The Apapa Hoard is an important collection of medieval bronze jewellery found at Apapa near

Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...

, Nigeria. Dating to the early 16th Century, the hoard has been part of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

's collection since 1930.

Description

Items from the treasure consist entirely of bronze

jewellery Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a wester ...

. They include a pair of wire bracelets, two bracelets designed in the form of interlocking animals, two staff-mounts with pendant bells, two ring-shaped armlets, a group of bells, a ring with cascabels and a

breast plate A breastplate or chestplate is a device worn over the torso to protect it from injury, as an item of religious significance, or as an item of status. A breastplate is sometimes worn by mythological beings as a distinctive item of clothing. It is ...

in the shape of a ram's head with pendant bells. The latter object is the most prestigious item from the hoard and is one of the finest cast bronzes ever found in southern

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

.British Museum Collection
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Discovery

The hoard was discovered by accident in 1907 when a

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

was being dug to a depth of 3 metres. The jewellery would have been worn by an elite member of a local tribe living in 15th-16th centuries and has been attributed by scholars to the

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

Kingdom of

Owo Owo is a local government area in Ondo state, Nigeria. Between 1400 and 1600 CE, it was the capital of a Yoruba city-state. The local government area has a population of 222,262 based on 2006 population census. History In their oral traditi ...

, which was for a long time under the control of the

Benin Empire The Kingdom of Benin, also known as the Edo Kingdom, or the Benin Empire ( Bini: ') was a kingdom within what is now southern Nigeria. It has no historical relation to the modern republic of Benin, which was known as Dahomey from the 17th c ...

. Soon after its discovery, the hoard was acquired by a private collector who later sold it to the British Museum in 1930.

References

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Description

Discovery

See also

References

Further reading