Calliope articles from February 2005

Calliope archives from February 2005

Kingdom of Benin in the 19th century.(Musings)
February 1, 2005... IF YOU HAVE VISITED OR READ ABOUT BENIN, THEN YOU ARE SURE TO KNOW about the tradition of the magnificently carved heads of Benin's king and Queen Mother. But did you know that the custom of carving the heads continues today? In fact, the...

The founding of Benin.
February 1, 2005... The city of Benin, located in the tropical rain forest near the coast of Nigeria on the Gulf of Guinea, has been home to the Edo peoples for more than 800 years. Contemporary archaeologists have dated it to A.D. 900 and describe it as a cluster...

A family of leaders.
February 1, 2005... Oba Eweka founded a dynasty of kings that has ruled Benin until the present day. The current king, Oba Erediauwa (b. 1923), is 38th in the line. Since the beginning of this dynasty, inheritance of the throne has gone from father to senior...

Rituals of kingship.
February 1, 2005... By the 1800s, Benin's rulers had gone from being the warrior kings of the 1400s and 1500s, set on expanding the empire, to sacred rulers bent on consolidating power. Royal ceremonies now occupied the calendar year, with each ruler performing...

The rituals continue today.
February 1, 2005... Every year during the Christmas season, rites of renewal are celebrated at the palace. Their purpose is to restore the vitality of the king and bring prosperity to the kingdom. The king pays homage to his father, is anointed with the blood of a...

Benin's royal art.
February 1, 2005... The people of Benin prefer to use ceremonies and artworks to help them remember past events. For centuries, Benin artists have created depictions of their kings, queens, warriors, priests, hunters, officials, and foreign visitors in bronze and...

The Queen Mother.
February 1, 2005... Women are rarely represented in the art of the Royal Court of Benin. However, some of the most prized works of art are actually of women. The largest number of pieces are bronze heads cast in memory of past Queen Mothers (see head at right)....

Word origins.(Fun With Words)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Tote Ever count the times you use, see, or hear the word "tote" in a day, in a week? Probably countless. There are tote bags and tote boards, and then there are the many times we "tote" something from one place to another. Well, "tote" is...

Word stories.(Fun With Words)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Banjo For this word, there are two possible derivations. One says that "banjo" traces its roots to a mispronunciation of the word bandore by early African Americans. Bandore was the American pronunciation of the Spanish word banduria, an...

Expressions.(Fun With Words)
February 1, 2005... Mumbo Jumbo A great expression, and one that's used to mean rituals and words that are meaningless. The phrase started in the late 1700s with the Scottish explorer Mungo Park. On Park's return from a trip to Africa, he spoke of a practice...

A mighty city.(Benin City)
February 1, 2005... Only the Oba could have a rattle staff made of brass. These staffs are found on all ancestral altars and represent the importance of the community over the individual. The carving at the top of the one at right represents a hand holding a...

Study the story.(Activity)
February 1, 2005... Bronze wall plaques hung in the Oba's palace, each one telling a story of the royal family. Scholars today study the bronzes to read those stories. Study the two bronze wall plaques to the left. See if you can spot the 10 ways in which the...

Altars to the Oba.
February 1, 2005... In the first years of his reign, every Oba commissions the making of a brass commemorative head in honor of his father. The head is placed or an altar at the palace alongside other artifacts of spiritual and political significance. The altar...

The role of animals in Benin art and culture.
February 1, 2005... The art of the Benin kingdom is rich with animal representations--from crocodiles and chameleons to leopards and mudfish. All are found in royal art, on shrine statuary, and in folklore. Here and throughout the world, animals serve as basic...

The mighty leopard.
February 1, 2005... While the Oba is considered the king of the village, the leopard is considered the king of the forest. Fierce, swift, aggressive, and careful, leopards do not, so the Edo believe, kill humans without cause. Rather, they do so only at the...

Trade bridges differences.(Portugal trade)
February 1, 2005... The desire for luxury goods such as fabrics, spices, and gold motivated a European quest for a faster means to reach South Asia. It was this search that led the Portuguese down the coast of West Africa to Sierra Leone in 1460. Due to several...

Incredible ivories.
February 1, 2005... Objects made of ivory from the west coast of Africa were among the first African artifacts brought back to Europe through trade. The discovery of vast quantities of West African ivory, called "white gold" in Europe, transformed the nature of...

Ask Calliope.
February 1, 2005... [?] What's a mandala? --Beth, Web post [!] The word "mandala" means "circle," and it is used as an aid in meditation. As a representation of the realm of a Buddhist's holy being, a mandala is ultimately a map of a person's inner...

Encyclopedia of African Nations and Civilizations.(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Encyclopedia of African Nations and Civilizations, by Keith Lye and the Diagram Group (Facts On File, 2002, www.factsonfile.com), uses an encyclopedic format to include more than 450 entries that discuss the kingdoms, empires, and nations that...

Royal Art of Benin: The Perls Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Royal Art of Benin: The Perls Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Kate Ezra (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992, www.metmuseum.org), follows a historical overview of Benin with chapters detailing the pieces in the collection--all...

The Royal Art of Benin: a Resource for Educators.(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Royal Art of Benin: A Resource for Educators (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994, www.metmuseum.org) is an excellent teaching guide with posters, slides, explanatory text, and classroom activities that can be adapted to elementary, junior...

Cobblestone resources.
February 1, 2005... Materials that complement this theme's topic, "The African Kingdom of Benin," and are available from Cobblestone Publishing include: Liberia (FTP0101) Mali (FAC9702) Mansa Musa (FTP9909) Senegal (FAC9403) Yoruba...

On the net.
February 1, 2005... For a very comprehensive site on Benin, past and present, with a wealth of links, go to: www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Country_ Specific/Benin.html For images, accompanied by descriptions, of African objects in the Metropolitan...

Benin at the MET.(Metropolitan Museum of Art)(art of Benin )
February 1, 2005... The art of the kingdom of Benin is unique in African art. Its cast brass and carved ivory sculptures constitute a continuous record, spanning more than 500 years, of the artistic heritage of one of Africa's greatest kingdoms. With advances in...

Rooster on X-ray.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... When conservators prepare to treat an artifact that appears to have several layers on the exterior, they must first determine which layers are actually part of the object and its surroundings and which layers were added by others at a later...

The lost-wax technique.(crafting metal)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The artisans of Benin were skilled at crafting metal heads, hollow animals (like the cat shown here), plaques, and other objects using the lost-wax method. This involved fashioning a model from wax or, if the piece was going to be hollow, from...

The secret of the red and brown.(At Work with the Conservator)(Benin's natural resources)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Although Benin heads are often referred to as bronzes, technically they are brasses, since they are a combination of copper and zinc. (Bronze is a combination of copper and tin.) While many ancient metals were forgotten and lay buried with the...

Meet the conservator.
February 1, 2005... What's the most challenging piece in the Benin collection that you've had to conserve? The tusk (see pages 16-17) was especially challenging. It's also big, but at the same time very fragile. We had to figure out ways to clean it because...

Saliva to the rescue.( magnificent ivory tusk)
February 1, 2005... Take a close look at this section of a magnificent ivory tusk--not the carvings we learned about on pages 16-17, but the ivory itself. It offers many clues about its history. Conservators at the MET considered various ways of removing the...

Q-tip your carving.(Activity)
February 1, 2005... Want to test a Q-tip's cleaning power? Well, here's an easy way to do so! You Need: piece of balsa wood pencil X-Acto knife Q-tips water small cup Directions: 1 With the pencil, outline your design c...