Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-sdd8f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-12T03:07:35.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A context for the Luzira Head

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Andrew Reid  and
Ceri Z. Ashley
Andrew Reid
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London WC1H 0PY, UK (Email: a.reid@ucl.ac.uk)
Ceri Z. Ashley
Affiliation:
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, CA 90095-1510, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Luzira head, a pottery figure discovered in a Ugandan prison compound in 1929, has remained curiously anonymous ever since. New archaeological work on the northern shores of (Lake) Victoria Nyanza has defined a formative period of political centralisation at the end of the first millennium AD. The authors show that this period of early to late Iron Age transition is where this remarkable object and related figurative material belongs. This has implications both for the formation of kingdoms in Uganda and for the story of African art more generally.

Keywords

UgandaLuziraAfrican artfigurineskingdoms

Information

Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 315 , March 2008 , pp. 99 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ashley, C.Z. 2005. Ceramic variability and change: a perspective from Great Lakes Africa. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London.Google Scholar
Brachi, R.M. 1960. Excavation of a rock shelter at Hippo Bay, Entebbe. Uganda Journal 26: 62–71.Google Scholar
Braunholtz, H.J. 1936. Pottery figure from Luzira, Uganda. Man 36: 71–2.Google Scholar
Clist, B. 1987 A critical reappraisal of the chronological framework of the Early Urewe Iron Age industry. Muntu 6: 35–62.Google Scholar
Connah, G. 1996. Kibiro: the salt of Bunyoro, past and present (British Institute in Eastern Africa Memoir 13). London: British Institute in Eastern Africa.Google Scholar
Frobenius, L. 1913. The Voice of Africa, volume 1. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Hiernaux, J. & Maquet, E.. 1957. Cultures préhistoriques de l'âge des métaux au Ruanda-Urundi et au Kivu (Conge Belge). Première partie (Bulletin des Séances de l'Académie royale des Sciences coloniales 2/6): 1126–49. Bruxelles: Académie royale des Sciences coloniales.Google Scholar
Hiernaux, J. & Maquet, E.. 1960. Cultures préhistorique de l'âge des métaux au Ruanda-Urundi et au Kivu (Congo belge), 2me partie (Académie royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer 10/2). Bruxelles: Académie royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer.Google Scholar
Lane, P.J. 1994–1995. The use and abuse of ethnography in the study of the Southern African Iron Age. Azania 29-30: 51–64.Google Scholar
Leakey, M.D., Owen, W.E. & Leakey, L.S.B.. 1948. Dimple-based pottery from Central Kavirondo, Kenya Colony (Coryndon Memorial Museum Occasional Papers 2). Nairobi.Google Scholar
Loubser, J.N.H. 1993. Ndondonwane: the significance of features and finds from a ninth century site on the lower Thukela River, Natal. Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 5: 109–51.Google Scholar
Lugira, A.M. 1970. Ganda Art. Kampala: Obasa.Google Scholar
Maggs, T. & Davison, P.. 1981. The Lydenburg Heads. African Arts 14: 28–33.Google Scholar
Posnansky, M. 1967. The Iron Age in East Africa, in Bishop, W.W. & Clark, J.D. (ed.) Background to Evolution in Africa: 629–49. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Posnansky, M. & Chaplin, J.H.. 1968. Terracotta figures from Entebbe, Uganda. Man (ns) 3: 644–50.Google Scholar
Posnansky, M., Reid, A. & Ashley, C.Z.. 2005. Archaeology on Lolui Island, Uganda 1964–5. Azania 40: 73–100.Google Scholar
Reid, D.A.M. 1996. Ntusi and the development of social complexity in southern Uganda, in Pwiti, G. & Soper, R. (ed.) Aspects of African Archaeology: 621–8. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Press.Google Scholar
Reid, A. 2004. Recent research on the archaeology of Buganda, in Mitchell, P., Haour, A. & Hobart, J. (ed.) Researching Africa's Past: new contributions from British archaeologists: 110–17. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Robertshaw, P.T. 1997. Munsa earthworks: a preliminary report on recent excavations. Azania 32: 1–20.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P. 1978. Historical Archaeology: a structural approach in an African culture. Westport: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P. & Childs, S.T.. 1985. Innovation and industry during the Early Iron Age in East Africa: KM2 and KM3 sites in Northwest Tanzania. African Archaeological Review 3: 53–94.Google Scholar
Schoenbrun, D.L. 1998. A Green Place, a Good Place. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Van Grunderbeek, M-C. 1992. Chronologie de l'âge du Fer ancien au Burundi, au Rwanda et dans la région des Grands Lacs. Azania 27: 53–80.Google Scholar
Van Grunderbeek, M-C., Roche, E. & Doutrelpont, H.. 1983. Le Premier Age du Fer au Rwanda et au Burundi, Archéologie et Environnement (Institut national de Recherche scientifique 23). Butare: Institution nationale de Recherche scientifique.Google Scholar
Van Noten, F.L. 1983. Histoire Archéologique du Rwanda (Annales du Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale 112). Butare: Institution nationale de Recherche scientifique.Google Scholar
Wayland, E.J., Burkitt, M.C. & Braunholtz, H.J.. 1933. Archaeological discoveries at Luzira. Man 33: 29–47.Google Scholar
Whitelaw, G. 1994–1995. Towards an Early Iron Age worldview: some ideas from Kwa-Zulu Natal. Azania 29/30: 37–50.Google Scholar
Whitelaw, G. 1996. Lydenburg revisited: another look at the Mpumalanga Early Iron Age sequence. South African Archaeological Bulletin 51: 75–83.Google Scholar