Lydenburg Heads

 

Lydenburg Head, Lydenburg, South Africa (500 C.E.)

The Lydenburg Heads were a series of seven terracotta sculptures found in Lydenburg, South Africa. The heads themselves are very unique with different types of mouths, eyes, head shapes, and more varying in each sculpture. But what I find most interesting is the lack of knowledge that the United States has on them. These sculptures are surrounded by a lot of questions in the United States, several sources explaining that these were almost like helmets to the people of South Africa, believed to be used for initiation ceremonies and other types of ceremonies such as religious ones, but nothing concretely supported by culture and historical research. To try and get past all of the questions surrounding these sculptures, I went to the website for Iziko, the South African museum that holds these artifacts. Attached to the information on their display is a video where the archaeology director of the museum and an archaeology professor of Cape Town's University discuss the true meaning behind these sculptures. 

The people who carved the Lydenburg Head sculptures arrived in South Africa around 2,000 years ago and are believed to be Bantu speakers. They were also great craftsmen in pottery and metallurgy, living in villages and surviving mostly off of their farming rather than their crafted goods. The makers of these heads are believed to be senior matriarchs of the community, however, because the evidence is scant regarding these people, it is only a guess. This guess is based upon what has been observed by Bantu language cultures in Africa. Pottery is considered women's work, while metallurgy was considered men's work. These women are believed to have been teachers to younger generations, who would use these sculptures in shows (like a play) to teach the children of the time about responsibility and their roles in the culture. Two of the heads are large enough to be worn by people, while the other five were believed to be placed on poles, similar to puppets on sticks. 

Each head itself is very important, six of them appearing human while the seventh one is designed to resemble an aardvark. This animal is featured in a lot of creation stories in African cultures, which is why it is commonly believed that this is used as a rite of passage into adulthood. The heads were originally found broken, believed to not have been broken as a result of time or a raid of some sort, but an end of this rite of passage. It was the end of childhood and the surfacing of adulthood in the youth of this culture. And that is why these sculptures are so significant to the historic narrative. They are designed to guide children from childhood to adulthood and combine religious teachings with communal responsibility. To learn how society has changed over the years, we first need to understand where it was five, ten, twenty, a thousand years ago.

Sources: 

Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Lydenburg Heads (Ca. 500 A.D.).” metmuseum.org. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2000. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/lyde/hd_lyde.htm.

“Looking A Head: Revisiting the Lydenburg Heads.” Iziko Museums of South Africa. South Africa: Agency of the Department of Arts and Agriculture. Accessed November 4, 2020. https://www.iziko.org.za/exhibitions/looking-a-head-revisiting-lydenberg-heads.