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Bronze Head Of Queen Idia
The Bronze Head of Queen Idia is a commemorative bronze head from the medieval Kingdom of Benin in West Africa that probably represents Idia, mother of Oba Esigie, made during the early sixteenth century at the Benin court. Many Benin works of art entered the European art market after the Benin Expedition of 1897 – Four cast bronze heads of the queen are known and are currently in the collections of the British Museum in London, the World Museum in Liverpool, the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos, and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. Description The bronze head was made using the lost wax casting technique in the early sixteenth century. It is a very realistic representation of a young woman from the Benin court, who wears a high pointed ''ukpe-okhue'' crown of lattice-shaped red coral beads. The hairstyle is referred to as a "parrot's beak" hairstyle and was only allowed to be worn by the Iyoba and the major war chief. The eyes and two bands between them are inset with i ...
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Bronze Queen Head
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such as arsenic or silicon. These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as strength, ductility, or machinability. The archaeological period in which bronze was the hardest metal in widespread use is known as the Bronze Age. The beginning of the Bronze Age in western Eurasia and India is conventionally dated to the mid-4th millennium BCE (~3500 BCE), and to the early 2nd millennium BCE in China; elsewhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BCE and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BCE, although bronze continued to be much more widely used than it is in modern times. Because historical artworks wer ...
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Ukpe-okhue
The ukpe-okhue (Edo for "parrot's beak") is a crown traditionally worn by the ''Iyoba'' (queen mother) of the Oba of Benin. It is formed of a snood-like net of precious coral beadwork, using ''ileke'' ("royal") cylindrical beads. This type of crown was originated, and first worn, by the original queen mother Idia, the first woman granted the privilege to wear ''ileke'' beads. Named after a parrot's beak, it is a pointed hat Pointed hats have been a distinctive item of headgear of a wide range of cultures throughout history. Although often suggesting an ancient Indo-European tradition, they were also traditionally worn by women of Lapland, the Japanese, the Mi'kmaq ..., with its shape somewhat resembling a Phrygian cap with its point curving forward. Gallery Image:Afrikaabteilung in Ethnological Museum Berlin 29.JPG File:Queen Mother Pendant Mask- Iyoba MET DP231460.jpg References {{reflist Crowns (headgear) Benin Court Art African queen mothers Beadwork ...
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Ethnographic Objects In The British Museum
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior. Ethnography in simple terms is a type of qualitative research where a person puts themselves in a specific community or organization in attempt to learn about their cultures from a first person point-of-view. As a form of inquiry, ethnography relies heavily on participant observation—on the researcher participating in the setting or with the people being studied, at least in some marginal role, and seeking to document, in detail, patterns of social interaction and the perspectives of participants, and to understand these i ...
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Bronze Head From Ife
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 former royal centre of the Yoruba people. It is believed to represent a king. It was probably made in the fourteenth-fifteenth century C.E. The realism and sophisticated craftsmanship of the objects challenged Western conceptions of African art. The naturalistic features of the Ife heads are unique and the stylistic similarities of these works "suggest that they were made by an individual artist or in a single workshop." Description Like most West African "bronzes" the piece is actually made of copper alloyed with other metals, described by the British Museum as "heavily leaded zinc-brass". Modern practice in museums and archaeology is increasingly to avoid terms such as bronze or brass for historical objects in favour of the all-embracing "copper alloy". The head is made using the lost wax technique and is approximately three-qua ...
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Benin Ivory Mask
The Benin ivory mask is a miniature sculptural portrait in ivory of Idia, the first Iyoba (Queen Mother) of the 16th century Benin Empire, taking the form of a traditional African mask. The masks were looted by the British from the palace of the Oba of Benin in the Benin Expedition of 1897. Two almost identical masks are kept at the British Museum in London and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.Metropolitan Museum CollectioQueen Mother Pendant Mask: Iyoba MetMuseum, retrieved 1 November 2014 Both feature a serene face of the Queen Mother wearing a beaded headdress, a beaded choker at her neck, scarification highlighted by iron inlay on the forehead, and all framed by the flange of an openwork tiara and collar of symbolic beings, as well as double loops at each side for attachment of the pendant. There are also examples on the same theme at the Seattle Art Museum and the Linden Museum, and one in a private collection. The British Museum example in particular ...
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Benin Bronzes
The Benin Bronzes are a group of several thousand metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Edo State, Nigeria. Collectively, the objects form the best examples of Benin art and were created from the thirteenth century by artists of the Edo people. Apart from the plaques, other sculptures in brass or bronze include portrait heads, jewelry, and smaller pieces. Many of the dramatic sculptures date to the thirteenth century, and a large part of the collection dates to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is believed that two "golden ages" in Benin metal workmanship occurred during the reigns of Esigie ( 1550) and of Eresoyen (1735–1750), when their workmanship achieved its highest quality. Most of the plaques and other objects were looted by British forces during the Benin Expedition of 1897 as imperial control was being consolidated in Southern Nigeria. About two hundred pieces were taken to the British Museum ...
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Sir William Ingram, 1st Baronet
Sir William James Ingram, 1st Baronet (27 October 1847 – 18 December 1924) was Managing Director of ''The Illustrated London News'' and a Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons in three periods between 1878 and 1895. Life Ingram was the son of Herbert Ingram and his wife Ann Little, daughter of William Little, of the Manor House, Eye, Northamptonshire. His father was the founder of ''The Illustrated London News'', and had also been MP for Boston in Lincolnshire. Ingram was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was admitted at the Middle Temple on 12 April 1869, and at the Inner Temple on 15 January 1870 and was called to the bar at Inner Temple on 18 November 1872. His father and brother died in a shipping accident on Lake Michigan in 1860 and Ingram eventually took over management of the ''Illustrated London News''. He lived at Walton-on-Thames, Surrey and was a J.P. for Surrey and the Cinque Ports, Kent. In 1874, Ingram was elected ...
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Military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct military uniform. It may consist of one or more military branches such as an army, navy, air force, space force, marines, or coast guard. The main task of the military is usually defined as defence of the state and its interests against external armed threats. In broad usage, the terms ''armed forces'' and ''military'' are often treated as synonymous, although in technical usage a distinction is sometimes made in which a country's armed forces may include both its military and other paramilitary forces. There are various forms of irregular military forces, not belonging to a recognized state; though they share many attributes with regular military forces, they are less often referred to as simply ''military''. A nation's militar ...
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Palace
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which housed the Imperial residences. Most European languages have a version of the term (''palais'', ''palazzo'', ''palacio'', etc.), and many use it for a wider range of buildings than English. In many parts of Europe, the equivalent term is also applied to large private houses in cities, especially of the aristocracy; often the term for a large country house is different. Many historic palaces are now put to other uses such as parliaments, museums, hotels, or office buildings. The word is also sometimes used to describe a lavishly ornate building used for public entertainment or exhibitions such as a movie palace. A palace is distinguished from a castle while the latter clearly is fortified or has the style of a fortification, whereas a p ...
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Altars
An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paganism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, modern paganism, and in certain Islamic communities around Caucasia and Asia Minor. Many historical-medieval faiths also made use of them, including the Roman, Greek, and Norse religions. Etymology The modern English word ''altar'' was derived from Middle English ''altar'', from Old English ''alter'', taken from Latin ''altare'' ("altar"), probably related to '' adolere'' ("burn"); thus "burning place", influenced by ''altus'' ("high"). It displaced the native Old English word '' wēofod''. Altars in antiquity File:Tel Be'er Sheva Altar 2007041.JPG, Horned altar at Tel Be'er Sheva, Israel. File:3217 - Athens - Sto… of Attalus Museum - Kylix - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov 9 2009.jpg, A ...
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Tribes
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to conflicting theoretical understandings of social and kinship structures, and also reflecting the problematic application of this concept to extremely diverse human societies. The concept is often contrasted by anthropologists with other social and kinship groups, being hierarchically larger than a lineage or clan, but smaller than a chiefdom, nation or state. These terms are equally disputed. In some cases tribes have legal recognition and some degree of political autonomy from national or federal government, but this legalistic usage of the term may conflict with anthropological definitions. In the United States, Native American tribes are legally considered to have "domestic dependent nation" status within the territorial United States, ...
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