Afro-Portuguese Ivories from Sierra Leone and Nigeria (Yoruba and Benin Kingdoms) in Archaeological Contexts from Southern Portugal

This paper studies a group of nine Afro-Portuguese ivory objects found in early modern archaeological contexts in southern Portugal. This is the first time ivory artifacts encountered in archaeological excavations have been studied in a way that allows for new conclusions to be made about their social, economic, cultural, and symbolic uses. The archaeological evidence permits us to conclude that, contrary to what has been known till now about these objects, they were not exclusively for display but were actively used and consumed in different Portuguese environments, in contrast to the rest of Europe.

WHAT IS “AFRO-PORTUGUESE”?

The expression “Afro-Portuguese” was first coined by William B. Fagg in the book Afro-Portuguese Ivories, published in 1959. The combination of these two words designates a wide range of artifacts made from elephant tusks and produced under Portuguese economic and cultural influence in four areas on the western African shores, namely Sierra Leone (Republic of Sierra Leone), Benin (Nigeria), Yoruba (Nigeria), and Kongo (Angola).

When the Portuguese arrived and established their presence in these regions, the production centers of ivory objects at each locale were the residences of specific African groups, with a complex social structure ruled by elites who promoted artistic developments connected with the religious superstructure, as well as with demonstrations of power and wellbeing. European interest in African ivory products goes back to the late fifteenth century, increasing in the two following centuries when kings, aristocrats, and high clergy figures grew to appreciate and collected such products. It was Fagg, together with Ezio Bassani, who promoted such objects to international recognition through the exhibition and book Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory (Bassani and Fagg 1988). This book contains important texts that create a historical and critical frame for the ivory artistic objects, in spite of repeating some ideas that had been developed in the unpublished PhD thesis of Kathleen Curnow (1983), who undertook a great effort to identify and comprehend the cultural background of different workshops and craftsmen. In the catalogue raisonné a compilation of all known objects to date kept in museums and other public or private collections was made. Only about 200 complete or fragmented objects, dated to the late fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, manufactured in the abovementioned production centers, were presented.

A few years later, Bassani (1994) wrote a paper presenting a dozen more Afro-Portuguese ivories. He would later become the curator of another exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris), Ivoires d’Afrique dans les Anciennes Collections Françaises, which also resulted in a well-illustrated catalogue (Bassani 2008).

1.

Two views of a fragment with bird’s head Largo de Jesus, Portugal

Ivory; L: 5.2 cm

Photo: Tânia Casimiro

2.

Two views of a spoon fragment São Vicente de Fora, Portugal

Ivory; L: 8.9 cm

Photo: Nuno Pires

In Portugal, José de Figueiredo (1938) showed initial interest in Afro-Portuguese ivories, publishing the study of a late fifteenth century pyxis¹ from the collection of the Museu Grão Vasco (Viseu), calling it a “Luso-African work” made in the Kingdom of Kongo. In 1953, Reynaldo dos Santos published the aforementioned pyxis, as well as two oliphants (carved horns)² and a saltcellar³ kept at the British Museum (London), in the book História da Arte em Portugal (1953: 443–45), which he believed were made in the sixteenth century in the Kingdom of Benin. Luís Reis Santos published a paper in 1962 dedicated to Benin bronzes, relating them to the first Portuguese and African contacts. In 1975, A. Teixeira da Mota assembled and published several fifteenth and sixteenth century documents about the acquisition and use of African ivories in early modern Portuguese society. In 1951, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga had acquired, in a public sale, a Benin salt cellar to display in their collection, followed by other...