The elemental composition of Benin memorial heads

Among the Nigerian cast copper-alloy artefacts, the chronology of the Benin memorial heads has been the most fully worked out. Therefore, a study focu sed upon their elemental compositions is particularly likely to be interpre table in terms of development of the alloys used in their making. The eleme ntal analyses, both published and unpublished, of 66 Benin heads, supplemen ted with seven analyses of some artefacts excavated from a well-dated, very early Benin site, have been collected, analysed statistically and compared to the elemental analyses of 11 heads and figures from Udo. All but a very few of the Benin heads and artefacts separate into five compositional grou ps, indicating a chronological sequence of different alloying traditions. A ll but one of the Udo objects fall into a distinctly separate compositional group, together with two Medicine heads. The compositional groups correlat ed remarkably well with the stylistic types proposed by Dark.