Benin

The biggest one, little over a meter tall, incredibly detailed.

These were all taken by Bongs when they invaded them during the end of 19th century, exact age wasn't mentioned and is probably unsure.

Last pic

Was there any mention of technique used for these? I'm not familiar with eastern African art/culture so this is pretty interesting.

Yeah, there were even videos of how repros are being made today with the old ways. They make a model with wax, cover it with clay, burn and pour molten bronze.

Thanks, OP. You are the chemo Veeky Forums needs.

I've read up a lot on Benin and I'm amazed I've never seen this stuff before, especially this one Can you tell me where these were on display?

Judging by the style they look 16th to 18th century, though some might be 19th.

In Moravian Land Museum in Brno, Czechia.
What surprised me, only few of the pieces were actually owned by the museum, one was lent from a museum in Prague and like 90 percent of the statues were lent specially for the expo by some local private collector.

Thanks.

>90 percent of the statues were lent specially for the expo by some local private collector
Yeah, if I remember right the British sold off most of the bronzes and ivories they captured to pay for the cost of the expedition. I didn't realize there were so many still in private collections though, most are in museums now.

benis :DDD

Learn how to rotate a goddamn image you doublenigger.

These are pretty sweet tho, I love the convention of foreshortening they use to draw attention to the important bits (mostly the over-sized heads).

I would imagine they're all of important people. The custom of depicting ordinary people in art is a very recent Western innovation.

If you phonepost a huge picture taken vertically, Veeky Forums will automatically rotate them. You triplenigger

Funny how dwarfs were used as jesters by cultures as far apart as Benin, Europe, China and Mesoamerica. Guess laughing at physical deformity is a "human universal".

Thanks for posting this,
bronzes from Africa are often pretty sick

They sculpt the figure out of wax before making a cast out of it, so you can get very fine details.

>most are in museums now

Impossible to know such a thing. There's probably all kinds of wonderful artifacts in private hands that we plebs will never know of, let alone get to see.

>phonepost

Well THERE'S your problem right there.

Did Europeans ever use this technique? I don't think I've seen anything this detailed from when Europe had an otherwise comparable level of technology.

Yes, it's the usual method of making sculptures out of bronze and gold since very ancient times.
>The oldest known examples of this technique are the objects discovered in the Cave of the Treasure (Nahal Mishmar) hoard in southern Israel, and which belong to the Chalcolithic period (4500–3500 BC)

>otherwise comparable level of technology.

This is difficult to judge. Benin had access to gunpowder, steel, and Enlightenment ideas of governance, Europe in it's bronze age had none of these. Pic related is much later, from around 1AD, but obviously it builds on a long tradition of western bronze casting dating back to Sumer.

You're probably familiar with this bust, it's probably not actually meant to be Sargon himself but it dates from ~2350 BC and shows how sophisticated the western tradition of bronzework was.

Huh, I suppose I was full of shit just then. Either way, all very impressive.

What makes the Benin sculptures so aesthetic isn't the technique (which was ancient) but the artistic conventions they used that give the sculptures a unique look.

>Benin had access to gunpowder, steel, and Enlightenment ideas of governance

Not it didn't, you fucking tool. Benin art, like the stuff OP posted, could be made from the 15th century to 19th century. Enlightenment philosophy did not reach sub-saharan Africa until the colonists brought it there.

Gunpowder was not used widely, and steel was not mass-produced.

You're chatting absolute shit.

quality post OP

I didn't say they PRODUCED those things, and yes obviously they didn't have the Enlightenment until it actually happened, but it's near impossible to compare the technological; level Benin had to any period of European history.

I heard they were like a duchy of the kang kingdom and the finns wrestled them out of kang control and they became a vassal of finland for a while

You should stop getting your understanding of history from plebbit then, because it's made you into a mouthbreathing moron.

In b4 I WAS ONLY JOKING. I know you were, this doesn't make it any less moronic.

Yes, Europeans had it in the Bronze age too, there are hundreds if not thousands of lost wax bronze statuettes from Sardinia, pic related is one of the best made ones

He's not a patch on the Benin figures. Ofc there's 3,000 years of development between them but even compare them to contemporary Chinese bronzes.

Western Europeans were bad at bronze.

I think it's interesting to note that Nigerian and Chinese bronzes, despite being millennia apart, both flourished at about the same stage of development in both regions, when urban civilization was first emerging.

This one looks like an Ife rather than a Benin bronze, but it's too crude to be from Ife so I think it's probably a 20th century replica.

Likewise the Sumerian which also dates from the earliest period of urbanization Wonder what the connection is, and why it doesn't apply to snowapes aka western europeans?

Good chance that some of those are spiritually charged ritual items. There's a lot of 'art' that doesn't belong in museums.

>Wonder what the connection is, and why it doesn't apply to snowapes aka western europeans?
Discovering bronze much later than the others and having less time to perfect the art until iron age came?

Africa actually went straight from the stone age to the iron age, bronze only being decorative, so that doesn't really work.

Memes aside, stuff like the Trundholm sun chariot is pretty great for barbarians. Plus, prehistoric western Europeans excelled in other areas like gold and iron working.

Eh, these guys practiced routine human sacrifice so it's hard to feel sympathetic towards their rituals.

Looting from the palace.

The interior of a house, built around an impluvium.

More looting.

An ancestral alter, the kind these bronzes were displayed on.

A priest's house.

A plaque depicting the 16th-17th century palace. Notice the snake running down the turret, the same kind of decoration seen here

Another depiction of the palace.

A plaque depicting warriors

Ivory depiction of the Portuguese.

An 18th century royal stool.

Looks very uncomfortable

wow, that's really interesting

Opposite day

>implying Brits need an opposite day to behave like monkeys