IDNO

P.61266.GIJ

Description

A documentation photograph of a bronze object from Igbo-Ukwu. The bowl has a round base or stand and is decorated with incised diagonal hatching, concentric circles, and raised dots and circles with a rosette motif.

Place

W Africa; ?Nigeria; Igbu Uku

Cultural Affliation

?Igbo

Named Person

Photographer

Jones, Gwilliam Iwan (known as G.I.)

Collector / Expedition

Date

circa 1930 - 1939

Collection Name

Jones Collection

Source

Jones, Gwilliam Iwan (known as G.I.)

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.61128.GIJ to P.61278.GIJ were kept in box 13, now numbered C294/.

Publication: Same image in Jones, 1939, p. 1656 Plate H with the caption, Bronze ornament of entwined snakes. He describes it as a hollow spiral (6.5”x3.7”) formed of two entwined snake’s bodies ending in heads at each end. Ornamented with applied rows of dots, and of models of fruits, beetles, flies, birds, grasshoppers and haumn heads with diagonal scarring on the foreheads. Possibly this object was used to fit on a staff (Jones, 1939).

Context: Thurstan Shaw provides a very detailed account of the Ibo Ukwu excavations he carried out in his book, Unearthing Igbo-Ukwu. He details the history of the site and the methodical approach in his field work. He notes that in 1939 a man was digging in his compound and found a decorated bronze bowl. The continued to dig and found a variety of other bronzes. A district officer heard about the bronzes and realised their archaeological importance and bought them. He presented the whole collection to the Department of Antiquities..the full name of the town is ‘Igbo-Ukwu’ Great Ibo to distinguish it from other places called ‘Ibo’.

Shaw also writes specifically about the staff ornaments discovered in 1938. “ Also from the 1938 find were four magnificent castings of what are taken to be ornaments not for the heads of ceremonial staffs, but for their shafts. These are generally cylindrical in shape, with a hole running right down the middle; the height of these objects averages about 16cm ...In reference to the ornament in this photograph, he writes, “Another of these staff ornaments is built up on the same coil principle except that in this case the coils are made of two inter-twined snakes’ bodies each of which has a head at both ends, so that there are two snakes’ heads side y side at the top and bottom of the cylinder. Between the snakes’ heads , at both ends is a bird with a grasshopper in its mouth; at intervals on top of the granulated surface of the snakes’ bodies are beetles and human heads; these human heads show facial scarification radiating in four directions from the bridge of the nose. (Shaw, 1977, p. 28).

Context: Jones who was a District Officer at the time of the initial discovery of the bronzes at Ibo Uwku notes that, “ It is impossible at present to date these Ibo bronzes. They are unlike any other bronze work from S. Nigeria or the Gold Coast. Their workmanship is excellent and they are in a very fair state of preservation”. (Jones, 1939, p. 165).

Bibliographical Reference:
Shaw, T. 1970. Igbo-Ukwu: An Account of Archaeological Discoveries in Eastern Nigeria, London.
Shaw, T. 1977 Unearthing Igbo-Ukwu. (Oxford University Press Ibadan)
Jones, G.I. 1939. “Ibo Bronzes from the Awka Division” Nigerian Field, Vol. VIII, no.4, pp.164-167)

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 29/1/2008]