Ancient African Art

By: Karen Flores

Background Info• The city of Ife in Southwestern Nigeria is known as the “navel of

the world”, in other words the site of creation• the people of Ife believed that their first ruler, oni Oduduwa, came

down from heaven to create and populate the earth• In the 11th century, Ife became a lively metropolis and cultural

center• Ancient Ife was circular with the “oni” palace at the center, and

ringed by protective stone walls and moats • Ife was connected to other Yoruba cities by roads that radiated

from the center and pierced the city walls at elaborate fortified gateways partially decorated with pavement mosaics created from stones and pottery shards

• from these elaborately patterned pavement mosaics, came the name for Ife’s most artistically cohesive centuries (C. 1000-1400 CE), the Pavement period

13-1. Ritual Vessel

1. Artist:2. Name: Ritual vessel3. Date: 13-14th century4. Medium: terra-cotta5. What culture: Yoruba, Nigeria6. Why was it made: religious purposes7. Subject: religion8. Style: Yoruba, Nigeria9. Historical/cultural context: this vessel was broken on purpose, before burial, so that earths liquids could flow through it; found in Ife in a semi- circular courtyard; height of 24.9 cm

The Lure of Ancient Africa• African riches attracted merchants and envoys in ancient

times, and trade brought the continent in contact with the rest of the world

• Between 1000 and 3000 BCE, Phoenicians and Greeks founded dozens of settlements along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa in order to extend trade routes across the Sahara to Lake Chad and then the Niger River

• In the 7th and 8th centuries CE, Islam swept across North Africa, and therefore Islamic merchants were regular visitors to Bilad al-Sudan, the Land of the Blacks

• West African gold financed the flowering of Islamic culture• A new language, Swahii, evolved from centuries of contact

between Arabic-speaking merchants and Bantu-speaking Africans

Saharan Rock Art

• Early Africans painted and inscribed an abundance of images on the walls of the caves and rock shelters in which they sought refuge.

• Rock Art has been found all over Africa .• The earliest images of Saharan rock art are

thought to date from the least 8000BCE• Vivid images of hippos, elephant, giraffe,

antelopes, and other animals incised into rock surface that there was a lot of wildlife that roamed around.

13-2 Cattle being tendedsection of rock-wall painting, Tassili-n-Ajjer, algria. C. 2500-

1500BCE

*Men and women are gather in front of their round, thatched houses and the

men tending cattle.• The cattle shown are quite varied.• Overlapping forms and the confident

placement o near figures low and distant figures high in the picture creating a sense of depth and distant

• Egyptian influence on the less deveolped region of the Sahara

Sub-Saharan Civilizations

• Saharan peoples presumably migrated southward

• They brought there agriculture and animal husbandry

• Created more efficient weapons and farming tools

13-3 Head Nok, c. 500BCE-200BCE

terra-cotta height 14 3/13 National Museum, Lagos, Nigeria

NOK

• Some of the earliest evidence of iron technology in sub-Saharan Africa comes from the so-called Nok culter.

• Nok people were farmers who grew grain and oil-bearing seeds

• They were also smelter with the technology for refining ore

• The triangular or D shape are the characteristics of nok style and appear on scalpers of animas

• The holes on the face allowed the air to pass freely as the figure was fired

IFE

• A tradition of naturalistic sculpture began in 1050CE

• Symbols of kingship that had been worn within living memory, indicating that the figures represent rulers

13-4 Head of a kingfrom Ife. Yoruba, c. 13 century ce. Zinc

brass.

13-5 head said to represent the Usureper Lajuwa. From lfe.

Yoruba, c. 1200-1300CE. Terra-cotta

• The head could also have been used to display a crown during annual purification and renewal rites.

• Terra-cotta are bit fitted for attachments.

• There are debates whether or not the Ife heads are true portraits.

• Africans did not produce natural portraits

BENIN

• Ife was probably was probably the artistic parent of the great city-state of Benin

• The tradition of casting memorial heads for the shrines of royal ancestors endures among the successors f the oranmiyan to this day

13-6. Memorial headbenin early period. C.1400-1500CE. Brass, height 9 3/8

• The British invaders discovered shrines to deceased obas filled with brass heads, bells, and figures.

• Benin brass heads ranged from small, thinly cast, and naturalistic to large, thickly cast, and highly stylized

• Benin heads must be visualized on a symmetrical circle

• Necklaces form a tall, cylindrical mass that greatly increases the weight of the sculpture

13-7 Head of an oba(king) Benin late period, c. 1700-

1897CE, brass

13-8 General and officersBenin Middle Period c.1550-

1650CE Brass

• Shows elaborate military dress holing a spear in one hand and a ceremonial sword in another hand

• Obas also commissioned important works in ivory

13-9 Mask representing an iyoba(queen mother)

Beinin middle period, c.1550CE, ivory, iron, and copper

Other urban centers

• Important centers also arose in the interior.

• West Africa to the Mediterranean from at least the first millennium BCE

• West Africa met caravans arriving from the Mediterranean

• Eventually the trading networks extended across Africa from the sedan in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west

13-10 Horseman from old Djenne

Mail. 13-15thcentury, terra-cotta height 27 34

13-11 Great Friday Mosque, DjenneMali, showing the eastern and northern

facades. Rebuilding of 1907, in the style of 13th century

13-12 conical tower, great Zimbabwe. C. 1200-1400CE

high of tower 30’

13-13 bird, top part of a monolith

from great Zimbabwe. c. 1200-1400CE

Soapstone, height of bird 14 ½’’