Google Oldest Kingdom in Nigeria and You will probably come up with "NRI"

I was researching this subject recently and wanted to find out more.It is postulated that NRI kingdom existed in The 9th century AD.

I am aware of kingdoms all over the world centuries before Christ's puported birthdate and see it as a mark of backwardness that in Nigeria there were no kingdoms until so late!/ I came up with Kanem Empire ,Ife kingdom and Benin Kingdom not to be confused with Benin Empire all around in the 7th century. I do not believe even these were the earliest kingdoms in Nigeria. Sadly we have no written records (The Kanem did GIRGAM) and so we have to rely on archaeology.
There is archaeological data from Taruga and elsewhere in Northern Nigeria about the Nok civilization which tells us they learnt how to smelt iron at least 500 BC and they made figurines depicting men riding horses. Nevertheless we are told that after this for another 1400 years there were no kingdoms in Nigeria is this credible?

The main evidence cited for Nri Kingdom is an archaeoligical discovery at what is NOW called Igbo Ukwu. Several items were excavate by a man called Thurston Shaw who has written a lot on the Subject as have ONWUEJEOGWU and B.LAWAL among others.

Firstly do the present day inhabitants of Igbo Ukwu have any links with the 9th century inhabitants

Was it called Igbo Ukwu then

Was it actually a kingdom or a REPUBLIC

The excavated sites were actually burial sites and are purported to be of kings(of Nri)


Were they actually kings or just wealthy/Titled persons

What is the link between Igbo Ukwu and Nri

Am just watching with keen interest what you intend to achieve more than the work of Prof of History Onwujeogwu. An eminent historian who did over 25 years of research on Nri and concluded with what we all know today.
Goodluck.

Did he also do research on kaduna, Nembe and benin? or Just Nri.
By the way does he say that Nri is . I will not dispute his claim if he puts forward a convincing case

Please share with us any source you have where he
ACTUALLY MADE THIS CLAIM
or is your logic that if I do 25 years research on beans I can say which food is the most nutrititious

Juang, Richard M. (2008). Africa and the Americas: culture, politics, and history : a multidisciplinary encyclopedia, Volume 2. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-851-09441-5.

If you go into Wikipedia This is the source cited for the claim which leads to

Who is Richard Juang
What is his back ground
did he conduct research on the subject

how do you expect this on the FP

Have you research on Igbo Ukwu ? to find out which is the oldest kingdom. ?

i do not know which is the oldest kingdom.I do not believe there is enough evidence or information to make the claim one way or another .Recently there appears to be a campaign to establish that claim as fact by repeating it several times until we get brow beaten into submission.It is all over Wikipedia and if you look at the citations given to support the claim they are quite flimsy really. It is clear to me that someone is determined to establish this theory as gospel

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat

It is incumbent on he who declares/asserts to prove his assertion not on he who denies it to disprove it.

Those who say Nri is the oldest kingdom should tell us why we should accept this

SO FAR we have seen no evidence that NRI existed in the the 9th century  and was a Kingdom and not a republic .

First it must be proven that there was a kingdom called Nri in the 9th century as is being claimed

It must be proven that there were no other kingdoms elsewhere in Nigeria before that time

Before you know what happens it is taught all over the world and accepted as fact.
I believe we have to challenge the proponents of this claim to show the evidence or let there be a record that the claim is not universally accepted
We are as close to knowing the oldest kingdom in Nigeria as we are to knowing what happened to the Nok people

My position is that right now WE DO NOT KNOW the oldest but there are kingdoms that are believed by many to be older than Nri e.g Benin,Ife Kanem/Bornu.
None of these can lay claim to being oldest either

Regarding the front page issue I guess everyone has the right to ask  I have seen more ridiculous threads.

Is there a set criteria for front page threads that everyone can be apprised of or is it a secret held by great men like you???

Anyway alhaji harem or whatever they call you ,I find you generally obnoxious and duplicitous so if you don't have anything positive to say try and avoid addressing me. I won't miss your remarks

Personally, I have not accepted the claims by some about the age of Igbo Ukwu and Nri as I see such as an attempted, biased and maybe narcissistic desire to claim pre-eminence. What about the old Sukur kingdom or Koma or Sungbo Eredo or the nations/kingdoms that fled away from the Fulani to the mountains?

amor4ce:

Personally, I have not accepted the claims by some about the age of Igbo Ukwu and Nri as I see such as an attempted, biased and maybe narcissistic desire to claim pre-eminence. What about the old Sukur kingdom or Koma or Sungbo Eredo or the nations/kingdoms that fled away from the Fulani to the mountains?

Well you can argue with Europeans and Asians and etc who have come to that conclusion, unless of course you think they too have something to gain by proclaiming it as such, they must be narcissistic and biased about researching the information and writing it up. They must be Igbo

can you cite which eurooeans and Asians came to that conclusion just one European and Asian reference each please?

aribisala0:

can you cite which eurooeans and Asians came to that conclusion just one European and Asian reference each please?

Maybe he meant carbon dating. That is the only reliable evidence even with its inaccuracy. The other poster mentioned Fulani who are not mainly Nigerians.

aribisala0:

can you cite which eurooeans and Asians came to that conclusion just one European and Asian reference each please?

Google my friend
Start at JSTOR and work your way onward

They used carbon dating to determine their age do you guys just fall over yourselves for a few gotcha points

Please disappear if you have nothing to say.

You make a claim and when challenged you say "google".

I asked for ONE citation to back up your claim just ONE?
Do you think I opened this thread in jest?

Abagworo:

Maybe he meant carbon dating. That is the only reliable evidence even with its inaccuracy. The other poster mentioned Fulani who are not mainly Nigerians.

There is carbon dating on archaelogical finds at Igbo-Ukwu by Thurston Shaw which puts those finds between 900-1100 AD
It is a huge leap to stretch those  finds to say the current inhabitants have a direct connection and that there was a kingdom,.
particularlr as the current inhabitants and none in recent memory have the skills to produce those castings quite unlike the case in Benin.

There is no categorical evidence from those finds that

Those burial items belonged to a King and not a Titled man . In short it is not known that there was a kingdom rather than a republic there

It has not been shown if we assume there was a kingdom there that it was NRI KINGDOM

there has been no other evidence of "NRI KINGDOM" apart from those metal castings.


In short the only evidence for NRI KINGDOM is those finds at Igbo Ukwu

We know of at least 3 kingdoms before 900 AD,Benin,Ife and Kanem Bornu
We know of a written record called the GIRGAM from Kanem Bornu which is corroborated by independent accounts of arabic scholars.

IT REALLY IS AN INSULT FOR ANY EUROPEAN TO TELL US WE WERE SO BACKWARD WE HAD NO KINGDOMS BEFORE THE 10th CENTURY

There is also evidence of Advanced civilization suggesting a kingdom or kingdoms in Northern Nigeria at least 500 years BC from archaeological sites at Taruga and Jos[b]
Evidence that they had learnt to smelt iron and ride horse and yet there was no king in Nigeria until 1400 years later 
[/b]
The remark that fulani are not Nigerians is a funny one but really poorly informed. I believe Ahmadu Bello,Tafawa Balewa,Shehu Shagarietare not Nigerians
We are discussing kingdoms in antiquity

Any kingdom a thousand years ago would have inhabitants that were not Nigerians sice Nigeria was NOT born

So the issue is kingdoms within the borders of what is TODAY known as Nigeria geographically

We might as well say the white people in Canada or the USA are not Canadians/Americans. Truth is everyone came from outwith at some point.No one autochthonously grew out of the soil.
Anyway we are not discussing people but kingdoms within a DEFINED SPACE

Dude go f.u.ck yourself if you have a problem with my advise to go use google. This is not some obsure subject that one has to dig to look for the information, it has a wikipedia page for christsakes.I gave you a site to start your research JSTOR, a reputable research site that has historical documents dating back to the colonial period. I do think you opened this thread as a joke, your tone and subsequent respones come off as someone who laughs at the though Igbo people could have done anything of significance, which is why you mention the Fulani who by many accounts were the last to settle in what is present day Nigeria. If you honestly came out as an objective person who really is seeking information, I might actually bother to dig up the research. But from your attitude you clearly show that even if brought up the sources you would still doubt it. So I am not going to waste my time on a fool who is biased from jump street. Consider it your homework clown.


Please disappear if you have nothing to say.

You make a claim and when challenged you say "google".

I asked for ONE citation to back up your claim  just ONE?
Do you think I opened this thread in jest?

Crayola1:

Dude go f.u.ck yourself if you have a problem with my advise to go use google. This is not some obsure subject that one has to dig to look for the information, it has a [b]wikipedia [/b]page for christsakes.I gave you a site to start your research JSTOR, a reputable research site that has historical documents dating back to the colonial period. I do think you opened this thread as a joke, your tone and subsequent respones come off as someone who laughs at the though Igbo people could have done anything of significance, which is why you mention the Fulani who by many accounts were the last to settle in what is present day Nigeria. If you honestly came out as an objective person who really is seeking information, I might actually bother to dig up the research. But from your attitude you clearly show that even if brought up the sources you would still doubt it. So I am not going to waste my time on a fool who is biased from jump street. Consider it your homework clown.


Please disappear if you have nothing to say.

You make a claim and when challenged you say "google".

I asked for ONE citation to back up your claim  just ONE?
Do you think I opened this thread in jest?

This IGBO  VICTIMHOOD record is Tiresome
I was not the one who mentioned Fulani someone else did I only replied,
I have done more than 3 years research on the subject.
You made a claim I asked you to back it up and guess what
THE IGBO VICTIM record
I have read pretty much everything Onwuejuegwu,Lawal ,Thurston Shaw and others have written.

By the way I did not come across any "ASIAN" work as you claim

Please cite ONE
So if you cannot back up your unfounded claims run along

The Everybody hates Igbo record is BORING

I can categorically say the Wikipedia page is a fraud any idea who wrote it?

http://www.enotes.com/topic/History_of_the_Igbo_people#Nri_Kingdom

This article is ONE of the references cited on Wikipedia

Note the dates she proposes and the dates on Wikipedia How and why did they change

@aribisola. Neither of us was alive and our forefathers sadly had no solid records. This sort of argument will not lead us anywhere because even the best of evidence from a poorly recorded past can never be enough to convince a 21st century man that has gained so much knowledge about probability, bias and falsehood.

I advice you to close the thread cause nothing tangible will ever come out of it.

As for me, I believe Nri to be the oldest kingdom in Southern Nigeria. My brother believes its Aboh. You might also believe its Benin. Scholars credited Nri with the oldest artworks though.

You also made a mistake not knowing that there are some breed of Igbos known as Umudioka that specialized in metal smelting from time immemorial. They are believed to have been given that power by God and were crafts men as far as in Benin kingdom in the olden days. It is all belief and we have rights to our belief.

Your remarks are persistently ill-informed and ignorant

If I understand you well historians should give up their work because they wer not alive.
So no need for Igbos to tell their children unborn about Biafra


Scholars credited Nri with the Oldest artwork?? This is Untrue

Abagworo:

@aribisola. Neither of us was alive and our forefathers sadly had no solid records. This sort of argument will not lead us anywhere because even the best of evidence from a poorly recorded past can never be enough to convince a 21st century man that has gained so much knowledge about probability, bias and falsehood.

I advice you to close the thread cause nothing tangible will ever come out of it.

As for me, I believe Nri to be the oldest kingdom in Southern Nigeria. My brother believes its Aboh. You might also believe its Benin. Scholars credited Nri with the oldest artworks though.

You also made a mistake not knowing that there are some breed of Igbos known as Umudioka that specialized in metal smelting from time immemorial. They are believed to have been given that power by God and were crafts men as far as in Benin kingdom in the olden days. It is all belief and we have rights to our belief.

Please name one of these scholars.

ONLY one will do .

I agree with you that some had no records but Kanem Bornu do THE GIRGAM

I believe NO ONE KNOWS the oldest kingdom so those making the NRI claim should stop it.
That is my point!!

aribisala0:

Your remarks are persistently ill-informed and ignorant

If I understand you well historians should give up their work because they wer not alive.
So no need for Igbos to tell their children unborn about Biafra


Scholars credited Nri with the Oldest artwork?? This is Untrue
Please name one of these scholars.

ONLY one will do .

I agree with you that some had no records but Kanem Bornu do THE GIRGAM

I believe NO ONE KNOWS the oldest kingdom so those making the NRI claim should stop it.
That is my point!!

Are they ignorant because they disagree with your point of view? Or because they lay out the truth like it is?

If you honestly gave off the sense of someone who is in this for the pursuit of knowledge I would actually bother to fetch a couple of links down, but since your tone clearly says "this is to support an agenda I have hatched" I won't bother. I told you the best place to go, JSTOR. Various articles on Nri and even write ups by the European guy who "came" across the bronze pieces.

That is not even remotely close to what I said, I said that some of you (Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, and etc.) all have agendas when its comes to these things. The fact that you assume that, Igbo people mention that Nri is the oldest kingdom based on in your own words of course "I see such as an attempted, biased and maybe narcissistic desire to claim pre-eminence." or maybe based on the knowledge available people might I dare say actually believe that its correct Crazy I know? Its almost as though you are claiming the researchers were on Igbo people's personal dole to lie on their behalf

On Biafra, those two situations are not even remotely similar. No one is disputing the Nigerian Civil War. But you are claiming that Nri is not the oldest kingdom in Nigeria, and to top it off accusing the researchers of bias on the behalf of Igbo people

If its untrue, use your God given brain and use the search bar and prove it. Google, Yahoo, Big, Ask, any one of them will do. The burden of proof in all of this is not on me, its actually on you. You are the one challenging the assertion that it is the oldest, so its your job to do the research and show that "x" existed way before Nri did. Maybe if you do a good job you can change history

Depending on how you ask the question you can get different answers, the Sokoto Caliphate stretched from Nigeria to Niger but is credited for being in Nigeria, why? Because much of it is in what is now known as Nigeria, that's how it works. If the purple kingdom stretched from Chad to Nigeria but was started and must found in what is now Chad, Chad gets the credit not Nigeria.

So your proof is your opinion And you see why I said you were not serious
Maybe you don't know but the people who took the time to dig and figure out the dates of the artifacts know, you should see what they think?

aribisala: IT REALLY IS AN INSULT FOR ANY EUROPEAN TO TELL US WE WERE SO BACKWARD WE HAD NO KINGDOMS BEFORE THE 10th CENTURY

1. Aribisala, this statement seems to be assuming that every place on earth is equally favorable to the development of advanced city states and thus the appearance of advanced city states or kingdoms can be attributed solely to the sophistication, ability, or "culturally advanced" nature of the ethnic group or "race" that was responsible for that city state. Compare North America to Mesoamerica (approximately from Mexico to Guatemela) where the Mayans and Aztecs lived and to parts of South America where the Incas lived. Even between North America and other parts of the Americas, there are subtle, but important differences - for example, the very high amount of rainfall in some parts of Mesoamerica that led to a very high surplus of agricultural production in these areas. This resulted in the Mesoamericans taking steps to develop methods to store this agricultural surplus, and then to protect it. These agricultural storage and protection sites became cities and the development of cultural centers of Mesoamerican "civilization" was really rooted in the agricultural abundance in parts of Mesoamerica, which was due to the unique geography of the area.

It's not really that absurd to claim that certain areas were only able to develop centralized polities at much later times, because the geography of each area of the world is different. The Olmec culture of Mesoamerica developed centralized polities many centuries before the culture that produced the mounds of the Cahokia culture in North America, for example. The reason for this almost certainly has to do with the superiority of the Mesoamerican environment [/b]with respect to the creation of an agricultural surplus and also to the subsequent creation of "civilization", not to the superiority of the Mesoamerican indigenous peoples to the North American indigenous peoples. These groups, the Mesoamericans and North Americans, were "racially" similar and even have some cultural similarities here and there, and yet there is this significant disparity in the level of "sophisticated civilization" attained in the two areas and the time periods at which they were able to create centralized polities. [b]It's not about ethnicity or race, but about geography.

By the way, several modern day European groups did not have a significant kingdom prior to the 10th century (think of eastern Europe, for example), probably also because of geography and isolation. Kievan Rus, for example, only dates to around the 10th century. Also, consider the enormous gap in time between the development of Greek city states (such as Mycenae) and the development of Western European city states of any historical significance. This doesn't in any way mean that the Greeks were an inherently superior or more "forward" race or ethnic group than the Germans, Swedish, French, etc.


2. Now with respect to your overall point, I think what you're really unhappy about is the claim that the Nok culture had no "kingdoms" and the suggestion that the Ife kingdom only dates to the period of its greatest artistic florescence. I actually agree entirely with this assessment because of certain specific terracotta works of the Nok that I have seen, which show what are unquestionably figures who hold some sort of high social or political rank, but the statement that Nri is the "oldest kingdom" in Nigeria, should be read more like "Nri is the oldest surviving kingdom" in Nigeria. The fact that people deliberately leave out the "surviving" bit is either just sloppiness or it suggests that the promoters of this claim are genuinely ignorant of the possibility of earlier kingdoms existing in Igboland, Hausaland, or where ever,before the bronzes of Igbo-ukwu. Even then, as I implied before, the existence of Ife as a city state is not dependent on the age of the Ife artwork, so the claim about Nri being the "oldest surviving" would still be tenuous, since Ife could also be claimed to be an equally old kingdom whose traditional institutions survive to the present.


3. Also, with respect to the question of "kingdom" vs. "republic" vs. "theocracy" (ruled by a priest or council of priests) or other form of government, I think you're just splitting hairs. If it could somehow be proven that the society that made the Igbo-ukwu bronzes was a republic at that time, then the same people who are claiming "oldest kingdom" would just claim "oldest city state", although that is equally unprovable.

There is no evidence that the Nok culture, even considering the figures riding horses, even considering the figure holding a fly whisk, and even taking into account the figures wearing military helmets, were necessarily a "kingdom" rather than a republic. So the same objection you have with respect to Igbo-ukwu and the associated polity being claimed to be a kingdom could equally be directed at the Nok culture and its associated polity or polities. We should instead talk about city states or polities and ignore the form of government, since it's obviously not what is in contention.

4. I think the Nri kingdom is definitely connected to the Igbo-ukwu bronzes and I am certain that there are virtually no scholars working in African archaeology or history that now doubt this, so it's bizarre to see you questioning this so strongly as though the jury were still out about this. By the way, the fact that the bronze casting tradition of that area does not survive into the present has no bearing on anything. The casting tradition of virtually everywhere else in Nigeria besides Benin does not survive into the present, and the modern Benin casting is a conscious and very deliberate effort to attempt to continue the traditions of the past.

5. On Benin, sufficient archaeological work on Benin has not been done to start assigning dates like "7th century". The Edo earthworks actually date to the 8th century (700 AD), but it cannot be proven that they in any way indicate the existence of a kingdom there at that time. All that has been done with respect to Benin's archaeology is that certain places in and around where the Benin palace was at one time located prior to 1897 have been excavated by Graham Connah. He excavated about 5 different sites. For a city of that degree of importance to African history, five excavations is a pitiful amount.

The efforts by Connah were great efforts for which he must be commended, of course, but they do not address the issue of the political centralization or the early archeology of Benin. Five excavations of five sites in or near the land of the old (1897) Benin palace in the early 1960s by Graham Connah do not amount to an account of the archaeology of Benin, and indeed, the excavation of only five areas of any place that was once a major ancient city anywhere cannot amount to an account of the archaeology of that place, despite the title chosen by that great archaeologist for his book.

This lack of archaeological work is definitely not anyone's fault, however, given the economic/developmental conditions of Nigeria, the lack of funding for continued extensive archaeological work, the very difficult soil conditions for archaeological excavations in Benin (Connah specifically mentioned the impediment that the "relatively expensive" nature of archaeological research in general posed, and also the huge problem that the red sand of Benin posed for archaeological work in his article "Archaeology in Benin" (1972))  and even more importantly, the overlay of so many modern buildings and some roads over ancient Benin in recent decades (in the 1950s and 60s modern Benin city was significantly smaller (as noted by people from the older generation) and there was much less on the ground to get in the way of archaeological exploration within the city). 

I do not think satisfactory archaeological work will be carried out anytime soon with respect to Benin, and I do not believe that a truly satisfactory archaeological survey of Benin ever could be carried out after so much has been built over the city after it was burnt down. I think the window for a truly extensive archaeological study has basically closed (hence the attempts at "rescue operations" and "salvage operations" by some of the archaeologists that did do work in Benin, hoping to beat that rapidly closing window) and that the money is not there anyway.

The same problem of archaeology and Benin could also be applied to some other places in Nigeria, but at present, the archaeological studies of Benin are grossly inadequate (more so than for some other famous cultural/historical centers of Nigeria). I think you should limit your contention to Ife or Nok in terms of age, since the archaeological studies of Benin at present are not adequate to make proclamations about the age of the kingdom.

6. Honestly, if I were to make an informed guess, I would say that Northern Nigeria, where the earliest sophisticated Nigerian artwork has been found (the Nok culture) and the earliest pavements have been found (at Daima),  are where the earliest kingdoms would have been, but there is nothing to prove that any kingdoms from that time period survived to the present.

Didn't the Igbo (eg the Obi of Onitsha and his entourage) come out of Edo?

The Sukur kingdom still exists and the present dynasty is the Dur.

The Ikom monoliths in Cross River are thought to be dating back from 250BC to 170AD. Even the World Monuments Fund's (WMF) dates them to 2000BC

amor4ce:

Didn't the Igbo (eg the Obi of Onitsha and his entourage) come out of Edo?

Can we please leave these deliberately provocative and bizarre claims out of historical discussions please? All that these kind of claims do is make people annoyed.

The intention with that comment was not to provoke as I had read about such (of some Igbo) here on Nairaland and thereafter wondered if there was some sort of mixing.

Crayola1:

Are they ignorant because they disagree with your point of view? Or because they lay out the truth like it is?

If you honestly gave off the sense of someone who is in this for the pursuit of knowledge I would actually bother to fetch a couple of links down, but since your tone clearly says "this is to support an agenda I have hatched" I won't bother. I told you the best place to go, JSTOR. Various articles on Nri and even write ups by the European guy who "came" across the bronze pieces.

That is not even remotely close to what I said, I said that some of you (Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, and etc.) all have agendas when its comes to these things. The fact that you assume that, Igbo people mention that Nri is the oldest kingdom  based on in your own words of course "I see such as an attempted, biased and maybe narcissistic desire to claim pre-eminence." or maybe based on the knowledge available people might I dare say actually believe that its correct Crazy I know? Its almost as though you are claiming the researchers were on Igbo people's personal dole to lie on their behalf

On Biafra, those two situations are not even remotely similar. No one is disputing the Nigerian Civil War. But you are claiming that Nri is not the oldest kingdom in Nigeria, and to top it off accusing the researchers of bias on the behalf of Igbo people

If its untrue, use your God given brain and use the search bar and prove it. Google, Yahoo, Big, Ask, any one of them will do. The burden of proof in all of this is not on me, its actually on you. You are the one challenging the assertion that it is the oldest, so its your job to do the research and show that "x" existed way before Nri did. Maybe if you do a good job you can change history

Depending on how you ask the question you can get different answers, the Sokoto Caliphate stretched from Nigeria to Niger but is credited for being in Nigeria, why? Because much of it is in what is now known as Nigeria, that's how it works. If the purple kingdom stretched from Chad to Nigeria but was started and must found in what is now Chad, Chad gets the credit not Nigeria.

So your proof is your opinion And you see why I said you were not serious
Maybe you don't know but the people who took the time to dig and figure out the dates of the artifacts know, you should see what they think?

Rather than blow HOT AIR

who is THEY that you are talkiing about WE ASKED FOR ONE NAME AND YOU ARE WRITING A BOOK

THERE IS A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF SCHOLARSHIP

anyone who makes a claim must prove it . Those disputing don't have to do anything

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat

It is incumbent on he who declares to prove not he who denies
The same principle is the basis of the NULL HYPOTHESIS if you ever heard of that


The claim is NRI is the oldest kingdom in Nigeria

That is the proposition which I came across and I am disputing it so I am inviting those who believe it to provide data .

You are not able to do so so please go away!

It is not for you to tell me to go to JSTOR that is quite silly do you know where I have been.
Do you know how many articles and books I have read before you did common entrance? Don't be silly

YOU without prompting came here and said Europeans and Asians (presumably you believe they are Gods) have concluded so and I took you up on this .


That was a very specific claim  you can't back it up so be quiet!!

@Physics a kingdom is an independent territory that has a sovereign leader is a kingdom
What do you mean by [b]Advanced City states. [/b]Is there a claim that Nri was an "Advanced City State"

Let us NOT confuse matters. Let us confine ourselves to the use of the term kingdom here

Many of the original angles,saxon,celtic and other kingdoms were small and quite primitive from all accounts.

The territtory in Nigeria is not homogenous but quite diverse.

We know that in Nok territory e.g Jos,Taruga they had learnt to smelt Iron and ride horses long before many European tribes. 500 BC

There were early kingdoms in what is known as Western Sudan eg Old Ghana


You refuse to tell us what it is about our geography that made the organization into kingdoms delayed.
You seem to sit on the fence on this issue. Is the Geography of the UK as it is now assuming it was so 3000 year ago better suited to kingdom formation than Nigeria. I don't agree it it all about geography that is absurd! It is multifactorial,geography,collision with other civilizations,disease and many other factors play a role. To my thinking collision with other civilizations is the most significant NOT geography except where the area is oppressive or barely habitable our population size in Nigeria  compared to the rest of  Africa gainsays the latter


Our territory is not dissimilar  to Old Ghana and there is nothing that obviates Kingdom formation.
Once you have learnt to fashion metal,build shelters and ride horses as some Nigerians had Geography would Not make them wait 1400 years to start forming kingdoms

@Physics The point I am making is those archaelogical find s are not the oldest items found in Nigeria

so that republic argument is quite significant for reasons i shall go into later.

The oldest archaeological findings in Nigeria were at Okigwe

The Igbo Ukwu find is the OLdest Metal casting NOT the oldest artwork which are actually of Terracotta.

The logic of the Nri claim is if you are making works in Metal you are a kingdom but if in Terracotta wood or clay you are NOT does that make any sense

The quantity of material found at Igbo ukwu is rather scanty to justify the conclusions being drawn.We have the burial chamber of important persons fewer than 6 and on that basis deduce there was a kingdom lasting centuries and go into graphic detail for which there was little corrobovative oral tradition.



We have terracotta figurines date over 1000 years before Nri scattered across Northen Nigeria

some depicting men on horseback.

We must ask what does this mean

It seems to me that NO ONE KNOWS THE OLDEST KINGDDOM

and this hurry to start claimng that title is rather clumsy and unseemly

Regarding the issue of Nri as a surviving Kingdom from a specific date

There is a massive LACUNA between NRI today and those findings  and certainly no evidence of any continuity between The present and the past.

No evidence of the skills that went into those bronzes or that the people of Nri are descendants directly of Igbo Ukwu.

All the narratives I have seen have been published after the Igbo ukwu find Not before that is quite curious.

However there is a written record GIRGAM of KanemBorno whic is certainly corroborated by external writers dating back earlier than the 10th century

aribisala0:

@Physics a kingdom is an independent territory that has a sovereign leader is a kingdom
What do you mean by [b]Advanced City states. [/b]Is there a claim that Nri was an "Advanced City State"

Let us NOT confuse matters. Let us confine ourselves to the use of the term kingdom here

Many of the original angles,saxon,celtic and other kingdoms were small and quite primitive from all accounts.

The territtory in Nigeria is not homogenous but quite diverse.

We know that in Nok territory e.g Jos,Taruga they had learnt to smelt Iron and ride horses long before many European tribes. 500 BC

There were early kingdoms in what is known as Western Sudan eg Old Ghana



Our territory is not dissimilar and there is nothing that obviates Kingdom formation.

A kingdom is a political state whose leader is a king or queen. You seemed to take issue with the claim that the Igbo-ukwu bronzes were specifically associated with a kingdom rather than a non-kingly state, but you simultaneously suggested that other archaeological finds (such as terracotta works) were associated with kingdoms, even though there is no direct and indisputable evidence that at the time that these works were created, a monarchical state existed in those areas. Sometimes things have to be inferred. The depiction of a figure on horseback, the bronze cast of a scabbard, etc. in Igbo-Ukwu bronzes would lead to some reasonable conclusions that are not written down.

aribisala0:

Regarding the issue of Nri as a surviving Kingdom from a specific date

There is a massive LACUNA between NRI today and those findings  and certainly no evidence of any continuity between The present and the past.

No evidence of the skills that went into those bronzes or that the people of Nri are descendants directly of Igbo Ukwu.

All the narratives I have seen have been published after the Igbo ukwu find Not before that is quite curious.

The articles of M.D.W. Jeffreys on the "Umundri" (Umu Nri) and "Eze Ndri" (Eze Nri), some of which are accessible on JSTOR, predate Thurstan Shaw's findings.

In at least one of these articles he notes the "copper" (probably bronze) ornaments worn in the kingship installation ritual.

In two other articles, he notes the tradition that the "eze Ndri" (Eze Nri) has control over locusts.

This stuff is from the 1930s.

Bronze castings of locusts were later found by Thurstan Shaw at Igbo-Ukwu.

Now how is that not evidence of cultural continuity over multiple centuries?

PhysicsQED:


A kingdom is a political state whose leader is a king or queen. You seemed to take issue with the claim that the Igbo-ukwu bronzes were specifically associated with a kingdom rather than a non-kingly state, but you simultaneously suggested that other archaeological finds (such as terracotta works) were associated with kingdoms, even though there is no direct and indisputable evidence that at the time that these works were created, a monarchical state existed in those areas. Sometimes things have to be inferred. The depiction of a figure on horseback, the bronze cast of a scabbard, etc. in Igbo-Ukwu bronzes would lead to some reasonable conclusions that are not written down.




The articles of M.D.W. Jeffreys on the "Umundri" (Umu Nri) and "Eze Ndri" (Eze Nri), some of which are accessible on JSTOR, predate Thurstan Shaw's findings.

In at least one of these articles he notes the "copper" (probably bronze) ornaments worn in the kingship installation ritual.

In another article, he notes the tradition that the "eze Ndri" (Eze Nri) has control over locusts, by Nri tradition.

This stuff is from the 1930s.

Bronze castings of locusts were later found by Thurstan Shaw at Igbo-Ukwu.

Now how is that not evidence of cultural continuity over multiple centuries?

Yes my issue is we have always been told that Igbos are republicans who do not have kings.  So we must ask
As such those burial sites might have been of kings or noblemen.

Now we are asked to accept on the basis of the findings that there was a kingdom at Nri. I am saying that scholastic integrity dictates one search for corrobotative data.We cannot write a millenium of history of the basis of Shaw's excavation alone. I do not wish to make that the nub of discussion and am quite happy having raised my doubts to concede that it is/was a Kingdom



Of course the sites were discovered long before Shaw went in about 30 years or so that is common knowledge.

I think you confound cultural continuity with Reginal continuity ie a continuous line of kings going back a thousand years. I could not possibly suggest that the NRI people do not have history/traditions that is not my view. I am just aking are the people there now the descendants of those who buried those things and why do we believe so. Afterall we know that the inhabitants on Ilorin e.g. today are not necesarily descendants of those who lived there 1000 years ago

We know that the metal casting skills are still around in Benin to this day whereas those skills had been forgotten at Igbo Ukwu at the time of the find and cannot be reproduced. More importantly if those castings are linked with kings of which there is a long line of succession one would expect to find many more sites like that,

aribisala0:

Yes my issue is we have always been told that Igbos are republicans who do not have kings.  So we must ask
As such those burial sites might have been of kings or noblemen.

Now we are asked to accept on the basis of the findings that there was a kingdom at Nri. I am saying that scholastic integrity dictates one search for corrobotative data.We cannot write a millenium of history of the basis of Shaw's excavation alone. I do not wish to make that the nub of discussion and am quite happy having raised my doubts to concede that it is/was a Kingdom



Of course the sites were discovered long before Shaw went in about 30 years or so that is common knowledge.

I think you confound cultural continuity with Reginal continuity ie a continuous line of kings going back a thousand years. I could not possibly suggest that the NRI people do not have history/traditions that is not my view. I am just aking are the people there now the descendants of those who buried those things and why do we believe so. Afterall we know that the inhabitants on Ilorin e.g. today are not necesarily descendants of those who lived there 1000 years ago

We know that the metal casting skills are still around in Benin to this day whereas those skills had been forgotten at Igbo Ukwu at the time of the find and cannot be reproduced. More importantly if those castings are linked with kings of which there is a long line of succession one would expect to find many more sites like that,

Read through this:

http://www.igbofocus.com/html/nri_is_the_focus_in_igbo_.html

With the exception of Adiele Afigbo's two quoted statements on Benin connections there (about knowledge of Arochukwu and about coronation rituals involving Nri, or even the existence of any Bini tradition even mentioning Nri), which can be shown to be complete fabrications with no support in any of the literature, it would seem most of the quotes there are accurate. Also, ignore the "founding dates" given at the end for the various other kingdoms, as those all have very little support and are selectively chosen for the purposes of the author's argument.

I think once you read the quotes on Nri from the different pre-Igbo-ukwu observers there, you would understand better why there is nothing unreasonable about the attribution of these works to the Nri kingdom.

aribisala0:


Now we are asked to accept on the basis of the findings that there was a kingdom at Nri. I am saying that scholastic integrity dictates one search for corrobotative data.We cannot write a millenium of history of the basis of Shaw's excavation alone. I do not wish to make that the nub of discussion and am quite [b]happy having raised my doubts to concede that i[/b]t is/was a Kingdom

i already said for our purposes here it is not crucial and for argument sake i am happy to concede.
let us not lose sight of the nub which is relative longevity and whether the claim can be made on the basis of finding the "OLDEST BRONZES"
after all there are kingdoms that never made bronzes, NO?