ABSTRACT
Commemorative heads in various media are, of course, familiar from both Ife and Benin. While the representation of the human face is hardly surprising in African arts where the human body remains a major theme, the vast variety of representations, in form and in media, is extraordinary. Human and humanoid faces are ubiquitous in Benin court art–faces are on wooden and copper-alloy stools, bronze plaques, ivory, and ceramic/terracotta works–small and large. Cited here primarily because their Benin provenance as part of the 1897 Punitive Expedition loot are two hemispherical human heads that have been attributed to the Lower Niger Bronzes. Several important faces have been recorded among the Isoko. In 1971, a deserted shrine was found to contain a number of ceramic/terracotta fragments.
