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Lydenburg Heads
The Lydenburg Heads refer to seven terracotta heads that were discovered in association with other pottery artefacts in Lydenburg, Mpumalanga, South Africa. They are among the oldest known African Iron Age artworks from South of the equator. Other artefacts found in association with these heads include ceramic vessels, iron and copper beads, and bone fragments. Charcoal associated with the heads was radiocarbon dated, and this relative dating technique places these artefacts and the site at around 1410 BP (approximately 500 A.D.), which constitutes one of the earliest dates for an Iron Age settlement in South Africa. The heads are hollow with thin clay strips added to create facial details. The skill and thought that went into the designs suggest that they were valued products of a well organized and settled community. Discovery The heads were discovered initially as a surface find by a young boy named Karl-Ludwig von Bezing while playing on his father's farm. The material w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolitan Museum Of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is by area one of the world's largest art museums. The first portion of the approximately building was built in 1880. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from medieval Europe. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 with its mission to bring art and art education to the American people. The museum's permanent collection consists of works of art from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings, and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terracotta Sculptures
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta is the term normally used for sculpture made in earthenware and also for various practical uses, including vessels (notably flower pots), water and waste water pipes, roofing tiles, bricks, and surface embellishment in building construction. The term is also used to refer to the natural brownish orange color of most terracotta. In archaeology and art history, "terracotta" is often used to describe objects such as figurines not made on a potter's wheel. Vessels and other objects that are or might be made on a wheel from the same material are called earthenware pottery; the choice of term depends on the type of object rather than the material or firing technique. Unglazed pieces, and those made for building construction and industry, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1962 Archaeological Discoveries
Year 196 ( CXCVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Dexter and Messalla (or, less frequently, year 949 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 196 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus attempts to assassinate Clodius Albinus but fails, causing Albinus to retaliate militarily. * Emperor Septimius Severus captures and sacks Byzantium; the city is rebuilt and regains its previous prosperity. * In order to assure the support of the Roman legion in Germany on his march to Rome, Clodius Albinus is declared Augustus by his army while crossing Gaul. * Hadrian's wall in Britain is partially destroyed. China * First year of the '' Jian'an era of the Chinese Han Dynasty. * Empero ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantu-speaking Peoples Of South Africa
South African Bantu-speaking peoples are the majority of black South Africans. Occasionally grouped as Bantu, the term itself is derived from the word for "people" common to many of the Bantu languages. The Oxford Dictionary of South African English describes its contemporary usage in a racial context as "obsolescent and offensive" because of its strong association with white minority rule with their apartheid system. However, Bantu is used without pejorative connotations in other parts of Africa and is still used in South Africa as the group term for the language family. History The history of the Bantu-speaking peoples from South Africa has in the past been misunderstood due to the deliberate spreading of false narratives such as ''The Empty Land Myth''. First published by W.A. Holden in the 1860s, this doctrine claims that South Africa had mostly been an unsettled region and that Bantu-speaking peoples had begun to migrate southwards from present day Zimbabwe at the same t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeological Discoveries In South Africa
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology (in North America – the four-field approach), history or geography. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, which is the study of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for which, by definition, there are no written records. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arts In South Africa
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both highly dynamic and a characteristically constant feature of human life, they have developed into innovative, stylized and sometimes intricate forms. This is often achieved through sustained and deliberate study, training and/or theorizing within a particular tradition, across generations and even between civilizations. The arts are a vehicle through which human beings cultivate distinct social, cultural and individual identities, while transmitting values, impressions, judgments, ideas, visions, spiritual meanings, patterns of life and experiences across time and space. Prominent examples of the arts include: * visual arts (including architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, and sculpting), * literary arts (includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bini People
The Edo or Benin people are an Edoid ethnic group primarily found in Edo State, Southern part of Nigeria. They speak the Edo language and are the descendants of the founders of the Benin Empire. They are closely related to other ethnic groups that speak Edoid languages, such as the Esan, the Afemai, the Isoko, and the Urhobo. The name "Benin" (and "Bini") is a Portuguese corruption, ultimately from the word "Ubini", which came into use during the reign of Oba (ruler) Ewuare the Great, c. 1440. "Ubini", a word meaning Vexation, used by Prince Oranmiyan, son of the wealthy ruler of Uhe (Ife) to describe the frustration he encountered after he was invited to rule benin. ''Ubini'' was later corrupted to ''Bini'' by the mixed ethnicities living together at the centre; and further corrupted to ''Benin'' around 1485 when the Portuguese began trade relations with Oba Ewuare giving them coral beads. History Administrative region Edo people can be found in Nigeria's Edo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Ndebele People
AmaNdebele are an Mbo ethnic group native to South Africa who speak isiNdebele language. AmaNdebele mainly inhabit the provinces of Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Limpopo, all of which are in the northeast of the country. Although both are part of the larger Nguni people, Mbo ethnic group, the South African Ndebele should not be confused with the Northern Ndebele people, AbaThwakazi of Zimbabwe who are a more recent offshoot of the Zulu people, Zulu. The amaNdebele are related to and considered part of the same nation as the maNdrebele who inhibit parts of Limpopo and Northwest provinces. The maNdrebele are constituted by three major tribes namely Gheghana, Mghumbhani and Mtjhatjhani. Both the amaNdebele and maNdrebele are descendants of the same ancestral king called Musi kaMhlanga. AmaNdebele are popular of their history with the Ndebele-Boer War of 1883. During the ruling of Nyabela in the Transvaal in Mpumalanga, amaNdebele were entangled in a war with Boers for hiding Kgosi Mam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantu Peoples In South Africa
South African Bantu-speaking peoples are the majority of black South Africans. Occasionally grouped as Bantu, the term itself is derived from the word for "people" common to many of the Bantu languages. The Oxford Dictionary of South African English describes its contemporary usage in a racial context as "obsolescent and offensive" because of its strong association with white minority rule with their apartheid system. However, Bantu is used without pejorative connotations in other parts of Africa and is still used in South Africa as the group term for the language family. History The history of the Bantu-speaking peoples from South Africa has in the past been misunderstood due to the deliberate spreading of false narratives such as ''The Empty Land Myth''. First published by W.A. Holden in the 1860s, this doctrine claims that South Africa had mostly been an unsettled region and that Bantu-speaking peoples had begun to migrate southwards from present day Zimbabwe at the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scarification
Scarification involves scratching, etching, burning/branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification or body art. The body modification can take roughly 6–12 months to heal. In the process of body scarification, scars are purposely formed by cutting or branding the skin by various methods (sometimes using further sequential aggravating wound-healing methods at timed intervals, like irritation). Scarification is sometimes called '' cicatrization'' (from the French equivalent). History Africa Scarification, which is also known as cicatrization in European works, is sometimes included within the category of tattooing, due to both practices creating marks with pigment underneath and textures or pigments on the surface of the skin. In Africa, European colonial governments and European Christian missionaries criminalized and stigmatized the cultural practices of tattooing and scarification; consequently, the practic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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