Kingdoms before Nigeria: Ife, Benin, Oyo, the Hausa States and Kanem-Bornu
Long before Nigeria existed, the land was home to sophisticated kingdoms, city-states and self-governing communities with famous art.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria — Henry John Drewal and Enid Schildkrout, Museum for African Art (2009)
- Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria — Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.), Snoeck (2007)
- Nigeria — Encyclopaedia Britannica
In the north-east, the empire of Kanem-Bornu around Lake Chad adopted Islam by the eleventh century and traded across the Sahara for centuries. To its west, Hausa city-states such as Kano, Katsina and Zaria grew rich on trade, crafts and learning, and Islam spread among their rulers and merchants.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- Nigeria — Encyclopaedia Britannica
In the south-west, Ile-Ife, sacred city of the Yoruba, produced from about the twelfth to the fifteenth century naturalistic heads in terracotta and copper alloy so refined that European scholars at first refused to believe Africans had made them. The Oyo Empire later became the strongest Yoruba state, with a powerful cavalry, before collapsing in the early nineteenth century.
- Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria — Henry John Drewal and Enid Schildkrout, Museum for African Art (2009)
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
The Edo kingdom of Benin, ruled by the Oba from a walled capital, traded with the Portuguese from the late fifteenth century and commissioned the brass plaques and heads now called the Benin Bronzes.
- Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria — Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.), Snoeck (2007)
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
In Yoruba tradition Ile-Ife is where the gods descended to create the world and where Oduduwa, the ancestor of Yoruba kings, founded the first kingdom; many Yoruba royal houses trace their descent from him.
- Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria — Henry John Drewal and Enid Schildkrout, Museum for African Art (2009)
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
Why it matters today
Many Nigerians identify first with these older polities and their traditional rulers: the Ooni of Ife, the Oba of Benin, the Alaafin of Oyo, the emirs of the north. Kings still carry deep cultural and moral authority, and the art of Ife and Benin is proof, against colonial claims, that Africa had great civilisations.