High Middle Ages · Africa · Culture

1196

Ife bronze casting reaches maturity

1196

In the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife, bronze casters using the lost-wax method produced portrait heads of astonishing naturalism that would not be surpassed in Africa until the Benin craftsmen learned from them. The sculptures were probably commissioned for royal shrines and funerals. Their serene beauty and technical sophistication challenged European assumptions about African artistic capability when they were first exhibited in the twentieth century.

More from 1196 High Middle Ages

In context

Also in 1196 (4 other events on record)

Genghis Khan defeats the Tatars · Central Asia · War
Song military engineers produce the first true rockets · East Asia · Technology
Minamoto Yoritomo consolidates the Kamakura shogunate · East Asia · Politics
Ibn Rushd dismissed and exiled · Africa · Religion

Before and after in Africa

Before: 1195: Great Zimbabwe builds its first stone walls
After: 1197: Lalibela ascends in Ethiopia

Before and after in Culture

Before: 1195: Great Zimbabwe builds its first stone walls
After: 1197: Jayavarman VII builds the Bayon

Era

High Middle Ages (1000–1300), one of 1,306 events from that era on Saeculum.