Igbo-Ukwu Museum




Igbo-Ukwu-Museum-Anambra

Igbo-Ukwu (Igbo: Great Igbo) is a town in the Nigerian state of Anambra in the southeastern part of the country.It is notable for three archaeological sites, where excavations have found bronze artifacts from a highly sophisticated bronze metal-working culture dating perhaps to the ninth or tenth century, centuries before other known bronzes of the region.

The first, called Igbo Isaiah, was uncovered in 1938 by Isaiah Anozie, a local villager, who found the bronze works while digging beside his home. Formal excavations by the archaeologist Thurstan Shaw in 1959 at the request of the Nigerian government, resulted in the discovery of two other sites, Igbo Richard and Igbo Jonah, containing the remains of an ancient culture.

Later, these were excavated as well. Artifacts have included jewelry, ceramics, a corpse adorned in what appears to be regalia, and many assorted bronze, copper, and iron objects. Some of these contain materials that are evidence of a long-distance trading system extending to Egypt.

Igbo-Ukwu-Museum-in-Anambra

Radiocarbon dating placed the sites around the tenth century or earlier, which would make the Igbo-Ukwu culture the earliest-known example of bronze casting in the region. The craftsmen were working centuries before those who made the more well-known Ife bronzes.

Igbo-Ukwu-Museum-in-Anambra

The archaeological sites in southeastern Nigeria are associated with the Nri-Igbo. The three sites include Igbo Isaiah (a shrine), Igbo Richard (a burial chamber), and Igbo Jonah (a cache).“The inhabitants of Igbo-Ukwu had a metal-working art that flourished as early as the ninth century. Three sites have been excavated, revealing hundreds of ritual vessels and regalia castings of bronze or leaded bronze that are among the most inventive and technically accomplished bronzes ever made.

The Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu has been revealed in bronzes dating from the 9th century, which were discovered during excavations by Thurstan Shaw and his team in 1959 and 1964 in Igbo-Ukwu, an Igbo town in present-day Nigeria. A total of three sites have been excavated, revealing bronze artifacts along with pottery and thousands of glass beads, materials demonstrating trade with such distant cultures as the Egyptians.



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