Ancient African Art History Lecture

Hello everybody. So the last area of the world that we are going to take a look at for this class is going to be Africa. And we are going to look at the art from the Nok village of modern day Nigeria first. We'll take a look at some terracottas there. And then we are going to examine art by the Djenne people of Mali. We are going to take a look at a mosque, which is the one you see on your screen, called the Great Mosque of Djenne. And then we are also going to look at some ceramic figurines. Lastly, we will take a look at some Christian churches built initially by the Zagwe people of Ethiopia around the 1300s. And these churches continue to be cared for by modern day Ethiopians. So first, we are going to talk about the Nok culture of present day mid to north Nigeria. This culture thrived from approximately 500 BCE to 200 CE. Although they did form a little bit earlier. So the earliest known terracotta or fired clay sculptures of Nigeria are attributed to the Nok people. They get their name from the Ham village of Nok. And that is where their first terracottas were found. But they have since been found throughout burials in Nigeria, especially in the Abuha region, which is right south of Nok. And these sculptures that we will investigate are the earliest known terracotta sculptures of humans in sub-Saharan Africa. And we see a bunch of sculptures of fuller bodies, such as this figure on the left. And then we have some that are only heads. But they tend to have shared characteristics such as their triangular eyes, their hollow pupils, and their expressive hairstyles, which we can note more so on the figure on the left. So sculptures of this kind would have been painted initially. They were first brought into the purview of Europeans in 1943 by Bernard Fagg. Local operations for tin mining in the 1900s uncovered many Nok terracottas. And a lot of them were buried under the earth, anywhere from one to eight meters underground in burials. We do get some buried and stylized appearances of Nok ceramics. And this tells us that they were sculpted subtractively. And this means that sculptors had a block that they would carve as they worked, therefore subtracting from the sculpture. Usually, terracottas are formed via additive techniques, where clay is added onto a sculpture's artwork as they are creating, but not in this case. So once again, the Nok people created the first known productions of human heads and figures of humans and even animals in sub-Saharan Africa. We do have some life-size terracotta heads, and we'll take a look at one in this lecture, of which were usually also part of a fuller figure. But many of the full figures have been lost to time, as evidenced by this fragment of a female figurine. Again, these would have been buried with people, leading us to believe that they may have been depictions of those that they were buried alongside. And so the reason for the Nok people's decline around 200 CE is not known, but it is marked by a steep decline in pottery production. So before we move forward with some examples, I do want to note now that a lot of these artworks continue to be unearthed and looted without documentation of the context in which they were buried. And of course, that has severely limited our understanding of these terracottas, right? Who were they buried with? And did that person have any other items similar to these that tell us more about who they are? We don't know for sure. But what we do know is that there are certain attributes to these terracottas that align with other West African cultures and the motifs on those ceramics that have persisted through time. So some of this can be noted in the hairstyles of the figurines. A lot of these hairstyles are iconic to African culture. Likewise, the proportion of the heads in relationship to the body in Nok figurines convey the head as this center of spiritual divinity. And we are going to see this in artworks by other West African cultures, such as the Yoruba came later. So this is the first figurine on his own slide that we will be taking a look at. And he does demonstrate a fully developed Nok style. It's characterized here by his very finely detailed features, specifically his mouth, his beard, and his And the complex hairstyle is composed of rows of seven conical buns with large hemispherical caps over the ears. And the importance of jewelry in our culture is illustrated by his costume, right? He's adorned with these necklaces and beaded chains. And he also has this horn slung around the back of his shoulders. And this shows us that this The figure is broken at the waistline, but he may originally have been kneeling. And a lot of these figurines are highly stylized, but they are also characteristic to what probably was a specific person in time and place. Essentially, these figurines represent different people. And unlike the last figurine, we do know for sure what the stance of this figurine is, as we can see that this figurine is in this seated position. This terracotta shares the same eye shape as the last figurine with this triangular eye shape, hollow people, and a curvilinear eyebrow above the eye. So these are some of the recurring motifs that we will see across these terracottas. We see his elongated face with the stylized nose, lips, and once again, the hair as well. And this terracotta is currently at the Louvre Museum in Paris. It's probably one of the most famous knock terracottas that exists. And I wanted to show you all this male head that is currently on exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. It's a bit different than our previous ceramics, and that we are only seeing a head. And this head is life-sized. So there were many large heads like this that were once part of fuller sculptures. Unfortunately, the lack of written record, combined with the fact that this head was eluded, makes it difficult to note its specific importance. But still, we can observe how this terracotta shares characteristics with the much smaller full-body terracottas. For example, we see yet again these triangular eyes, this hollowed pupil, and this curvilinear eyebrow. And then we also see this very unique hairstyle. This hairstyle is what we know today as Zulu or Antunas. And we also have some heads of women. Although this head is not life-sized, it is much smaller than our previous example. And the available images of this artwork are not the best, so I won't go into too much detail here. But I wanted to show you guys that females are also presented in full figurines and these standalone heads. Yale University has a whole collection of knock terracottas. Due to a combination of factors, the university has wealthy donors. Of course, it is one of the top private schools in the entire country. And for that reason, Yale University Galleries has access to cultures that is rare for the majority of institutions. There are thousands of African artworks in this university's collection, and we can imagine that many of these works came into their collection under suspicious circumstances. And before we move on to the next culture, I wanted to talk about these animals very briefly. So we do get representations of elephants and animals such as cats on these terracottas. As you might remember from our Egyptian module, the Egyptians loved cats. Almost 2,000 miles away from Egypt, it looks like the knock people did too. And of course, there would also be elephants nearby in this part of West Africa. And we see the elephant represented in knock terracottas, both in these heads and as reliefs of a full elephant. So northwest of the knock people came the much later empire of Mali. We will not cover this entire empire, and that's because it does lead into the post-1350 timeframe. Regardless, there are things made pre-1350 that survive and teach us much about ancient Mali, and particularly the Djenne Songhai people of Mali. These people flourished from the 12th to the 16th century, but they lived in Mali far before this as well, with evidence of their existence as far back as 200 CE. The formation of the Djenne civilization comes right around the time when archaeologists note the disbandment of the knock people. So the Djenne people live in a site of the same name, and like any civilization, they need water. And they got their water from the nearby Niger River, located in West Africa's Niger Delta. And unlike the knock culture, the Djenne people were influenced by outside religion, and we are going to talk about this in their artwork. The predominant religion here is Islam, and this happens due to the spread of Islam throughout the continent, the African continent, around the 10th and 11th centuries. So Islam is spread through military conquests, trade routes, and missionaries on the African continent, and in Western Europe as well. And you may remember from the Islamic module how the Iberian Peninsula was once named Al Angeles. So a lot of this region is going to be consisted of Islamic beliefs. And we're going to talk a little bit about the largest mud brick structure in the world, and it is the Great Mosque of Djenne. It's about 12 meters tall throughout, and then 16 meters tall in these minarets. The Great Mosque of Djenne was built by the 26th king of Djenne, King Khoi Khonbo, and he reigned during the 13th century. King Khorboro utilized the local materials of mud and wood to build a place of Muslim worship. Again, it was by this time that Islam had taken over the nation as the main religion. For about 200 years, and they wanted to make this structure to worship Allah. And this structure that we see today has been significantly modified from how it looked in the 13th century. It's been rebuilt multiple times, and it does need consistent upkeep as all adobe and mud buildings do. If nobody re-plasters this building, then the exterior will melt when it rains. And Mali is part of the Sahel, which is a transitional zone in Africa between the Sahara Desert and the humid savanna to the south. So weather can be a bit harsh here, and that means that stuff made out of mud like this is, you know, prone to the elements and does need consistent upkeep. So while they are aesthetically intriguing, the wood planks that protrude from the great mosque actually play a significant role in the upkeep of the temple. And these wood planks are known as torans. And they are used as tools for scaffolding, so that way individuals can access and re-plaster higher portions of the mosque each year. And this is done in a ceremony called the Krepisaj. In our contemporary era, thousands of people from Mali will come together in April and re-plaster this temple. So the Islamic influence in this building is visually observed in the prayer wall, or the Qibla wall, which faces east towards Mecca. And we saw Qibla walls in other Islamic buildings from our module on Islamic art. For example, you might remember the great mosque of Cordoba in Spain, and the Qibla wall there that was adorned with Byzantine mosaics. So this central wall is also the highest point of the mosque at, again, 16 meters tall. And we do see the three minarets here. I do speculate that these could be a bit taller if it weren't so difficult to keep them upright. Again, this is mud. And this temple does overall demonstrate how far back Islam is absorbed into African society. And to this day, the majority of Mali's population is Islamic, with over 90% of the nation's inhabitants practicing the religion. So I did want to show you all very quickly the interior of the temple. So people would position themselves on these rugs, facing the Qibla wall, so that they prayed towards Mecca. And here's a small close-up of one of the minarets. And we see that these minarets are topped off with ostrich eggs. Ostriches are a symbol of fertility and purity in the Malian region. So there's obviously some very sophisticated thinking going on, since nothing here is made just because. An intriguing thing about Djenne as a whole site is that it flourished despite not being part of the larger Mali empire that was founded by ruler Sundiata Keita. So Sundiata Keita, he is known as the Lion King of Mali. He grew up unable to walk and to talk. And eventually he ended up founding the Malian empire that surrounded Djenne. So now we're going to take a look at some Djenne ceramics. Djenne ceramics were often found in tombs and even in homes. So this leads us to believe that they were meant to be representations of the deceased or to pay homage to the figures in wider Djenne culture. Far and away the most well-known ceramic of the Djenne people is this seated figure from the Met. And I won't go into too much detail here because you do have a video to watch on this figure. But I will say that this figure has multiple interpretations and they arise because he was looted. So some scholars believe that this figure is ill. It was around this time that the trans-Saharan trade routes ran through Africa and with one stop being in Djenne. And as a result of this trading, different diseases were spreading throughout the Malian empire. So with the religion, right, we're also getting the spread of disease. However, other scholars believe that these markings could be some type of deliberate scarification. And this is supported by the fact that these markings are linear, right, versus being randomly placed throughout his body. There are also theories that nothing is wrong with this figure and that he is simply stylized in a way that more Eurocentric ways of thinking don't quite grasp. But whatever the case, he is certainly unique. So the next two figures are super neat in that they are part of a contemporary push to repatriate or return ancient artworks to their place of origin. And why would this happen? Well, the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston representatives determines that these figures were acquired through looting after the 1970 UNESCO convention. And at that convention, it was decided that museums with illegally acquired objects would return those objects to their owners. Of course, a lot of museums continue to dance around the 1970 agreement or ignore it to begin with. But in 2022, so very recently, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston decided to give these back to the government of Mali. So something to take away from this is that conversations regarding illegal art acquisitions are being held as we speak. And the government of Mali has limited research on their ancient culture and their artworks to ensure that the art market isn't fueling the illicit trade of ancient artworks in and out of their country even more. So some Jennifer years such as this one show people on horseback. And once again, we see this exaggerated human and animal limbs, right, different proportions in the bodies. What's pretty cool about this horse and rider is some of the patterning on the clothing. I'm going to take a wild guess here, but this sort of adornment on the horse looks to be like Ori shells, which if I am correct, would have been the result of trading with coastal civilizations in Africa. So we're going to take a look at an archer figure as well. And this figure is neat because there are once again several interpretations as to what he is supposed to be representing. Some believe he could be a member of Sundiata Keita's army from early on, but Jene is separate from the rest of the Mali empire. So this would likely be an ally of the Jene empire. Again, we are not too sure. That's the danger of looting from tombs is that we have a when we don't know what it was found beside, who it was found beside, all those types of things. So now we are going to move on to Ethiopia. And the history of Ethiopia is very long, characterized by some of these periods here. So we have the Christian Ascomite period, post Ascomite period, the Zagwe period, which we will be talking about, and then the early Solomonic period. So we are going to focus on the Zagwe period because it does leave us at approximately 1350 Common Era, which is when our class ends. And this period brings some of the developments to Ethiopia that are actually going to continue to influence the nation today. So the side of the architecture that we are going to discuss, which is Lalibela, is located in the northern part of the nation. And unlike Mali, which was impacted by the spread of Islam, Ethiopia was affected by the spread of Christianity. By the fourth century Common Era, Christianity had a firm stability in the nation. Hence the name of the Christian Ascomite period here. And arguments between Islam and Christianity stem back to the times of Jesus and Muhammad. And in Ethiopia, Christianity won its place. So the development of architecture that we are going to discuss is attributed to the most famous ruler of the short-lived Zagwe period. And his name is Gebra Maskal Lalibela. He ruled from 1181 to 1221 Common Era. And Lalibela visited Jerusalem shortly before it was captured by Islamic forces in 1187 Common Era. The Muslims at this time halted Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem. But Lalibela was inspired by Jerusalem's architecture. And he wanted to create a place, sort of New Jerusalem, in Africa, where Christians could gather amid the turmoil in Jerusalem. And so the idea for the Lalibela churches came to life. These churches were carved out from gigantic blocks of stone in the earth over 24 years. I'll explain this more and it will make more sense in the next slides with visuals to accompany. So like other African civilizations that we have looked at this far, the Ethiopians worked with the resources around them to make these churches. They literally dug into the volcanic stone in the and did the tedious work of carving into the earth similar to the site of Petra in modern-day Jordan in the Middle East. So four of the 11 churches were freestanding monolithic churches and seven of them were carved into the earth via a wall. So hammers and chisels were used to create these churches, with the largest being 109 feet long, 77 feet wide, and 35 feet deep. As it can be imagined, there were teams of people used to make these, and they are said to have been completed over 24 years. This is a lot of time and effort, but it does make sense when we think about how many people would have been working on these every day. So it would have been hundreds if not thousands, right? A quick note here is that all of these monuments were connected via these passageways that were also carved into the earth. And volcanic stone is not actually that difficult to carve, so that leads me to my next point. I do want to caution that there are lots of theories out there that these churches were built by aliens or non-Ethiopians. However, that is completely neglecting how dedicated that the ancient Ethiopians were to Christianity and to their kings. King Lalibela was very influential, and again, these people really did have a lot of time on their hands. They would have been able to make stuff like this, and also volcanic stone is very easy to carve. It's not a very hard stone. So here we are seeing the Church of Saint George. So check out the style and the overall imagery of this church. We see, you know, influence of the arches and as well as the symbology of the roof, kind of this plus or cross symbol. So the focus here with these churches was not the church itself, but it was actually the pilgrimage to and from these churches. These buildings were meant to be experienced and enjoyed by Christians. And there were and are constant masses that go in on these churches today. These churches hold daily masses for the people of Lalibela. So here's an aerial perspective of this church, as well as a perspective from the ground. So we do see how the symbol of the cross is quite literally etched into the monument, and these entryways are very dramatic and powerful. Definitely something that alludes to a sophisticated and planned type of architecture. So we're going to take a look at another one of these churches. And here we are at the House of the Savior of the World, which I will not try pronouncing in its actual language. But it is far and away the largest of the Lalibela churches, and it is located in the area of the site. We do observe some, again, different types of arches and windows, these very tall and commanding columns as well. And one thing I also wanted to mention here is that the photos of the interior of these buildings are kind of difficult to come across. And there's a reason for that. These are very spiritual places. So to be taking pictures on the inside would be considered inappropriate, and that's why it's kind of difficult to come across. However, I did want to show you that, you know, again, we are seeing some of these arches, some of this light that's being let in. It's all planned, and it's all very well thought out. And the very last church that we are going to look at in this class is the Abba Libanus. And it's one of the seven churches at Lalibela that is built into the wall of the volcanic stone. So we get an idea of the scale of this type of structure, right? So it's not too large, but perhaps this is one of those structures that might more closely resemble Petra in Jordan. So this is, again, an experience. And while these churches all have these windows and these kind of like layered motifs, this plus sign yet again, I do think most people can agree that they all convey their own sort of experience that differentiates one from another. You would have to go through a pilgrimage to really experience each site. And to end the class, I want to compare these three different cultures in Africa that we have looked at. The Naaq people of Nigeria disbanded before the spread of Islam and Christianity into the continent. And we do see in this image how Islam essentially takes over as the main religion for pretty much all of North Africa and some, most actually, West African nations. Christianity takes over most of the central and southern part of the continent, with traditional African religions persisting in two nations. And this is important to consider because the art of the Naaq was made for quite a different purpose and under different beliefs than the art of Mali and the art of Ethiopia. The Great Mosque of Djenne and the Lalibela churches are made in nations with different religions, but both were made for religious purposes and as places of worship. The art of Africa is often neglected in these art history surveys, so I wanted to include it in this class. And that is all for this lecture. Thank you and good luck on the rest of your college and professional endeavours.