Beautiful Heads

Over the course of the semester we have learned about many different cultures from ancient times up until around the 1500s. I have been hesitant to write comparison papers mostly because the prompts feature two different geographical places with sometimes vastly different religious/philosophical evolutions. In an effort to lend my own voice to this week's paper I am accepting the challenge of writing and exploring two cultures, and their artifacts, that are oceans apart. I hope that anyone commenting on this paper can lend some good advice for the future.

before 900 B.C.E Olmec

12-14th C. Yoruba (Ife)

When exploring the Yoruba and Olmec cultures the similarities in abstraction and stylization of an idealized ruling class are defined within their artifacts. Contextually, we lack information on both the Colossal Heads of the Olmec and the Yoruba Heads of the Ife in order to draw decisive conclusions about their purpose. For this reason, I am going to focus more on the materials and appearance and less on the reason the artifacts were made. However it is important to entertain at least one theory about who the heads represent in order to make sense of the comparison. 

The creation of the Colossal Heads, standing nearly ten feet in height, would have been a laborious undertaking. The giant blocks of stone were sometimes mined as far away as 50 miles. Without machinery it would have been somewhat of a logistical nightmare, and once the stone was successfully in place the artist would have done the carving with crude tools also made of stone. The sheer size and difficulty of these sculptures point to the theory that they depict important people. It is likely that they represented rulers or someone in power. (1) 

While the Colossal Heads were made from large basalt stone boulders the Ife heads were created from either terra-cotta or metal.  The size is quite small, measured in centimeters, compared to the Olmec heads, measured in feet. What has been uncovered so far in Nigeria, represents many different aspects of the Ife life from the ruling class to the civilian class. One could say that they are a stylized representation of beauty, but then we find sculptures that are oddly misshapen and deformed as well. Again, we find ourselves in a position of not having enough information to draw decisive conclusions . One thing scholars believe to be true is that the more naturalistic looking heads are probably idealized portraits of the ruling class. (2)

I think it is important to note that there are some visual similarities between these artifacts. In both examples we see an exaggeration of features. The faces are abstracted particularly in the eyes and mouths. In the Yoruba we have the upturned almond shaped eyes while the Olmec has the downturned almond shaped eyes. Both cultures have chosen to represent the person wearing some form of stylized headdress that is representative of the culture. The Yoruba head is bearing the marks of scarification while the Olmec head is mostly free of marks. Perhaps we are getting a glimpse of what each of these cultures found appealing in the people that ruled them. What is most striking to me is that both of these artifacts are unable to tell their full story, but still somehow manage to elicit the idea that they are important and beautiful.

    Notes    

    1. Minister, Christopher, "The Colossal Heads of the Olmec," ThoughtCo, January 25, 2019, accessed     November 12, 2020, https://www.thoughtco.com/the-colossal-heads-of-the-olmec-2136318.

    2. Kaufman, Jason Edward, "The sculpture of Ife changes ideas about African art," The Washington Post, March 9, 2011, accessed November 12, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-art-of-ife-changes-ideas-about-african-art/2011/03/08/ABbz8fP_story.html.