You probably have learnt a thing or two about Igbo Ukwu artifacts in school, while reading a book or browsing the internet. If you crave to know about how these artifacts were discovered, their attributes, and when they were possibly manufactured, among other relevant information, read this piece to the end. This article will satisfy your curiosity by providing you with all there is to know about Igbo Ukwu artifacts that were discovered in what is now Anambra State.
All you need to know about Igbo Ukwu artifacts would be discussed below:
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The Discovery of Igbo Ukwu Artifacts
During the colonial administration of Nigeria, in 1938, a man named Isaiah Anozie was digging in his compound for a well. In the process, he came across some objects of which he wasn’t aware of their significance. He gave some of the items he found to his friends and neighbours and kept some to himself, for example, the vessels he used to water his goats. These were the initial finds of the Igbo Ukwu artifacts.
After several months of Isaiah Anozie making the initial finds of the Igbo Ukwu artifacts, the British colonial district officer at the time, J. O. Field, learned of the finds while reading an anthropological journal. Eight years after the initial finds, J. O. handed over some of the artifacts to the Nigerian Department of Antiquities. And in 1954, the other artifacts found in Isaiah Anozie’s compound which were not sent to the Nigerian Department of Antiquities were collected by Surveyor of Antiquities, Kenneth Murray.
Years after, the Nigerian Department of Antiquities and the University of Ibadan approved the excavation of the areas around Isaiah Anozie’s compound by archaeologist Thurstan Shaw and his team. Thurstan Shaw and his team excavated three areas, namely: Igbo Isaiah, Igbo Richard, and Igbo Jonah. The artifacts discovered in the Igbo Isaiah excavation were situated 40 – 70cm below the soil’s surface. For the Igbo Richard excavation, the artifacts were seen between 1.75 – 2.5m below the surface while the third and last archaeological dig, Igbo Jonah had varied depths where the artifacts were discovered.
The Igbo Jonah excavation site was the largest by area, measuring 19m by 11m, yet the number of artifacts it produced was the smallest. It had some bronze sculptures, ritual pottery, animal bones, and charcoal. The Igbo Isaiah excavation site, on the other hand, had bronze, copper, and glass artifacts. Small pieces of pottery were the other items discovered in the Igbo Isaiah excavation site. In the Igbo Richard site, human remains from several individuals, beaded wristlets and anklets, and a wooden stool which has been associated with a single set of skeletal remains (likely that of a priest-king).
In 2019 and 2021, Pamela Jane Smith Shaw, wife of now-late Thurstan Shaw, and her team, after being granted permission by the Igwe of Igbo Ukwu in 2014, further explored the excavations Thurstan Shaw and his team dug between 1959 and 1964. Excavations to the west of Igbo Richard yielded an assemblage of pottery, bronze, iron objects and slags, chalk, bone and palm kernel.
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Chronology of Igbo Ukwu Artifacts
Radiocarbon dating is used to determine the age of organic materials, such as archaeological finds like the Igbo Ukwu artifacts. Expectedly, Thurstan Shaw in 1970, published the radiocarbon dates of the Igbo Ukwu artifacts to be between 1075 and 1110BP. At that time, the standard deviation of radiocarbon dates was +100 and +150 years, which dated the Igbo Ukwu site to the 9th century.
It’s to be noted that the standard deviation of radiocarbon dates in 1970 when Thurstan Shaw published the probable date of the Igbo Ukwu site wasn’t as accurate as recent advancements in radiocarbon dating. In 2022, a team of archaeologists led by Daraojimba disclosed that coal and wood samples from one of the Igbo Isaiah were dated between the 10th and 13th centuries. Another study by McIntosh et al. also claims that the radiocarbon date of Igbo Ukwu is the 10th century.
As a result of the advancement in radiocarbon dating technology, it is likely that some or all of the artifacts discovered at the Igbo Isaiah excavation site are somewhat younger than previously believed. However, it is certain that the Igbo Ukwu artifacts predated European contacts by several centuries and were manufactured hundreds of years before the emergence of other bronze-producing centres in West Africa such as those of Benin and Ife.
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Physical Attributes of the Igbo Ukwu Artifacts
This section of the article discusses the attributes of the various artifacts discovered in the Igbo Ukwu sites from 1938 when Anozie Isaiah first discovered them to the time when Thurstan Shaw’s team unearthed more in 1960. The artifacts included textiles, beads, and metal works, among several others.
The textile samples uncovered in 1938 when Anozie Isaiah was digging a well in his compound were woven with yarn that was 0.3 to 0.4mm in diameter and weave densities of both 24 warp and 16 weft/cm. The textile samples recovered from the 1960 excavations by Thurstan Shaw differed from those recovered in 1938 in terms of fibre types. The textile samples discovered in 1938 were made from leaf/grass fibers chiefly attributed to Raphia palms while those uncovered in 1960 were made from bast fibers attributed to Ficus trees.
Beads were part of the archaeological findings uncovered during the excavations of the Igbo Ukwu site. There were over 165,000 beads found, including glass and carnelian beads. Archaeologists believe that since the common type of beads discovered in the Igbo Ukwu site was the soda-lime glass bead produced using plant ash, Igbo Ukwu might have participated in long-distance trade as the glass used to make those beads (that is, soda-lime glass bead) were likely produced in Mesopotamia and eastern regions of Iran. However, not all glass bead chemical compositions have been traced to a source.
The metalwork artifacts uncovered in Igbo Ukwu suggest that the ancient smiths of Igbo Ukwu independently developed all the objects found in the archaeological digs as the ancient metal workers of Igbo Ukwu were not aware of techniques such as wire making, soldering, and riveting. Without these aforementioned techniques being used, the metal artifacts uncovered in Igbo Ukwu had such surface detail that make experts perplexed as to how they were created.
According to Wikipedia, The Grove Energy Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art described Igbo Ukwu metal works as being “among the most inventive and technically accomplished bronzes ever made.”. Experts assume that why the ancient smiths of Igbo Ukwu were able to produce fine surface detail could be that latex, instead of beeswax was used in producing the bronzes.
The metal workers of ancient Igbo Ukwu produced complex objects in stages, of which the different parts were fixed together by casting linking sections or brazing to join them. Another uniqueness of the Igbo Ukwu metalwork artifacts was that the compositions of the metal alloys used in the production process were of unusually high silver content. And most of the metal ore (about 85-90%) used to produce the bronze was sourced from the old mines in Abakiliki, located 100 kilometres away from Igbo Ukwu.