26/12/2024
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ILE-IFE.
Ile-Ife
In south-western Nigeria, most Yoruba persons recognize Ile-Ife as a remote ancestral home and the cradle of their civilization
According to a widespread myth of creation, it was at Ile-Ife that mankind was molded,and this ancestral home is the ‘source’ whence all arts, civilization, and dynasties originated. It is also a privileged point of contact between the human and invisible realms,a place that inspires fear and respect, where the spirits of the deceased return and actively influence the world of the living. The town was, and still is, characterized by its large number of shrines attracting devotees from far away. Successful shrines like that of Ifa, with its initiates trained in well-codified divination and healing techniques, exported their practice far beyond Yorubaland. Ile-Ife is a spiritual and a political center, a place where power and the sacred became entangled in inextricable ways over a very long period. It is, as such, the ideal place in which to research the chronology and process of urbanization in the forest belt of West Africa. The key to Ile-Ife’s reputation and success is its unfathomable history. The town is considered one of the oldest cities in the Guinean forest and is home to one of the most complex and detailed corpora in West Africa of orally transmitted myths, stories, and historical accounts of the past. From an archaeological perspective, it has also long been recognized as one of the earliest urban centers in the tropical forests of West Africa, home to one of the most intriguing civilizations of the Old World.
In 1910, Frobenius was one of the first European scholars to uncover its rich terracotta and copper/brass statuary tradition (Frobenius, 1913). In 1938 and 1939, the discovery in the courtyard of the Wunmonije compound of an impressive series of copper/brass heads turned the European perception of African artistry upside down (Bascom, 1938; Willett, 1960). This inaugurated an impressive series of fortuitous, fabulous discoveries of artworks when laborers were digging with the purpose of transforming the old town into a modern colonial city. Professional archaeology was introduced into the town by the colonial administration in the late 1940s, with the posting of Bernard Fagg—otherwise known for encountering the Nok culture of north-central Nigeria—as the representative of the newly formed Department of Antiquities. The first test units were opened under his supervision in 1949 (Willett, 1960: 239). The primary objective of archaeology at the time, however, remained focused on the unearthing and documentation of exceptional objects rather than their contexts. Such was still the case in 1953, when a systematic campaign was organized to explore the city with the digging of 80 ‘well-shafts’ distributed across the town and its sacred sites, including Osangangan Obamakin, Ogunladi, Olokun Walode, and the Olokun grove, the latter having been previously excavated by Frobenius. These excavations did not result in any publications (Willett, 1960: 240-241). Better standards were imposed by Willett when he excavated the site of Ita Yemoo or Yemoo grove, after laborers had discovered remarkable bronze objects in November 1957 while digging foundations for a new projected building (Willett, 2014: I.2). Work was discontinued and the land purchased by the government to become an archaeological reserve under the authority of the Department of Antiquities. Willett excavated what he interpreted as being at least two shrine complexes which contained brass and terracotta objects lying on fragments of potsherd pavements. These objects soon became iconic of Ile-Ife’s art. A complete potsherd pavement was uncovered at a short distance from the original construction site. It was preserved under a solid open shed which still stands today (Willett, 1959a; 1959b; 2004: I.2). Unfortunately, we were unable to find a site map and, with the exception of the shed already mentioned, we do not know the exact areas Willett excavated within the Ita Yemoo compound. Potsherd pavements are an intriguing witness to the ways urban spaces were organized and built in West Africa, and particularly in Yorubaland (Aguigah, 1995). At Ile-Ife, fragments of potsherd pavements can still be seen within a radius of at least 6 km from the modern center of the town (Willett, 2004: I.2). If better understood, they could become effective chronological indicators of urbanization in the region. They are in urgent need of documentation, as they are fast disappearing from the modern urban landscape. In 1960, as Nigeria was celebrating her accession to independence, Willett published the first synthesis of the archaeology of Ife in the form of an article in the newly created Journal of African History. However, at a period when African Art was becoming fashionable, he soon chose to “concentrate excavations on his ethnographic and art interests” (Graham Connah, P.C., August 2015) and eventually accepted a position at Northwestern University as a professor of African Art and Archaeology in 1966. His subsequent career was that of an art historian, and his excavations were never properly published. In fact, archaeology occupied little more than a marginal role in his first important monograph published in 1967. In 1969, Paul Ozanne published a new synthesis with a particular focus on the chronology of Ife’s town walls. Building on an earlier map published by Willett in his 1967 monograph, he proposed a topographical and chronological model that remained a baseline for subsequent similar projects (see for instance, Willett, 2004), especially since a substantial part of the walls have since been destroyed in the process of urban land development. The following year, Ekpo Eyo (1970), also an art historian, published the results of a first series of the excavation of a new series of terracottas at Lafogido. Similar works with a stronger emphasis on sculptures than on the archaeological context followed in subsequent years (Eyo, 1974; Eluyemi, 1975). In this context, Garlake is the only scholar that emerges as a professional archaeologist, with two detailed studies of the excavations of two ancient pavement sites associated with ritual deposits at Obalara (1974) and Woye Asiri Family Land (1977). In spite of the intriguing light these excavations shed on a possible break in ancient Ile-Ife’s occupation at the turn of the 15th century CE, they contributed only marginally to the long-term chronology of the town. However, they did provide strong evidence for the use of potsherd pavements at Ife between the 12th and 14th centuries CE. In contrast, the presence of maize impressions on potsherds used in other documented pavements allows us to say that the latter were in use at least until Early Modern times (Willett, 1962; Stanton and Willett, 1963). In the 1980s, Ife disappeared from the front stage of African archaeology. Small-scale archaeological projects then focused on questions relative to the industrial production of glass beads (Adeduntan, 1985; Oluyemi, 1987; Lankton et al., 2006; Babalola, (2011,2015). New projects led by Adisa Ogunfolakan, Akin Ogundiran, Babatunde Babalola,and Gérard Chouin, however, are paving the way to a reinstatement of Ife as a central locus in African history and archaeology. A recent book by art historian Suzanne P. Blier (2015) has already opened the door to a multi-disciplinary re-examination of Ife as a gateway to a better understanding of the urban civilization that developed in the West African Guinean forests in medieval times.
