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Igbo-Ukwu Bronzes
The archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu revealed bronze artifacts dated to the 9th century A.D. which were initially discovered by Isiah Anozie in 1939 while digging a well in his compound in Igbo-Ukwu, an Igbo town in Anambra State, Nigeria. As a result of these finds, three archaeological sites were excavated in 1959 and 1964 by Charles Thurstan Shaw which revealed more than 700 high quality artifacts of copper, bronze and iron, as well as about 165,000 glass, carnelian and stone beads, pottery, textiles and ivory beads, cups, horns. They are the oldest bronze artifacts known in West Africa and were manufactured centuries before the emergence of other known bronze producing centers such as those of Ife and Benin. The bronzes include numerous ritual vessels, pendants, crowns, breastplates, staff ornaments, swords, and fly-whisk handles. Impact on art history Peter Garlake compares the Igbo-Ukwu bronzes "to the finest jewelry of rococo Europe or of Carl Faberge," and William Buller Fagg s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igbo-Ukwu
Igbo-Ukwu (English: ''Great Igbo'') is a town in the Nigerian state of Anambra in the south-central part of the country. The town comprises three quarters namely Obiuno, Ngo, and Ihite (an agglomeration of 4 quarters) with several villages within each quarter and thirty-six(36) administrative wards.It is also bordered by Ora-eri, Ichida, Azigbo, Ezinifite, Amichi, Isuofia, Ikenga and some other towns. Others include Ekwulummi, Ụmụọna, etc Archaeological significance Igbo-Ukwu is notable for three archaeological sites, where excavations have found bronze artifacts from a highly sophisticated bronze metal-working culture dating to 9th century AD, centuries before other known bronzes of the region. The first, called ''Igbo Isaiah'', was uncovered in 1938 by Isaiah Anozie, a local villager, who found the bronze works while digging beside his home. Five bronze artifacts from the original excavation are now in the British Museum's collection. They include a small staff, a he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini (, ; 3 November 150013 February 1571) was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, and author. His best-known extant works include the ''Cellini Salt Cellar'', the sculpture of ''Perseus with the Head of Medusa'', and his autobiography, which has been described as "one of the most important documents of the 16th century." Biography Youth Benvenuto Cellini was born in Florence, in present-day Italy. His parents were Giovanni Cellini and Maria Lisabetta Granacci. They were married for 18 years before the birth of their first child. Benvenuto was the second child of the family. The son of a musician and builder of musical instruments, Cellini was pushed towards music, but when he was fifteen, his father reluctantly agreed to apprentice him to a goldsmith, Antonio di Sandro, nicknamed Marcone. At the age of 16, Benvenuto had already attracted attention in Florence by taking part in an affray with youthful companions. He was banished for six months and lived in Siena, wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lejja
Lejja is a community comprising 33 villages in Enugu State of South-Eastern Nigeria. It is populated by the Igbo people and located about 14 Kilometers from Nsukka. It is the location of a prehistoric archaeological site which contains iron smelting furnaces and slag dated to 2000 BC. The village square at Otobo ugwu which is likely the first village square in lejja contains over 800 blocks of slag with an average weight of between 34 and 57 kg. Geophysical investigations have Located buried iron slag in several other locations in the community. Further reading *Museums, archaeologists and indigenous people: archaeology and the public in NigeriaIRON TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICAL POWER: EXAMPLES FROM THE IRON SMELTING BELT OF NSUKKA AREA, ENUGU STATE, SOUTH-EASTERN NIGERIAby CHIDOZIE S. AGU and CHUKWUMA, C. OPATA, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA See also *Opi (archaeological site) *Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu The archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu revealed bronze artifacts dated to the 9th centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fustat
Fusṭāṭ ( ar, الفُسطاط ''al-Fusṭāṭ''), also Al-Fusṭāṭ and Fosṭāṭ, was the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, and the historical centre of modern Cairo. It was built adjacent to what is now known as Old Cairo by the Rashidun Muslim general 'Amr ibn al-'As immediately after the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, and featured the Mosque of Amr, the first mosque built in Egypt. The city reached its peak in the 12th century, with a population of approximately 200,000.Williams, p. 37 It was the centre of administrative power in Egypt, until it was ordered burnt in 1168 by its own vizier, Shawar, to keep its wealth out of the hands of the invading Crusaders. The remains of the city were eventually absorbed by nearby Cairo, which had been built to the north of Fustat in 969 when the Fatimids conquered the region and created a new city as a royal enclosure for the Caliph. The area fell into disrepair for hundreds of years and was used as a rubbish dump ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Cairo
Old Cairo (Arabic: مصر القديمة , Miṣr al-Qadīma, Egyptian pronunciation: Maṣr El-ʾAdīma) is a historic area in Cairo, Egypt, which includes the site of a Roman-era fortress and of Islamic-era settlements pre-dating the founding of Cairo proper in AD 969. It is also considered part of what is referred to as " Historic Cairo" or "Islamic Cairo", and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History and description Roman fort and Coptic Cairo The Babylon Fortress is a Roman fortification around which many of the Egyptian Christians' oldest churches were built. It is unrelated to ancient Babylon or its empire. The area of Coptic Cairo is also part of Old Cairo. It comprises ruins of Roman fortifications and many old churches. Modern tourists visit locations such as the Coptic Museum, the Babylon Fortres, the Hanging Church and other Coptic churches. Count Gabriel Habib Sakakini Pasha (1841–1923), who had become a household name in his time, built a palace and a church i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnelian
Carnelian (also spelled cornelian) is a brownish-red mineral commonly used as a semi-precious gemstone. Similar to carnelian is sard, which is generally harder and darker (the difference is not rigidly defined, and the two names are often used interchangeably). Both carnelian and sard are varieties of the silica mineral chalcedony colored by impurities of iron oxide. The color can vary greatly, ranging from pale orange to an intense almost-black coloration. Significant localities include Yanacodo (Peru); Ratnapura (Sri Lanka); and Thailand. It has been found in Indonesia, Brazil, India, Russia (Siberia), and Germany. History upPolish signet ring in light-orange carnelian intaglio showing Korwin coat of arms The red variety of chalcedony has been known to be used as beads since the Early Neolithic in Bulgaria. The first faceted (with constant 16+16=32 facets on each side of the bead) carnelian beads are described from the Varna Chalcolithic necropolis (middle of the 5th m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egalitarian
Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. Egalitarianism is the doctrine that all citizens of a state should be accorded exactly equal rights. Egalitarian doctrines have motivated many modern social movements and ideas, including the Enlightenment, feminism, civil rights, and international human rights. The term ''egalitarianism'' has two distinct definitions in modern English, either as a political doctrine that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social and civil rights, or as a social philosophy advocating the removal of economic inequalities among people, economic egalitarianism, or the decentralization of power. Sources define egalitarianism as equality reflecting the natural stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their religion, language, economics, and other cultural practices. The foreign administrators rule the territory in pursuit of their interests, seeking to benefit from the colonised region's people and resources. It is associated with but distinct from imperialism. Though colonialism has existed since ancient times, the concept is most strongly associated with the European colonial period starting with the 15th century when some European states established colonising empires. At first, European colonising countries followed policies of mercantilism, aiming to strengthen the home-country economy, so agreements usually restricted the colony to trading only with the metropole (mother country). By the mid-19th century, the British Empire gave up me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isotope Analysis
Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food web, to reconstruct past environmental and climatic conditions, to investigate human and animal diets, for food authentification, and a variety of other physical, geological, palaeontological and chemical processes. Stable isotope ratios are measured using mass spectrometry, which separates the different isotopes of an element on the basis of their mass-to-charge ratio. Tissues affected Isotopic oxygen is incorporated into the body primarily through ingestion at which point it is used in the formation of, for archaeological purposes, bones and teeth. The oxygen is incorporated into the hydroxylcarbonic apatite of bone and tooth enamel. Bone is continually remodelled throughout the lifetime of an individual. Although the rate of tur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cire Perdue
Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is cast from an original sculpture. Intricate works can be achieved by this method. The oldest known examples of this technique are approximately 6,500-year-old (4550–4450 BC) and attributed to gold artefacts found at Bulgaria's Varna Necropolis. A copper amulet from Mehrgarh, Indus Valley civilization, in Pakistan, is dated to circa 4,000 BC. Cast copper objects, found in the Nahal Mishmar hoard in southern Israel, which belong to the Chalcolithic period (4500–3500 BC), are estimated, from carbon-14 dating, to date to circa 3500 BC. In Other examples from somewhat later periods are from Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. Lost-wax casting was widespread in Europe until the 18th century, when a piece-moulding process came to predomi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtuoso
A virtuoso (from Italian ''virtuoso'' or , "virtuous", Late Latin ''virtuosus'', Latin ''virtus'', "virtue", "excellence" or "skill") is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as fine arts, music, singing, playing a musical instrument, or composition. Meaning This word also refers to a person who has cultivated appreciation of artistic excellence, either as a connoisseur or collector. The plural form of ''virtuoso'' is either ''virtuosi'' or the Anglicisation ''virtuosos'', and the feminine forms are ''virtuosa'' and ''virtuose''. According to ''Music in the Western civilization'' by Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin: ...a virtuoso was, originally, a highly accomplished musician, but by the nineteenth century the term had become restricted to performers, both vocal and instrumental, whose technical accomplishments were so pronounced as to dazzle the public. The defining element of virtuosity is the performance ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
