INTRODUCTION

Nigeria is blessed with outstanding cultural, natural and significant

archeological heritage sites, which are listed among the UNESCO Heritage
Sites. These sites exist nowhere else in the world and have become a great
interest to visitors and Nigerians. We combed through the list of the World
Heritage Sites and discovered that two cultural sites in Nigeria were approved
to be on the list while others are on the tentative list, which may be considered
for nomination.

However, we present to you the list of Nigerian heritage sites, which are on
both the tentative and World UNESCO Heritage sites lists. These sites have
natural and extreme beauty with historical significance that will inspire every
one; therefore, we recommend you visit them straight-away.

1. Sukur Cultural Landscape, Adamawa State

2. Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, Osun State

This sacred forest is situated along the banks of the Oshun River, on the
outskirts of the capital city of Osogbo, which is regarded as the home of the
goddess of fertility Osun. There are shrines, art works, sculptures and
sanctuaries that dot the river in honour of the goddess and other local deities.
It is considered as the last of the Yorubas sacred forests that is still standing.
In 2005, it was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Its yearly festival
brings thousands of spectators, tourists and Osun worshippers from around
the world.
3. Oban Hills, Cross River State

Oban Hills is a range of hills located within Cross Rive National Park and it
shares a border with the Korup National Park of Cameroon, established in
1988 as a part of the Cross River National park and is a natural habitat for
wildlife and plants of unknown species. This is one of few sites where the
Xaviers Green Bull can be found and unusual species such as the Cassins
Hawk eagle, Bat Hawk, Crested Guinea fowl, Lyre-tailed Honey guide and it
houses over 400 Chimpanzees.

4. Oke-Idanre Hill,Ondo State

Idanre Hills consists of spectacular valleys with a high plain and the valleys
are interspersed with magnificent inselberlgs that is about 3,000 feet above the
sea level. It was listed in 2007 on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage
sites. There are attributes such as the old court, Owas Palace, Agbooogun foot
print, shrines, burial grounds and mounds and the Omi Aopara which is the
thunder water. It is a tourist attraction center that brings thousands of visitors
all through the year.

5. Ogbunike Caves, Anambra State

This is one of the wonders of the Eastern Nigeria and discovered by a hunter
called Ukwa. It is associated with spiritual and historical significance and
listed in 2007 on the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The
caves can be descended in a 317 steps, yearly; Ime Ogbe festival is celebrated
in the commemoration of the discovery of these caves.

6. Alok Ikom Monoliths, Cross River State

Alok Ikom Monoliths has over 300 carved stones that are upright with heights
that varies and grouped in circles, each facing one another. The texts and
images inscribed on the monoliths still cannot be decoded, but its believed to
be writings from the prehistoric civilization. The site is known as Akwasnski/
Atal among the people of Ejagham. The feature that is common with these
monoliths is they were designed in the form of a Phallus. In 2008, it was added
to the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Photo Source: Junglejournalist

7. Ancient Kano City Walls, Kano State

It was once regarded as West Africans most impressive monument, a 14km

radius earth monument that is associated with the states historical, cultural
and spiritual significance. In 2007, its listed on the tentative list of UNESCO
World Heritage Sites tentative list. It features the Emirs Palace, Kurmi
Market and the famous Dala Hills, believed to be the first settlement in
ancient city of Kano. The wall is an intriguing fact of Nigerian architects who
had designed this wall to define defence, political space, management and
security system.

8. Gashaka-Gumpti National Park, Taraba State

This park is the countrys most diverse and largest National Park that is
situated with the Mountain of Death, Chappal Wadi and Mountain of Wind,
Chappal Hendu. There are lots of traditional lore that have served to protest
West Africans huge number of primates and houses giant forest hogs,
chimpanzees, leopard, lion, hippopotamus, yellow-backed duiker ,hartebeest
and buffalo and birds.
9. Arochukwu Long Juju Slave Rute, Abia State

This is the home of the shrine of Ibin Ukpabi with a domineering cult statute
of Kamalu-The Ancient Warrior god still standing. It contains an alter, a
water fall and there is a six foot gully that leads people to this cave temple.
There are lots of myths about this area which was listed in 2007 on the
tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There is a famous feature the
Iyi-Eke which was an outlet for slaves to be transported to Calabar.

10. Surame Cultural Landscape, Sokoto State

Surame is an ancient city in Sokoto State, created in the 16th Century by

Muhammadu Kanta Sarkin Kebbi and abandoned in the `1700. It is regarded
as one of the worlds wonders of the human civilization, ingenuity and
creativity. Its wall is made of massive stones and has a Palace of the Hidi; the
chief of the village. It was declared an ancient Nigerias National Monument
in 1964 and added in the Cultural and Natural category of the UNESCO
World Heritage Tentative List in 2007.

11. Igbo-Ukwu bronze

Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu bronze

The archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu revealed bronze artifacts dated to the 9th

century A.D. which were initially discovered by Isiah Anozie in 1939 while
digging a well in his compound in Igbo-Ukwu, an Igbo town in Anambra State,
Nigeria. As a result of these finds, three archaeological sites were excavated in
1959 and 1964 by Thurstan Shaw which revealed more than 700 high quality
artifacts of copper, bronze and iron, as well as about 165000 glass, carnelian and
stone beads, pottery, textiles and ivory. They are the oldest bronze artifacts known
in West African and were manufactured centuries before the emergence of other
known bronze producing centers such as those of Ife and Benin. The bronzes
include numerous ritual vessels, pendants, crowns, breastplates, staff ornaments,
swords, and fly-whisk handles.

Impact on art history

The Igbo-Ukwu bronzes amazed the world with a very high level of
technical and artistic proficiency and sophistication which was at this time
distinctly more advanced than bronze casting in Europe. [2] Peter Garlake compares
the Igbo-Ukwu bronzes "to the finest jewelry of rococo Europe or of Carl
Faberge,"[3] and William Buller Fagg states they were created with "a strange
rococo almost Faberge type virtuosity."[4] Frank Willett says that the Igbo-Ukwu
bronzes portray a standard that is comparable to that established by Benvenuto
Cellini five hundred years later in Europe.[5] Denis Williams calls them "an
exquisite explosion without antecedent or issue."[6] One of the objects found, a
water pot set in a mesh of simulated rope is described by Hugh Honour and John
Fleming as

A virtuoso feat of cire perdue (lost wax) casting. Its elegant design and refined
detailing are matched by a level of technical accomplishment that is notably more
advanced than European bronze casting of this period.

The high technical proficiency and lack of known prototypes of the Igbo-
Ukwu bronzes led to initial speculation in the academic community that they must
have been created after European contact and phantom voyagers were postulated.
However research and isotope analysis has established that the source of the metals
is of local origin and radio carbon dating has confirmed a 9th-century date, long
before the earliest contact with Europe. The Igbo-Ukwu artifacts did away with the
hitherto existing colonial era opinions in archeological circles that such
magnificent works of art and technical proficiency could only originate in areas
with contact to Europe, or that they could not be crafted in an acephalous or
egalitarian society such as that of the Igbo. Some of the glass and carnelian beads
have been found to be produced in Old Cairo at the workshops of Fustat thus
establishing that trade contacts did exist between Igbo-Ukwu and ancient Egypt.
Archaeological sites containing iron smelting furnaces and slag have been
excavated dating to 2000BC in Lejja and 750BC in Opi both in Nsukka region
about 100 Kilometers east of Igbo-Ukwu.

Discovery

The initial finds were made by Isiah Anozie while digging in his compound
in 1939. He was not aware of the significance of the objects he had found and gave
away some of them to friends and neighbors, as well as using some of the vessels
to water his goats. J.O. Field, the British colonial district officer of the area later
learned of the finds and was able to purchase many of them, publishing the find in
an anthropological journal. He later handed over the artefacts to the Nigerian
department of antiquity. Curiously Mr. Field noted at the time that

Although the Awka people are known to have done a little metal casting, it is
practically certain that they [Igbo] never reached the degree of skill required to
fashion any of the objects here described. (...) The Igbo people are not themselves
metal workers, and as far as is known they never have been (...) it is improbable
that it has lain buried for more than a century at the most.
 Subsequent research was to prove him wrong. Twenty years later, in 1959
and again in 1964 Thurstan Shaw and his team excavated three sites around the
original find for the Nigerian department of antiquity and later for the University of
Ibadan. The archaeological digs revealed hundreds of copper and bronze ritual
vessels as well as iron swords, iron spear heads, iron razors and other artifacts
dated a millennium earlier.

Metallurgy

Apparently the metal workers of ancient Igbo-Ukwu were not aware of

commonly used techniques such as wire making, soldering or riveting which
suggests an independent development and long isolation of their metal working
tradition.[16] It is therefore perplexing that they were able to create objects with
such fine surface detail that they depict, for example small insects which seem to
have landed on the surface. Though these appear to have been riveted or soldered
on to the artifacts, they were actually cast in one piece. The Grove Encyclopedia of
Materials and Techniques in Art describes them as being "among the most
inventive and technically accomplished bronzes ever made." [16] Although the lost
wax casting process was used to produce the bronzes, latex was probably used in
Igbo-Ukwu instead of beeswax which would explain how the artists were able to
produce such fine and filigrann surface detail. Some of the techniques used by the
ancient smiths are not known to have been used outside Igbo-Ukwu such as the
production of complex objects in stages with the different parts later fixed together
by brazing or by casting linking sections to join them. However the complexity of
some of the Igbo-Ukwu objects has led to considerable altercation between various
metallurgic experts and debates regarding the actual production process which is
an affidavit for the highly developed and intricate work of the ancient artists.
 The composition of the metal alloys used in the production of the bronze is
unique, with an unusually high silver content and is distinct from alloys used in
Europe, the Mediterranean or other African bronze centers. The origin of the metal
ore used to produce the bronze has been located to old mines in Abakiliki about
100 kilometers from Igbo-Ukwu.

References

Apley, Alice (October 2001). "IgboUkwu (ca. 9th century)". Heilbrunn

Timeline of Art History. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved December 15,
2014.
Honour, Hugh; Fleming, John (2005). A world history of art (7th ed.).
London: Laurence King. ISBN 9781856694513.
Garlake, Peter (2002). Early art and architecture of Africa. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. p. 120. ISBN 9780192842619.
Herbert, Eugenia W. (1984). Red gold of Africa : copper in precolonial
history and culture. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 89.
ISBN 9780299096045.
Willett, Frank (14 April 1983). "Who taught the smiths of Igbo Ukwu?"
(PDF). New Scientist. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
Williams, Denis (1974). Icon and Image: A Study of Sacred and Secular
Forms in African Classical Ar. Allen lane London. p. 211.
CHIKWENDU, V. E.; CRADDOCK, P. T.; FARQUHAR, R. M.; SHAW,
THURSTAN; UMEJI, A. C. (February 1989). "NIGERIAN SOURCES OF
COPPER, LEAD AND TIN FOR THE IGBO-UKWU BRONZES". Archaeometry.
31 (1): 2736. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4754.1989.tb01053.x.
 Insoll, Timothy; Shaw, Thurstan (March 1997). "Gao and Igbo-Ukwu:
Beads, interregional trade, and beyond". African Archaeological Review. 14 (1):
923. doi:10.1007/BF02968364.
Sutton, J. E. G. (1991). "The international factor at Igbo-Ukwu". The
African Archaeological Review. 9 (1): 145160. doi:10.1007/BF01117219.
Sutton, J. E. G. (2001). African Archaeological Review. 18 (1): 4962.
doi:10.1023/A:1006792806737. Missing or empty |title= (help)
EzeUzomaka, Pamela. "Iron and its influence on the prehistoric site of
Lejja". Academia.edu. University of Nigeria,Nsukka, Nigeria. Retrieved 12
December 2014.
Holl, Augustin F. C. (6 November 2009). "Early West African Metallurgies:
New Data and Old Orthodoxy". Journal of World Prehistory. 22 (4): 415438. doi: