A History of the World in 100 Objects: Ife Head

Director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor retells the history of human development from the first stone axe to the credit card, using 100 selected objects from the Museum. Neil examines a sculpture widely considered as one of the greatest achievements of world art. It comes from Ife, a city now in south-western Nigeria. It's a slightly less than life sized representation of a human head, made in brass at a time when metal casting had become a hugely sophisticated art. The head, with its deeply naturalistic features, was probably that of a great king or leader although its exact function remains uncertain. The head leads Neil to consider the political, economic and spiritual life of the Yoruba city state that produced it. The writer Ben Okri responds to the mood of the sculpture and the art historian Babatunde Lawal considers what role it might have played in traditional tribal life