The Ife Heads are a group of naturalistic portrait heads in copper alloy and terracotta created at Ile-Ife, the ancient religious and royal centre of the Yoruba people in what is now southwestern Nigeria, generally dated to roughly the twelfth to fifteenth centuries and cast in copper alloy using the lost-wax technique. Believed to represent Yoruba rulers, or Ooni, or related royal and courtly figures, a group of the metal heads was uncovered accidentally in 1938 in the Wunmonije Compound near the palace at Ife; most remain in Nigeria, chiefly at the National Museum of Ife, while individual examples held by museums such as the British Museum are widely credited with having forced a reassessment of long-standing Western assumptions that naturalistic portrait sculpture of this refinement could not have originated in sub-Saharan Africa without outside influence.
Facts
Medium
Medium (category) Connections
Associated With
The Ife Head is a celebrated lost-wax cast work.
In Form
Naturalistic bronze and terracotta head sculpture from the Yoruba city of Ife.
In Genre
Entity-backed identity for the genre enum value this work already carries, resolved to an arts art-form by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The genre fact itself, with its own citation, stays on the work unchanged.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Nigeria, located there.
Sources
1. Bronze Head from Ife - Wikipedia
WikipediaWikipedia, Bronze Head from Ife, lead paragraph, material clause
one of eighteen copper alloy sculptures that were unearthed in 1938 at Ife in Nigeria, the religious and royal centre of the Yoruba people.
Wikipedia, Bronze Head from Ife, lead paragraph, place clause
unearthed in 1938 at Ife in Nigeria, the religious and royal centre of the Yoruba people.
Genre reference
Believed to represent Yoruba rulers, or Ooni, or related royal and courtly figures, a group of the metal heads was uncovered accidentally in 1938 in the Wunmonije Compound near the palace at Ife; most remain in Nigeria, chiefly at the National Museum of Ife, while individual examples held by museums such as the British Museum are widely credited with having forced a reassessment of long-standing Western assumptions that naturalistic portrait sculpture of this refinement could not have originated in sub-Saharan Africa without outside influence.
lead paragraph
The Bronze Head from Ife, or Ife Head, is one of eighteen copper alloy sculptures that were unearthed in 1938 at Ife in Nigeria, the religious and royal centre of the Yoruba people. It is believed to represent a king (Ooni). It wa
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