Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

names is “great head.” At such personal altars, the king and other
high-ranking officials made sacrifices to their own power and ac-
complishments—symbolized by the hand and arm. The inclusion of
leopards on the top and around the base, along with ram and ele-
phant heads and crocodiles (not all visible in FIG. 15-13), reiterates
royal power.

Sapi

Between 1490 and 1540, some peoples on the Atlantic coast of Africa

in present-day Sierra Leone, whom the Portuguese collectively called

the Sapi, created art not only for themselves but also for Portuguese

explorers and traders, who took the objects back to Europe.

11th to 18th Centuries 403

15-13Altar to the Hand and Arm (ikegobo), from Benin, Nigeria, 17th to 18th century. Bronze, 1 51 – 2 high.

British Museum, London.

One of the Benin king’s praise names is “great head,” and on this cast-bronze royal shrine, he is represented

larger than all other figures and his proportions are distorted to emphasize his head.

1 in.