IFE TERMINUS A QUO END TERMINUS AD QUEM

We can get some idea of the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of Ife art if we take into consideration the observations made by researchers on the sites where excavations have been conducted. These sites can be divided into three categories: (a) primary sites, or those sites in which sculptures are claimed to have been found in situ; (b) secondary sites, in which sculptures are recognized to have been reburied at comparatively recent times; and (c), those sites in which no sculptures have been found.
The primary sites are Ita Yemoo, Obalara’s Land and Lafogido; the secondary sites include those observed by Leo Frobenius and Bernard Fagg (Osangangan Obamakin, Olokun Walode), Igbo Obameri and the Upper Level of Odo Ogbe Street site. The third category includes Orun Oba Ado (which is said to be a previous buriai ground of the heads of the deceased Obas of Benin), and the Lower Level of Odo Ogbe Street site.
Radiocarbon dates from the third group of sites, with no sculpture, range from A.D. 1030 (eight radiocarbon dates), while those from the secondary Sites (two dates) are post fifteenth century. The dates for the primary sites, (twelve dates fine radiocarbon and three thermoluminescent) range between the twelfth and early fifteenth centuries. At these primary sites sculptures have always been found in association with pottery pavement.
On the above evidence one is tempted to infer that the making of terracotta sculptures in Ife did not begin until the eleventh or twelfth century, and that by the fifteenth or sixteenth century the art had died out.
One may then suppose that it is the present Ife dynasty, started by Lajamisan in the seventeenth century, which is responsible for the secondary use of sculptures in comparatively recent contexts. That would account for the "resurrecting" and "burying" of art pieces annually for use in contemporary rites. This hypothesis needs testing and will stand or fall as more work is done and more dates are obtained in Ife.

IFE Culture