Traditional art series (Nigerian Art): Igbo Ukwu art

By DR. Ritadoris Edumchieke Ubah

Revelation from the archeological study of Igbo Ukwu Art by Thurston Shaw an archeologist showed their bronze artifacts dated to the 9th century AD.

The first bronzes were discovered by Isaiah Anozie while digging a well in his compound in 1939.

They had a metalworking art craft that flourished as early as the 9th century.

Three initial sites excavated revealed hundreds of bronze and leaded bronze.

These bronze works were recorded among the most inventive and technically accomplished bronzes ever made.

Igbo Ukwu is a town in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State in the SouthEastern part of Nigeria.

The town comprises of three quarters namely; Obinno, Ihite and Ngo and shares borders with Ichida and Oraeri towns.

The Igbo Ukwu bronzes were objects which Isaiah Anozie had never seen before and therefore regarded them with awe, believing them to be imbedded with supernatural powers.

He therefore piled them against the walls of his house to protect them.

When the British District Officer in the area, Mr. J.D. Field was alerted of this development, he immediately recognized the importance of these and quickly moved them to London and subsequently published them in 1940.

In 1959 Prof. Thurston Shaw, from Cambridge University, England was invited by the Nigerian Dept of Antiquities to investigate the compound of Isaiah where the bronzes were found.

Shaw discovered more bronzes and pottery not only in Isaiah’s compound but also in those of his two other brothers and was later designated the three sites, namely; Igbo Isaiah, Igbo Richard and Igbo Jonah.

The three sites are collectively known as Igbo Ukwu. (Shaw 1970).

Some of the bronze works found at the Igbo Ukwu sites contained elite burial and shrine complex materials.

It held the earliest known examples of copper alloy or bronze casting in Sub-Sahara Africa. This site discovery was to increase the historians understanding of both Art and the Culture of West African civilization.

The Interesting facts about Igbo Ukwu Bronze Art: (a) Almost all of Igbo Ukwu bronze art were made around the 9th and 10th century AD. (b) Igbo bronzes are considered to be the earliest type of art in Sub-Sahara region. (c) The bronze items were mass-produced locally but the United Kingdom was involved in a long-distance and Cross African trade which means that Igbo Ukwu art would be sold to any other.

The Igbo Ukwu bronze amazed the world with a very high level of technical and artistic proficiency and sophistication which was distinctly more advanced than contemporary bronze casting in Europe.

Peter Garlake compares the Igbo Ukwu bronzes to the finest jewelry rococo in Europe and William Buller Fagg states they were created with a strange rococo type of virtuosity.

Frank Willet says Igbo Ukwu bronzes portray a standard that is comparable to the best established bronzes in Europe.