Igbo Ukwu

Igbo-Ukwu lies in the forested country east of the Niger, where craftspeople of the ninth century made intricate vessels and ornaments of bronze by the lost-wax process, centuries before other known bronzes of the region. A burial known as Igbo Richard contained a person of high standing with regalia and thousands of beads, Igbo Isaiah held sacred vessels and further insignia, and Igbo Jonah held pottery, bronzes and animal remains. Some of the materials show trade reaching as far as the Nile valley.

The art of Igbo-Ukwu is linked with the Kingdom of Nri, a priest-kingdom of the northern Igbo ruled by the Eze Nri. Nri spread its influence not by arms but by sending out converts, called mbùríchi, and winning allegiance through ritual oaths. Each new Eze Nri was chosen only after an interregnum of at least seven years. By the late sixteenth century Nri influence reached Igbo settlements on the west bank of the Niger and communities touched by the Benin Empire. From the early eighteenth century it declined, pressed by Benin and the Igala and by the slave trade, while the Aro Confederacy at Arochukwu, founded after 1640, took over the commerce and the oracle of Ibini Ukpabi.