S
Brass alloys from Ife are compared with a selection of brasses from Benin. Four sources of mixed zinc and lead ore were used in Ife. In Benin lead and copper from different sources were added to these four alloys, which may represent the melting down of older castings. Comparisons are made with analyses from Europe and other parts of Africa.
No general account of the archaeology of Ife has ever been published, although the demand for such an account has been increasing with the growing interest in the art of Ife. This paper attempts to fill the gap by providing a survey of the investigations which have been conducted there. The reader is also referred to a paper by William Fagg and the present author which attempts to summarize the reliable factual knowledge about Ancient Ife, inferring from the archaeological finds evidence of the materials which have not survived. So far as possible repetition here of material contained in that paper is avoided. Moreover, since the archaeologist who works on ethnohistoric problems has other means of investigation than the pick and shovel, this paper will refer to ethnographic accounts as well as to excavations.
This paper is the first in a series summarizing, for the benefit of historians and archaeologists from other areas, the latest developments in radiocarbon dating for the later prehistory of western and northern Africa. These articles will appear every two years, alternating with similar surveys of eastern and southern Africa. A selection of more than 200 dates from those not previously published in this Journal is discussed, and dates obtained by thermoluminescence are quoted for the first time. It should be emphasized that most of the dates included are published in advance of full reports which are being prepared by the archaeologists concerned. The conclusions reached are therefore provisional and may well require modification in the light of a fuller examination of the related archaeological data.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.