Ancient African Art

Djenne figurine from West Africa (ca. 1450 AD)

Some parts of Africa have left us a lot more art than other parts. There were certainly artists making art everywhere, but some of these artists worked in materials that haven't lasted very well. That's because most of Africa doesn't have good stone for sculpture.

But there is art. There's a great deal of art from ancient Egypt, where they did have good stone. Some of the earliest life-size stone statues come from Egypt too.

 

South of Egypt, in the kingdoms of Kush and Aksum (modern Ethiopia and Eretria), there were also people building smaller pyramids. After these areas converted to Christianity, about 300 AD, they built magnificent stone churches and painted them with Christian images showing influences from Rome and Constantinople.

Along the coast, in East Africa, Islamic influence beginning about 1000 AD led people to build mosques. Inland, at the end of the great trade routes looking for ivory and gold, the people built a great city called Great Zimbabwe, about 1200 AD.

In south Africa, the San people painted rock art onto the walls of caves. Many of these paintings have been destroyed, but a few have survived.

Further north again, in West Africa, people molded ceramic and bronze and brass sculptures by about 700 AD, continuing until around 1500 AD.

After trans-Saharan trade began, West African people again built cities and mosques at the end of the trade routes for gold and slaves, especially at Timbuktu (in modern Mali).

And in North Africa (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya), first the Carthaginians built cities, and then the Romans, and then the Arabs.

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