Download or read book Nok written by Peter Breunig and published by Africa Magna Verlag. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides insights into the archaeological context of the Nok Culture in Nigeria (West Africa). It was first published in German accompanying the same-titled exhibition “Nok – Ein Ursprung afrikanischer Skulptur” at the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung in Frankfurt (30th October 2013 – 23rd March 2014) and has now been translated into English. A team of archaeologists from the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main has been researching the Nok Culture since 2005. The results are now presented to the public. The Nok Culture existed for about 1500 years – from around the mid-second millennium BCE to the turn of the Common Era. It is mainly known by the elaborate terracotta sculptures which were likewise the focus of the exhibition. The research of the archaeologists from Frankfurt, however, not only concerns the terracotta figures. They investigate the Nok Culture from a holistic perspective and put it into the larger context of the search for universal developments in the history of mankind. Such a development – important because it initiated a new era of the past – is the transition from small groups of hunters and gatherers to large communities with complex forms of human co-existence. This process took place almost everywhere in the world in the last 10,000 years, although in very different ways. The Nok Culture represents an African variant of that process. It belongs to a group of archaeological cultures or human groups, who in part subsisted on the crops they were growing and lived in mostly small but permanent settlements in the savanna regions south of the Sahara from the second millennium BCE onwards. The discovery of metallurgy is the next turning point in the development of the first farming cultures. In Africa the first metal used was not copper or bronze as in the Near East and Europe, but iron. The people of the Nok Culture were among the first that produced iron south of the Sahara. This happened in the first millennium BCE – about 1000 years after the agricultural beginning. While iron metallurgy spread rapidly across sub-Saharan Africa, the terracotta sculptures remained a cultural monopoly of the Nok Culture. Nothing comparable existed in Africa outside of Ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean coast. The oldest, securely dated clay figures date back to the early first millennium BCE. Currently, it seems as if they appeared in the Nok Culture before iron metallurgy, reaching their peak in the following centuries. At the end of the first millennium BCE they disappeared from the scene. There is hardly any doubt about the ritual character of the Nok sculptures. Yet, central questions remain unanswered: Why did such an apparently complex world of ritual practices develop in an early farming culture just before or at the beginning of the momentous invention of iron production? Why were the elaborate sculptures – as excavations show – intentionally destroyed? And why did they disappear as suddenly as they emerged?
Download or read book Forgotten Africa written by Graham Connah and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-19 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forgotten Africa introduces the general reader and beginning student to Africa's past, emphasizing those aspects only known or best known from archaeological and related evidence. It covers four million years of history across the continent, examining important aspects of Africa's momentous human story. Graham Connah is concerned to raise public awareness, both inside and outside Africa, to this frequently overlooked and often forgotten subject. Forgotten Africa examines: * human origins, * the material culture of hunter gatherers * the beginnings of African farming, the development of metallurgy * the emergence of distinctive artistic traditions * the growth of cities and states * the expansion of trading networks * the impact of European and other external contacts. The result is a fascinating and important story told in a straightforward and readable manner.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of African History written by Kevin Shillington and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2005 with total page 1112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers more than one thousand entries covering all aspects of African history, civilization, and culture.
Download or read book The Birth of Art in Africa written by Bernard de Grunne and published by Vilo Publishing. This book was released on 1998 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique book presents sculptures from the Nok, Sokoto and Katsina cultures of Nigeria in fascinating detail. The terra-cotta statues, which date from 600BC to 300AD, are the oldest traces of the remarkable tradition of sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa. Varying in size from four-inch miniature amulets to monumental seated and kneeling sculptures, often of kings, priests or soothsayers, the statues also display the very rich variety of headdresses, beads, necklaces and bracelets that existed within these cultures. This book brings is a synthesis of the discoveries made since the groundbreaking 1977 study by Bernard Fagg. An essay on dating methods -- carbon dating and thermoluminescence -- provides the most recent results, as well as detailing new cross-dating techniques. A classification of poses common to the sculptures, and parallel photographic evidence of the continuing decorative tradition, enhance the academic value of this definitive work.
Download or read book Ethnic Ambiguity and the African Past written by Francois G Richard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collective inquiries in this volume address ethnicity in ancient Africa as social fact and political artifact along numerous dimensions. Is ethnicity a useful analytic? What can archaeology say about the kinds of deeper time questions which scholars have asked of identities in Africa? Eleven authors engage with contemporary anthropological, historical and archaeological perspectives to examine how ideas of self-understanding, belonging, and difference in Africa were made and unmade. They examine how these intersect with other salient domains of social experience: states, landscapes, discourses, memory, technology, politics, and power. The various chapters cover broad geographic and temporal ground, following an arc across Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and East Africa, spanning from prehistory to the colonial period.
Download or read book Atlas of World Art written by John Onians and published by Laurence King Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combines a survey of world art with maps showing the associations and dissemination of culture across the globe.
Download or read book Aspects of the Nok Culture written by J. F. Jemkur and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book African Kingdoms written by Saheed Aderinto and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-08-24 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This history-rich volume details the sociopolitical, economic, and artistic aspects of African kingdoms from the earliest times to the second half of the 19th century. Africa has a long and fascinating history and is a place of growing importance in the world history curriculum. This detailed encyclopedia covers the history of African kingdoms from antiquity through the mid-19th century, tracing the dynasties' ties to modern globalization and influences on world culture before, during, and after the demise of the slave trade. Along with an exploration of African heritage, this reference is rich with firsthand accounts of Africa through the oral traditions of its people and the written journals of European explorers, missionaries, and travelers who visited Africa from the 15th century and onward. Alphabetically arranged entries cover a particular kingdom and feature information on the economic, cultural, religious, political, social, and environmental history of the regime. The content references popular culture, movies, and art that present contemporary reenactments of kingdoms, emphasizing the importance of history in shaping modern ideas. Other features include primary source documents, a selected bibliography of print and electronic resources, and dozens of sidebars containing key facts and interesting trivia.
Download or read book Traditional African Art written by Avner Shakarov and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-07-06 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The art of sub-Saharan Africa reveals the marvelous achievements of unknown artists over thousands of years. Their aesthetic ideal finds form in wood, ivory, fabric, bronze and iron. This illustrated study of traditional African art includes pieces from Western Sudan, the Congolese Basin, the Guinea coast, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and East and South Africa. Each piece is characterized by its own traditions and artistic forms. The earliest works date from the beginning of the first millennium, the most recent from the early 20th century. Unique and rare examples are documented, many heretofore virtually unknown.
Download or read book A Companion to Gender History written by Teresa A. Meade and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to Gender History surveys the history of womenaround the world, studies their interaction with men in genderedsocieties, and looks at the role of gender in shaping humanbehavior over thousands of years. An extensive survey of the history of women around the world,their interaction with men, and the role of gender in shaping humanbehavior over thousands of years. Discusses family history, the history of the body andsexuality, and cultural history alongside women’s history andgender history. Considers the importance of class, region, ethnicity, race andreligion to the formation of gendered societies. Contains both thematic essays and chronological-geographicessays. Gives due weight to pre-history and the pre-modern era as wellas to the modern era. Written by scholars from across the English-speaking world andscholars for whom English is not their first language.
Download or read book Plants and People in the African Past written by Anna Maria Mercuri and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is an essential connection between humans and plants, cultures and environments, and this is especially evident looking at the long history of the African continent. This book, comprising current research in archaeobotany on Africa, elucidates human adaptation and innovation with respect to the exploitation of plant resources. In the long-term perspective climatic changes of the environment as well as human impact have posed constant challenges to the interaction between peoples and the plants growing in different countries and latitudes. This book provides an insight into/overview of the manifold routes people have taken in various parts Africa in order to make a decent living from the provisions of their environment by bringing together the analyses of macroscopic and microscopic plant remains with ethnographic, botanical, geographical and linguistic research. The numerous chapters cover almost all the continent countries, and were prepared by most of the scholars who study African archaeobotany, i.e. the complex and composite history of plant uses and environmental transformations during the Holocene.
Download or read book Masterpieces of Nigerian Art written by Ekpo Eyo and published by Chinazor Onianwah. This book was released on 2014-07-21 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Federal Republic of Nigeria maintains a rich artistic legacy that is more than two thousand years old. As such, it provides some interesting counterpoints to Western art history. Nigeria's ancient Nok art, for example, predated the golden age of Greece, and the exquisite bronzes of lgbo Ukwu (9th-10th C), Ife (12th-15th C), and Benin (15th-19th C) compare favorably to European traditions. Furthermore, the art of Benin thrived under the patronage of a single, unbroken dynasty during a time when many European governments rose and fell.Yet, for many reasons, the Western world would not recognize this artistic heritage until modern times. In this volume, Ekpo Eyo explains the prirnitivist viewpoint that once dominated the Western perception of African art and recalls the efforts of certain more open-minded individuals from Nigeria's colonial past who, in their efforts to collect, preserve, and present important sculptures and other artworks, were instrumental in founding the country's first museums. Their successor, today's National Commission for Museums and Monuments, has collected many additional works from their original settings, placing them in the limelight of the world through publications and museum exhibitions, to which the author has contributed much throughout his career. Eyo therefore discusses Nigerian art in the broader context of the world's art history, arguing that the art of Nigeria is fundamentally a testament to universal human creativity. From Shrines to Showcases: Masterpieces of Nigerian Art includes examples selected from all major regions of the country, spanning the distant past to the modern age, which are to be considered amongst the greatest artistic achievements of humanity.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines written by Timothy Insoll and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 961 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines is the first text to offer a comparative survey of figurines from across the globe, bringing together myriad contemporary research approaches to provide invaluable insights into their function, context, meaning, and use, as well as past thinking on the human body, gender, and identity.
Download or read book Temple of Solomon Wailing Wall Part 1 Igbo Mediators of Yahweh Culture of Life Volume V written by Philip Chidi Njemanze MD and published by Writers Republic LLC. This book was released on 2022-01-07 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Book: Wailing Walls of Jerusalem, Igbo Mediators of Yahweh Culture of Life Volume V, has its setting in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. It is the first accurate account of the true location of the City of Ancient Jerusalem (Igbo language: iyī e rusalem, meaning ‘evil [of abortion] should not touch me’). This assertion is supported by a map titled ‘Ìlú Yèrúsàlέmì ńǹwèrè Yèésú’ meaning ‘Capital City of Jerusalem at the Birth of Jesus Christ’) believed to have been made by anonymous Yoruba King visiting the City of Jerusalem before its destruction by 70AD. The city was surrounded by the inner Wailing Walls (Igbo language: ihi e ti eti, meaning ‘the wailing wall’) built around the Heart of the Capital City of Ancient Jerusalem (Igbo language: iyī e rusalam, meaning ‘evil should not touch me’) which was the home of King David to this day called Amawọm (Igbo language: ama Owe m, meaning ‘the settlement of my Leader [King David]’). The walls enclosed the Royal Palace of King David (Igbo language: Di wụ edo, meaning ‘the man who is fair in complexion’), the Old Temple of King Solomon (Igbo language: isi e lo ama ana, meaning ‘the head that thinks wisely for the land’), the Houses of the Chief Priests and Scribes, and houses of the indigenous people within the area traversed by the Sea of Galilee (Igbo language: ogo li elu, meaning ‘the districts on heights’). This book builds on the theme of the book series on the Igbo as the Chosen People of God.
Download or read book Archaeology Heritage and Tourism in West Africa written by Samuel Oluwole Ogundele and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2024-10-11 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: West Africa is a rich storehouse of heritage resources belonging to different time periods. Archaeologists attempt to exhume, analyse, and interpret aspects of human history found in artifacts and their contexts. The longstanding assumption that archaeology is simply a science of the past, with little thought for the present, must be rejected. This book makes a striking argument for a curricular revolution which taps into the strengths of such allied fields as heritage, tourism, and museum management, which come together to constitute Cultural Resource Management (CRM). This account reveals, in an inspiringly clear fashion, that the era of conceptualising archaeology as a near-complete academic exercise is over. Trans-disciplinary knowledge application, such as that which is found in CRM, has the capacity to create employment opportunities for archaeologists, and other cultural resource management graduates, in West Africa and beyond. It is time to take a first step in constructing the pathways of progress in the competitive world of modern education.
Download or read book General History of Africa written by International Scientific Committee for the drafting of a General History of Africa and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 1984-12-31 with total page 774 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of UNESCO's most important publishing projects in the last thirty years, the General History of Africa marks a major breakthrough in the recognition of Africa's cultural heritage. Offering an internal perspective of Africa, the eight-volume work provides a comprehensive approach to the history of ideas, civilizations, societies and institutions of African history. The volumes also discuss historical relationships among Africans as well as multilateral interactions with other cultures and continents.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology written by Peter Mitchell and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 1077 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa has the longest and arguably the most diverse archaeological record of any of the continents. It is where the human lineage first evolved and from where Homo sapiens spread across the rest of the world. Later, it witnessed novel experiments in food-production and unique trajectories to urbanism and the organisation of large communities that were not always structured along strictly hierarchical lines. Millennia of engagement with societies in other parts of the world confirm Africa's active participation in the construction of the modern world, while the richness of its history, ethnography, and linguistics provide unusually powerful opportunities for constructing interdisciplinary narratives of Africa's past. This Handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of African archaeology, covering the entirety of the continent's past from the beginnings of human evolution to the archaeological legacy of European colonialism. As well as covering almost all periods and regions of the continent, it includes a mixture of key methodological and theoretical issues and debates, and situates the subject's contemporary practice within the discipline's history and the infrastructural challenges now facing its practitioners. Bringing together essays on all these themes from over seventy contributors, many of them living and working in Africa, it offers a highly accessible, contemporary account of the subject for use by scholars and students of not only archaeology, but also history, anthropology, and other disciplines.
