Africa 1100–1980 CE · Quick-reference for the AP exam
| Work | Culture / Artist | Date | Medium | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conical Tower & Circular Wall (Great Zimbabwe) | Great Zimbabwe kingdom | c. 1000–1400 CE | Granite (dry-stone) | Southern Africa |
| Great Mosque of Djenné | Community (rebuilt 1906–07) | c. 1200 CE | Adobe mud brick | West Africa |
| Seated Man and Woman | Dogon | 11th–15th c. | Wood | West Africa |
| Head (Ife Head) | Yoruba (Ile-Ife) | c. 1000–1200 CE | Zinc-brass | Yoruba |
| Hip Ornament (Pendant Mask) | Benin Kingdom | c. 16th c. | Ivory, iron, copper | Benin |
| Benin Plaque: Oba Flanked by Warriors | Benin Kingdom | c. 1550–1680 CE | Brass (lost-wax) | Benin |
| Power Figure (nkisi nkondi) | Kongo | c. 19th c. | Wood, iron nails, resin | Central Africa |
| Aka Elephant Mask | Bamileke | c. 19th–20th c. | Cloth, beads, fiber | Central Africa |
| Veranda Post of a King's Palace | Olowe of Ise (Yoruba) | c. 1910–1914 | Wood, pigment | Yoruba |
| Reliquary Guardian Figure (bieri) | Fang | c. 19th–20th c. | Wood | Central Africa |
| Lukasa Memory Board | Luba | c. 19th–20th c. | Wood, glass beads, metal | Central Africa |
| Female (Pwo) Mask | Chokwe | c. late 19th–early 20th c. | Wood, fiber, pigment | Central Africa |
| Portrait Mask (mblo) | Baule | c. early 20th c. | Wood, pigment | West Africa |
| Bundu Mask (Sande Society) | Mende | c. 20th c. | Wood (blackened) | West Africa |
| Kente Cloth | Asante | c. 20th c. | Silk/cotton (strip-woven) | West Africa |
| Goldweights (abrammuo) | Asante | c. 15th–19th c. | Brass (lost-wax) | West Africa |
| Ndebele Beaded Apron (jocolo) | Ndebele | c. 20th c. | Glass beads, hide | Southern Africa |
Wax model coated in clay → wax melted out → molten metal poured in. Used for Ife heads and Benin plaques. Requires advanced metallurgy and trade access to copper/tin for brass.
In Benin plaques, figures are sized by rank: Oba (largest) → warriors → attendants → Europeans (smallest). Size = political importance, not spatial position.
African masks are not face-coverings to be displayed in cases. They are complete only when worn and danced. The mask + body + movement + sound + context = the full artwork.
A Kongo ritual object housing a spirit. The nganga (specialist) activates it by driving in nails/blades to bind oaths or direct healing. Removing nails "deactivates" the spirit.
Mud-brick (adobe) mosque tradition of West Africa. Distinctive features: toron (embedded timber scaffolding), ostrich-egg finials, thick walls with recessed niches. Annual re-plastering communal event.
Construction using no mortar — stones fitted by weight and friction. Great Zimbabwe uses granite blocks assembled without binding. The technique encodes skill and permanence without imported materials.
One of the few specifically named African artists in the AP image set. This is significant: most African art was produced by specialists whose names colonial records did not preserve.
The 1897 British Punitive Expedition looted ~4,000 Benin Bronzes. Many are now in British Museum, Berlin Ethnologisches Museum, and others. Nigeria and Benin City have formally requested return. First repatriations began 2021–2023.
Most African masquerade is male-dominated. The Bundu/Sande mask (Mende, Sierra Leone) is a notable exception: senior women make and wear these masks for female initiation.
The Benin plaques and heads are cast in brass (copper + zinc alloy), not bronze (copper + tin). The term "Benin Bronzes" is an art historical misnomer that persists in common usage.
Students confuse the Benin ivory pendant with a worn face mask. It is a small pendant worn at the hip during ceremonies — not a masquerade mask placed over the face.
The original mosque dates to c. 1200 CE. The current structure is a 1906–07 reconstruction on the same site. The tradition is ancient even if the physical structure is recent.
19th-century colonizers falsely attributed Great Zimbabwe to Phoenicians or Egyptians to deny African agency. It was built by the Shona-speaking ancestors of the modern Shona people.
This colonial framing misrepresents masquerade traditions. Masks are not worshipped. They embody and activate ancestral/spirit forces — a functional, relational role, not passive idol status.
Early scholars assumed the naturalistic Ife heads must have been influenced by ancient Greece. This is incorrect: Ife naturalism developed independently as a distinct West African tradition.
The Lukasa memory board is legible only to trained mbudye specialists. Different specialists may produce different valid readings. It is not a public text but an embodied knowledge system.