| In
1911 a German ethnographer, Leo Frobenius visited Ile-Ife
and discovered some sculptures that the local people dug
up to use in religious rituals and then returned to the
earth. The statues in bronze and terra cotta were so naturalistic
that he did not believe that they were made by Africans.
He insisted that he had discovered the remains of the lost
Greek city of Atlantis. Study by other archeologists revealed
that this art was the work of the Yoruba of Ile-Ife between 1000 to 1399. Since then, the Art of the Yoruba people of Ile Ife and Benin continues to attract art lovers all over the world.
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Benin Head
of an Oba, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Ile Ife Brass Head 12th - 15th century
31 x 19 x 25 cm (12 3/16 x 7 1/2 x 9 7/8 in.)
The National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria
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Ile-Ife
Shrine
Head, Minneapolis Institute of Arts |
leopard head hip pendant worn by important military officers in Benin - the leopard was the symbol of the oba (ruler) and if given to an officer was a symbol that he could take human life, a right reserved to the oba. Bronze pendants, worn at the hip, took the form of human, ram, crocodile, baboon, and leopard heads.
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