1. Africa Before 1800
Chapter 19

2. Africa Before 1800
Africa is the best continent of 52 nations comprising more than 1/5 of the world’s landmass and many distinct topographical and ecological zones. Parched deserts occupy the northern and southern regions, high mountains rise in the east and three great river-- the Niger the Congo and the Nile --and their lush valleys support agriculture and large settled populations. Given the size of the African continent and the diversity of ethnic groups, it is not surprising that African art varies enormously in subject, materials, and function. This chapter surveys the early, and often difficult to date, art and architecture of sub-Saharan Africa from prehistoric times through the 18th century.

3. African Art - Overview Greater African peoples in general
Decoration of the body to express identity and status
Community participation in rich festivals including masquerades to celebrate the harvest the new year and commemorate the death of leaders
Nomadic and semi nomadic people
Art of personal adornment
Rock engravings
Paintings depicting animals and rituals
Farmers
Figural sculpture in terra-cotta wood and metal
Displayed and shrines to legendary ancestors
Displayed for nature deities held responsible for the health of crops and the well-being of the people
Kings and their courts
Art that celebrates the wealth and power of the ruler
Nearly all African people lavish artistic energy on the decoration of their bodies to express their identity and status. Many communities mount which layered festivals including masquerades to celebrate harvest the new year and to commemorate the death of leaders. Nomadic and semi nomadic peoples use art is personal adornment. They also create rock engravings and paintings depicting animals and rituals. Farmers and agricultural peoples create figural sculpture in terra-cotta, wood, or metal. These are displayed in shrines to legendary ancestors or displayed for nature deities held responsible for the health of crops and the well-being of the people. The regalia art and architecture of Kings and their court,s as elsewhere in the world, celebrate the wealth and power of the rulers themselves.

4. Tassili n’Ajjer (Tass-il-ee Naj-jer) was it one time verdent Savannah and the where a year-old painting was found. It is one of the earliest and finest surviving examples of rock art. The painter depicted a running woman with convincing animation and significant detail. The dotted marks on her shoulders, legs, and torso probably indicate she is wearing body paint applied for a ritual. Her face, however, is featureless, a common trait in the earliest the art of Europe as well as Africa. The white parallel patterns attached to her arms and waist probably represent flowing raffia decorations and a raffia skirt. Horns are also part of her ceremonial attire. The horns are shown in twisted perspective or composite view. The artist painted this detailed image over a field of much smaller painted human beings, an example of why it is often so difficult to date and interpret art on rock surfaces. You can refer to page 523 in your text for more detailed information about why it is difficult to date African art.
Figure Running horned woman, rock painting, from Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria, ca. 6000–4000 BCE.

5. Outside Egypt and neighboring Nubia, the earliest African sculptures in the round have been found at several sites and central Nigeria archaeologist collectively called the Nok culture. Nok culture dates between 500 B.C.E. and 200 CE. Scholars disagree on whether the Nok sites were unified politically or socially. Hundreds of Nok style human and animal heads, body parts, and figures have been found accidentally during tin mining operations. These are not in their original context. A representative Nok terra-cotta head found at Raffin Kura is the fragment of what was originally a full figure. Preserved fragments of other statues indicate the sculptors fashioned a variety of types, including standing, seated, and kneeling figures. The heads are disproportionately large compared with the bodies. The head shown here has an expressive face with a large alert eyes, flaring nostrils, and parted lips. The pierced eyes, mouth, and ear holes are characteristic of Nok sculpture and probably helped to equalize the heating of the hollow Clay head during the firing process. The hair with its incised grooves, the raised eyebrows, the perforated triangular eyes, and the sharp jawline suggest the sculptor carved some details of the head while modeling the rest. The function of Nok sculptures is unclear and the gender of Nok artists is also unknown, but they are assumed to be women since ceramists and Clay sculptors across the continent traditionally have been women.
Figure Nok head, from Rafin Kura, Nigeria, ca. 500 BCE–200 CE. Terracotta, 1’ 2 3/16” high. National Museum, Lagos.

6. Later than the Nok examples are the seven life-size terra-cotta heads discovered carefully buried in the pit outside of the town of Lydenburg in present-day south Africa. Radiocarbon dating indicates the heads date to about 500 CE. The head shown here is reconstructed from fragments. It has a humanlike form, although it’s inverted pot shape differs markedly from the more naturalistic Nok heads. The artist formed the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, as well as the hairline, by applying thin clay fillets onto the head. The same method produced what are probably scarification marks-- scars intentionally created to form patterns on the flesh. These are on the four head, temples, and between the eyes. Incised linear patterns also adorn the back of the head. This head is among the earliest artworks documenting the ancient African practice beautifying the body through the creation of scars. The horizontal neckbands, with their incised surfaces, resemble the ringed or banded necks Africans still consider signs of beauty in many parts of the continent. In Africa it is not uncommon for the human body itself to become a work of art. A small unidentifiable animal sits on top of the head. Animals only appear on those heads large enough to have served as helmet masks. The head therefore probably had a ceremonial function.
Figure Head, from Lydenburg, South Africa, ca. 500 ce. Terracotta, 121 5/16”high. South African Museum, Iziko Museums of Cape Town, Cape Town.

7. By the ninth or 10th century, a west African bronze casting tradition of great sophistication had developed in the lower Niger area. Ceramic copper bronze and iron artifacts found at Igbo Ukwu (IG-bow YOU-kwee-you) include bases, bowls, altar stands, staffs, swords, scabbards, knives, and pendants. One grave yielded numerous prestige objects including copper anklets, armlets, spiral ornaments, a fan handle, and more than 100,000 beads, which may have been used as a form of currency. These items, doubtless the regalia of a leader, are the earliest cast metal objects known from regions south of the Sahara. This equestrian fly whisk was found in the same grave. Made through the lost wax cast bronze process, it depicts an equestrian figure on the fly whisk handle. The sculpture’s upper section comprises of figure seated on a horse, a symbol of power in many parts of west Africa, and the lower part is an elaborately embellished handle with beaded and threadlike patterns. As is common in African Art, the sculptor intentionally represented the rider as much larger than his steed and also exaggerated the size of the man’s head. The prominent facial stripes are another instance of scarification. Here the scars are probably marks of titled status. Similar examples of facial modification can still be found among these people today.
Figure Equestrian figure on fly-whisk hilt, from Igbo-Ukwu, Nigeria, 9th to 10th century. Copper-alloy bronze, figure 6 3/16” high. National Museum, Lagos.

8. Best evidence for Royal arts in Africa from this period
11th to 18th Centuries
Best evidence for Royal arts in Africa from this period
Major houses of worship for the religions of Christianity and Islam constructed
Ile-Ife considered by Africans to be the cradle of Yoruba civilization, where the gods Oduduwa and Obatala created the earth and its peoples.
The best evidence for Royal arts in Africa is found during the period of the 11th to 18th centuries. During this time period, major house of worship for the religions of Christianity and Islam were construct. About 200 miles was of at Igbo Ukwu (IG-bow YOU-kwee-you) in southwester Nigeria, is Ile-Ife (aisle-ee-fah), considered by Africans to be the cradle of the Yoruba civilization, where the gods Oduduwa (oh-DOO-JEW-wah) and Obatala (oh-bah-TALE-ah) created the earth and its peoples.

9. Observe the idealized naturalism
Notice that disproportionately large head – Ife seat of wisdom
Ile-Ife (AISLE EE-fah) are this often pretrade their sacred Kings in sculpture. This impressive example is the statuette of an oni or king. It is cast in a zinc-brass alloy, datable to the 11th or 12th century. These kinds of representations of Ife rulers Are exceptional in Africa because of the artist’s naturalism in recording facial features and fleshy anatomy. The naturalism does not extend to body proportions, however. The heads of the Ife rulers, for example, are disproportionately large compared with their bodies. For modern Yoruba, the head is the locus of wisdom, destiny, and the essence of being, and these ideas probably developed at least 800 years ago, accounting for the emphasis on the head in the Ife statuary. The artist also took great care to indicate the man status as a sacred ruler by precisely reproducing the details of the King’s heavily beaded costume, crown, and jewelry.
Figure King, from Ita Yemoo (Ife), Nigeria, 11th to 12th century. Zinc-brass, 1’61/2”high.Museum of Ife Antiquities, Ife.

10. 19-7 Seated man, from Tada, Nigeria, 13th to 14th century
19-7 Seated man, from Tada, Nigeria, 13th to 14th century. Copper, 1’ 9 1/8” high. National Museum, Lagos.
This statuette is thought to be from Ile-Ife but it’s artist and origin is unknown. It was found on the banks of the Niger River near the village of Tada. Although the naturalistic rendition of the head and body of the figure is typical of sculptures found at or near Ile-Ife, the relaxed seated posture is unique. The Tada figure also only wears a simple cap and a patterned fabric wrapped around the hips, and it is unlikely the sculpture portrays a king. The seated posture, however, suggest the figure, cast in several pieces, may have been placed on the throne. Also distinguishing this sculpture from those at Ile-Ife is the more naturalistic proportional relationship between the head and the body. The material, almost pure copper, also separates the figure from contemporaneous Ile-ife sculptures.

11. The inland floodplain of the Niger river was for the African continent a kind of Fertile Crescent, analogous to ancient Mesopotamia. By about 800, a walled town, Djenne (JEN) in present-day Mali, had been built on high ground left dry during the flooding season. At this site archaeologists have uncovered evidence of many specialist workshops a blacksmith, sculptors, potters, and other artisans.
Hundreds of sensitively modeled terra-cotta sculptures, most dating two between 1100 and 1500, have been found numerous sites in this region. Production tapered off sharply, however, with the arrival of Islam, whose adherents shunned figural art in religious contexts. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the surviving Djenne sculptures came from illegal excavations, and all contextual information about them has been destroyed. These sculptures are depicted in human figures in a variety of postures: seated, reclining, kneeling, standing, and on horseback. Some are warriors. Others where elaborate jewelry. Many are without adornment or attributes. The terra-cotta figure here dates to the 13th to 15th centuries and represents a warrior with a quiver of arrows on his back and knives strapped to his left arm. The proportions of the figure present a striking contrast to those from Ile-Ife and Tada: thin and tall with tubular limbs and then elongated head with a prominent chin, bulging eyes, and large nose, characteristic features of the distinctive Djenne style.
Figure 19-8 Archer, from Djenne, Mali, 13th to 15th century. Terracotta, 2’ 3/8” high. National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.

12. One of the most ambitious examples of Adobe architecture in the world is Djenne’s great Mosque, first built in the 13th century and reconstructed in after a fire destroyed the earlier building in The mosque has a large courtyard in front of a roofed prayer hall, emulating the plan of many of the oldest mosques known. The qibla wall faces Mecca, as in all mosques. The façade however is unlike any in the Middle East and features soaring Adobe towers and vertical buttresses resembling engaged columns that produce a majestic rhythm. The many rows of protruding wooden beams further enliven the walls but also serve a practical function as perches for workers undertaking the essential recoating of sacred Clay on the exterior that occurs during an annual festival.
Figure 19-9 Aerial view of the Great Mosque, Djenne, Mali, Begun 13th century, rebuilt

13. Many early African cultures maintained trade networks that sometimes extended well beyond the continent. The exchange of goods also brought an exchange of artistic ideas and forms. One example is Lalibela (lol-lah-BIL-ah) in the rugged Highlands of present-day Ethiopia, where land travel is difficult. Christianity arrived in Ethiopia in the early fourth century, when the region was part of the indigenous Aksum empire. In the early 13th century King Lalibela commissioned 11 churches to be cut from the bedrock at his capital of Roha ,renamed Lalibela in his honor after his death. The king wished to transform his city into a “new Jerusalem,” a pilgrimage site for Ethiopian Christians, which it still is today. Pilgrims can visit all 11 churches because they are linked by tunnels and walkways below ground level. Not the largest but probably the latest and in many ways the most interesting of these Rockcut churches is Beta Giorghis (BAY-tah JOR-geese), the church of St. George. It is cut out of the red tufa in the form of a Greek cross, revealing a familiarity with contemporaneous Byzantine architecture. About 43 feet tall, the roof of the structure has a 40’ x 40’ Greek cross sculpted in relief, underscoring the sacred shape of the church. Inside is a hollowed out dumb beneath the cruciform roof. Rough cut buildings are rare but well documented in Egypt, Jordan, and India, but some of the most complex designs are here at Beta Giorghis (BAY-tah JOR-geese). Carving from the bedrock is a complex building Accomplishment, requiring careful planning and highly skilled labor. The volcanic bedrock is soft and easily worked, but the designer had to visualize all aspects of the complete structure before the work again because there was no possibility of revision or correction.
Figure Beta Giorghis (Church of Saint George), Lalibela, Ethiopia, 13th century.

14. Many of the earliest artworks found in Africa come from the southern part of the continent. The most famous southern African site is a complex of Stone ruins at a large Southeastern Political Center, called great Zimbabwe. First occupied in the 11th century, the site features walled enclosures and Towers dating from about the late 13th to the middle of the 15th centuries. At that time, the empire had a wide trade network. Finds of beads and pottery from the near East and China, along with copper and gold objects, underscore that great Zimbabwe was a prosperous trade center long before Europeans began their coastal voyaging in the late 15th century.
Most scholars agree that great Zimbabwe was a royal residence with special areas for the ruler, his wives, and Nobles, including an open court for ceremonial gatherings called the Royal hill complex. At the zenith of the empire’s power, as many as 18,000 people may have lived in the surrounding area, with most of the commoners residing outside the enclosed complex reserved for royalty. Although the habitations themselves have not survived, the enclosures remain. They are unusual for their size and the excellence of their stonework. Some perimeter walls are 30 feet tall. One of these known as the Great Enclosure, houses one large and several small, conical, tower-like stone structures, which archaeologists have interpreted symbolically as masculine (the large one) and feminine (the small forms), but their precise significance is unknown. The form of the large tower suggests a granary. Grain bins were symbols of royal power and generosity, as the ruler received tributes in grain and dispensed it to the people in times of need.
Figure Walls and tower, Great Enclosure, Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, 14th century.

15. Explorations a great Zimbabwe have yielded eight soapstone monoliths, sculptures carved from a single block of stone. Seven came from the Royal hill complex and probably stood in shrines to ancestors. The eighth monolith, found in an area now considered the ancestral shrine of the ruler’s first wife, stands several feet tall. Some have interpreted the bird at the top as symbolizing the king or his ancestors. The crocodile on the front of the monolith may represent the wife’s elder male ancestors. The circles beneath the bird are called “the eyes of the crocodile” and may symbolically represent elder female ancestors. The double and single Chevron motives may stand for young male and female ancestors respectively. The bird seems to be a bird of prey, such as an eagle, but this and other birds sculptures from the site have feet with five human-like toes, rather than the Eagle’s three-toes talons. Some scholars have speculated the five toed bird and the crocodile symbolize previous rulers who would have acted as messengers between the living and the dead, as well as between the sky and the earth.
Figure Monolith with bird and crocodile, from Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, 15th century. Soapstone, bird image 1’21/2”high. Great Zimbabwe Site Museum, Great Zimbabwe.

16. Benin (beh-NEEN) reached its greatest power and geographical extant in the 16th century. The kingdom’s vicissitudes and slow decline there after culminated in 1897, when the British burned and sacked the Benin palace and city. Today Benin city thrives and the palace, where the Benin King continues to live, has been partially rebuilt. Among the masterworks of Benin art is the extraordinary Ivory head of a woman, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which a Benin king almost certainly wore at his waist. The ivory pendant illustrated here most likely represents Idia (ID-ee-ah), mother of the Benin King, Oba Esigie (OH-bah EE-sah-jee), under whom the Benin kingdom flourished and expanded with Portuguese aide. Idia helped him in warfare and in return he created for her the title of queen mother and build her a separate palace and court. The pendant is remarkable for its sensitive naturalism. On its crown are alternating bearded Portuguese heads and Mudfish, symbolic references respectively to be needs trade and diplomatic relationships with the Portuguese and to the Olokun (Oh-loh-kin) God of the sea, wealth and creativity. The mud fish, equally at home on land and in the sea, also symbolized the dual human/divine aspect of the ruler. Another series of Portuguese heads adorns the lower part of the carving. In the late 15th and early 16th century, the Benin people probably associated the Portuguese, with their large ships from across the sea, their powerful weapons, and their wealth in metals, cloth, and other goods, with the deity they deemed responsible for abundance and prosperity.
Figure Waist pendant of a Queen Mother, from Benin, Nigeria, ca Ivory and iron, 9 3/8”high. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1972).

17. Benin kingship was hereditary and considered sacred, and the purpose of the finest preserved Benin artworks was to honor the ruling oba, his family, and his ancestors. The 18th-century cast brass Royal shrine illustrated here underscores the centrality of the sacred King and Benin culture. It is called an ikegobo (IKE-go-bo), it is a portable alter to the hand, which symbolizes personal achievement in Benin society, both on the battlefield and in peace time. The altar features symmetrical hierarchical compositions centered on the dominant King and who appears on the altar wearing the multi strand coral necklace emblematic of his high office. He is the central figure on the top of the altar, flanked by smaller and therefore Lesser members of his court, usually identified as priests. In front of the king and his attendant priests is a pair of leopards, animals the sacred King sacrificed and symbolic of his power over all creatures. On the ikegobo (IKE-go-bo), the artist distorted the Kings proportions to emphasize his head, the seat of his will and power. Benin men’s celebrate the festival of the head called Igue (ICK), and one of the King’s praise names is “great head.” The king appears again as the largest figure on the cylindrical body of the altar. As in the freestanding group at the top, the size of the figures in relieve varies with their importance at the Benin court. The sculptor drew attention to the sacred oba by placing him at the center, where two attendent figures raise their arms to point to his head. Around the base are more leopards, ram, elephant heads And crocodiles, not all visible here, and the all important hands symbolizing royal power and accomplishment. The oba and other high-ranking officials offered sacrificed at the ikegobo to ensure the king’s contined strength and achievement.
Figure Altar to the Hand and Arm (ikegobo), from Benin, Nigeria, 17th to 18th century. Bronze, 1’ 512”high. British Museum, London.

18. Between 1490 and 1540, some peoples on the Atlantic coast of Africa in present-day Sierra Leone, whom the Portuguese collectively called the Sapi (SAPPY), created are not only for themselves, but also for Portuguese explorers and traders, who brought the objects back to Europe. The Portuguese commissions included delicate spoons, forks, and elaborate containers usually referred to as saltcellars, as well as boxes, Hunting horns, and knife handles. Salt was a valuable commodity used as a flavoring and a food preservative. Salt cellars were prestige items that Grace the tables of the European elite. Sapi sculptors meticulously carved the salt cellars from elephant tusk Ivory, which was plentiful in those early days and was one of the coveted exports in early West and Central African trade with Europe. These ivories are a fascinating hybrid artform, characterized by refined detail and careful finish, and they are the earliest examples of African tourist art.
Art historians have attributed the saltcellar shown here, almost 17 inches high, to the Master of the Symbolic execution, one of the three major Sapi Ivory carvers during the period. This saltcellar, which the pics and execution seen, is one of the artist”s best pieces and the source of his assigned name. A kneeling figure with a shield in one hand holds an ax in the other hand over another seated figure about to lose his head. The ax has been restored. On the ground before the executioner, six severed heads grimly testify to the executioners power. A double zigzag line separates the lid of the globular container from the rest of the vessel. This vessel rests in tern on the circular platform held up by slender rods adorned with crocodile images. Two male and two female figures sit between these rods, grasping them. The men wear European-style pants and have long, straight hair. The Women wear skirts, and the elaborate raised patterns on their upper chests surely represent decorative scars. The European components of the saltcellar are the overall design of a spherical container on a pedestal and some of the geometric patterning on the base and sphere, as well as certain elements of dress such as the shirts and hats. Distinctly African are the style of the human heads and figures and their proportion, the latter skewed here to emphasize the head, as so often seen in African art. Identical large noses with flaring nostrils, as well as the conventions for rendering eyes and lips, characterized Sapi stone figures from the same region and period. The word testifies to a fruitful artistic interaction between Africans and Europeans during the early 16th century. The impact of European art became much more pronounced in the late 19th and especially the 20th centuries and these developments will be discussed in a later chapter.
Figure MASTER OF THE SYMBOLIC EXECUTION, saltcellar, Sapi-Portuguese, from Sierra Leone, 15th to 16th century. Ivory, 1’ 4 7/8” high. Museo Nazionale Preistorico e Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Rome.