The commemorative head, Uhunmwu Elao, of an Ọba placed at the king’s ancestral shrine could be made from bronze, wood or terra-cotta. The altar consists of a commemorative head that supported the carved ivory tusk. It could have a circular base or a rectangular-shaped base. However, they all have a unifying feature, which is the hole at the centre in which the tusk is placed.

Uhunmwu-Elao

Commemorative heads are placed on ancestral altars and shrines. They can be cast in brass, carved in wood or sculpted from clay and fired. Brass commemorative heads would only be cast to furnish a past Ọba’s ancestral shrine and, in a smaller number of cases, the Iy’Ọba. Wooden examples, sometimes with brass plate attached, would be made for titled chiefs. Terracotta heads would be used to furnish the ancestral altars of members of the Igun-Eronmwon, and it is understood that some terracotta heads date to the Ogiso period, predating the thirteenth century. Commemorative heads are not portraits of the deceased but memorials (Bradbury, 1973

Commemorative heads have been crucial in developing chronologies for Benin artworks. These studies have looked at the style and analysis of the copper-alloy composition as well as thermoluminescence dating. However, dating is still a matter of debate, with most scholars agreeing only that heads with flanges are more recent (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries), and those commemorative heads with low zinc percentages in the copper-alloy composition date from late fifteenth to early seventeenth century (for full discussion, see Junge, 2007

Commemorative Head

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The British Museum’s archives are held in various locations across the institution. The items listed here aim to give an overview of the main locations where relevant archival and photographic material relating to objects from the Kingdom of Benin is housed. Key areas relevant for cultural objects from the Kingdom of Benin are: Corporate Archives; Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas archives; Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory archives; and the Anthropology Library and Research Centre.

Website

Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas 

Online Catalogue

Library & Archive

British Museum

Internal Data (eng)

Wikidata Link

More info

Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London

Museum

Donor

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