Bronze Head from Ife
The Bronze Head from Ife, or Ife Head, is one of eighteen copper alloy sculptures that were unearthed in 1938 at Ife in Nigeria, the religious and former royal centre of the Yoruba people. It is believed to represent a king. It was probably made in the fourteenth-fifteenth century C.E. The realism and sophisticated craftsmanship of the objects challenged the offensive and patronising Western conceptions of African art. The naturalistic features of the Ife heads are unique and the stylistic similarities of these works "suggest that they were made by an individual artist or in a single workshop." Description Like most West African "bronzes" the piece is actually made of copper alloyed with other metals, described by the British Museum as "heavily leaded zinc-brass". Modern practice in museums and archaeology is increasingly to avoid terms such as bronze or brass for historical objects in favour of the all-embracing "copper alloy". The head is made using the lost wax technique and 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 a crown of complex construction, composed of different layers of tube shaped beads and tassels. This decoration is typical of the bronze heads from Ife. 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 early Benin art and other pieces. An excavation in Igbo-Ukwu in 1959 provided scientific evidence of an established metal working culture and bronze artefacts that may be dated to the ninth or tenth centuries. Excavation & Removal The Ife Head was found by accident in 1938 at the Wunmonije Compound, Ife, during house-building works amongst sixteen other brass and copper heads 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 the Daily Times of Nigeria, H. Maclear Bate, who probably sold it to the National Art Collections Fund, which then passed it onto the British Museum in 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 by Leo Frobenius, were successfully promulgated in 1938, when legislation was enacted by the colonial authorities. Frobenius was a German ethnologist and archaeologist who was one of the