Today in Architecture: The Olokun Head

On its discovery, exactly a century ago, the life-size Olokun Head was considered too great a masterpiece to have been created by African hands, a reflection of attitudes at the time. Some European scholars even believed it to be evidence of the lost civilisation of Atlantis. It was not subjected to detailed study until 1948, when it left Nigeria for the first time, for an exhibition at the British Museum. Following scientific research, it was concluded that the head was not the original, but a replica which had been made to surreptitiously replace it, with the original sold to a foreign collector.



Until now specialists have accepted that the Olokun Head from the Ife Museum is a replica, but a new theory is about to be tested: could the object be the original, dating from around 1400? If so, it might overturn our knowledge about early bronze casting in Africa.