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 States of America

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Brooklyn Museum

Internal Data (eng)

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Carlebach, Julius

Dealer

Gallery

Julius Carlebach Gallery

Peralta-Ramos, Arturo

Peralta-Ramos, Paul

Rogers, Millicent Abigail

Collector

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Digital Benin linked field	Institution field	Value
object id	ObjectID	69022
designation, object type	Title	Head Shaped Receptacle
description	Description	Head attached to four short legs. Open cylinder form, large eyes, thick nose and protruding mouth.
material	Medium	Copper alloy
dimensions	Dimensions	6 7/8 × 4 1/8 in. (17.5 × 10.5 cm)
inscriptions	Inscriptions
date made	Alpha Sort 2	late 19th or early 20th century
date made	Begin Date	1868
production place	Geography	Place made: Benin City, Royal Court of Benin, Edo State, Nigeria, Africa
prior source	Credit Line	Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos
provenance	Provenance	Prior to 1953, provenance not yet documented; before 1953, reportedly Julius Carlebach, New York; by 1953, acquired by Millicent A. Rogers; 1953, Millicent A. Rogers to Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, by descent; 1956, gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos to the Brooklyn Museum.
ethnic attribution	Alpha Sort	Edo
ethnic attribution	Maker	Edo
exhibition history	Exhibition History	Nassau County Museum of Fine Arts, "The Artist's Language: African Traditional and Modern Art," November 9, 1986 - January 18, 1987.
bibliography	Published References
	Object Number	56.6.65
	Sort Number	1956 6 65

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