HISTORY OF AFRICAN ART
The earliest known form of African Art is rock paintings, drawn by the nomadic people of southern Africa and the Sahara. Of those paintings, some of the earliest have been excavated in Namibia in strata between 19,000 and 26,000 years old. The paintings are on portable pebbles and stones and are depictions of rhinoceros, half-human and half-animal forms. Surviving paintings and engravings on rock shelters are younger but more difficult to date accurately. Some probably date to Stone Age up to about 10,000 BC .The paintings show people dancing, skinning animals, medicine men performing rituals, animals being hunted, hands, bows and arrows and geometric patterns.
The earliest 3D art come from Nigeria dating from 700-500 BC onwards. This is the famous ‘Nok’ sculpture, terracotta human and animal figures excavated from the tin mines near the village of Nok where pottery figures were first found. One extraordinary group of terracotta is the exception in a mainly West African story, in that they come from South Africa where they are the earliest known sculptures. They has seven heads, found at Lydenburg in the Transvaal.Modelled in brutally chunky style, they date from about the 6th C AD.
Powerful terracotta figures in traditional style continue to be made in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, contemporary with the superb carved wooden figures which survive from the two centuries. There is archeological evidence that metallurgy existed as early as 3000 BC in northern Africa, from where it spread to Mauritania. There are no works of art in metal surviving from these early periods however it is known that by 700 BC iron smelting had reached Nigeria and by 500 BC iron work was being practiced in Ethiopia and the Great Lakes area of East Africa.
Later, the kingdoms of Benin and Ife in Nigeria became important bronze working areas, however it is