platte, Bronze Head from Ife, British Museum Press, 2010
  • Frank Willett, The Art of Ife (CD Rom), The University of Glasgow, 2004
Preceded by A History of the World in 100 Objects
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