The origin and rise of the African pre-colonial city-state of Ile-Ife, known for its unique cultural heritage, is still a mystery to researchers, despite almost a century of attempts to unravel it. The article analyzes the mythological version of the origin of Ile-Ife, as well as the main scientific hypotheses about the factors that caused its origin, and the circumstances that contributed to its cultural development.

The city of Ile-Ife (also known as Ife) occupies a special, unique place in the pre-colonial history of sub-Saharan Africa, for which urban culture was the exception rather than the rule. Formed, apparently, between 500 and 1000 AD as a result of the merger of 13 villages (Willett, 1997, p. 51), Ile-Ife became the core of the original urban culture of the Yoruba people, who formed a system of city-states in southwestern Nigeria in the 2nd millennium AD. According to traditional Yoruba beliefs, Ile-Ife is the ancestral home of all things; the place where the day begins; the sacred city-the abode of gods and spirits; the source of all waters; the gateway to heaven; the head of the universe [Ooni, 1976, p.2; Fasogbon, 1985, p. 2].

The name of the city consists of two words: ile (ile) - "house", "dwelling"; Ife (ife) - "expansion", "act of expansion" [Abraham, 1958, p. 208, 302]. According to the interpretation of the Yoruba theologian B. Idovu, " Ife "means" that which is wide", and" Ile " - "the original, original house", reflecting the traditional idea of the beginning of the creation of the world in Ife. The view of Ile-Ife as a primary state was also expressed by such a major authority in African studies as the American anthropologist E. Southall (Southall, 1991, p. 81).

In addition to its origin, the uniqueness of Ife is reflected in its culture, a mysterious aspect of which are highly artistic sculptures made of baked clay and copper alloys, in style reminiscent of ancient Greek masterpieces and dating back to the XII-XIV centuries. Starting to find out the circumstances that contributed to the rise of Ife, the flourishing of its unique culture, and the reasons for its mysterious disappearance at the turn of the XV-XVI centuries, scientists enter the field of assumptions, assumptions, and various hypotheses based mainly on indirect data or speculative constructions.

All of them can be roughly divided into two groups: hypotheses about non-African (variant: non-Yoruba) and about the African origin of the Ife culture. The first group is most clearly represented by the Atlantic hypothesis of the outstanding German ethnographer L. Frobenius. Hypotheses about the autochthonous origin of the Ife culture require no less imagination and ingenuity from their authors, because the most striking and unique achievements of this culture - sculptures made of copper alloys-were created on imported raw materials, and its researchers had to find answers to at least two questions: why did the ancient masters have the idea to create their own masterpieces

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on expensive imported raw materials and what was the material base to provide this kind of luxury? Further, it is legitimate to assume that the idea of Ile-Ife as the spiritual and cultural ancestral homeland of the Yoruba people, carried through the centuries and still existing today, could not have developed without the solid economic foundation of its former political power. What was this foundation?

To date, the origin of the city-state of Ife and the sources of its flourishing culture can be reduced to the following four main versions and hypotheses.

1. The mythological version

This version is worth considering in detail, if only because most Yoruba historians take it as the basis for their research of the ancient period of Ife history. It should be noted at once that the earliest records of Yoruba myths date back to the second half of the XIX-beginning of the XX century. In other words, what researchers have at their disposal is not the primary myths, but their later versions, many of which were highly politicized in the twentieth century.

Myths about Obatal and Oduduwa. In the creation myths centered on Ile-Ife, the main characters are Obatala and Oduduwa.

Obatala (his other name is Orisha-ila, which means "a large, significant deity") is traditionally believed to have originated directly from the supreme god Olodumare (otherwise: Olorun - "Master of the sky"). Olorun had given Obatala the ability to shape the bodies of the people who would populate the earth at his will. In the Yoruba tradition, Obatala is the creator deity of the physical appearance of a person, as well as the spiritual patron of sculptors. Freaks, albinos, hunchbacks, cripples-this is also the result of the activity, or rather, the anger of Obatala. This deity is considered the epitome of purity and strict morality. It is associated with unsullied whiteness, symbolizing holiness. He gives his followers strength, prosperity, and wealth, and they, in turn, are required to have pure hearts and conduct comparable to the morning water from an unclouded spring.

According to one version of the creation myth, it was Obatala who was commissioned to create the earth's dry land, but he did not fulfill the task of the supreme deity, because he drank too much palm wine, got drunk and fell asleep. Oduduwa took advantage of this, and the honor of creating the earth and Ile-Ife went to him. Subsequently, this circumstance led to a conflict between Obatala and Oduduwa, which was reflected in the classification of Yoruba deities into supporters of Oduduwa and supporters of Obatala [Abraham, 1958, p.483], as well as in some rituals.

Traditional ideas about Oduduwa are very contradictory. In some myths (most likely they are the most ancient ones) Oduduwa is interpreted as a female deity and the wife of Obatala, and their marriage as a union of earth and sky, where the earth is Oduduwa, the sky is Obatala. The symbol of their union is the two halves of a calabash, closely pressed together. Another symbol of Oduduwa is a sculptural image of a woman in a sitting position, nursing a child. Oduduwa, as the wife of the creator god Obatala, was considered the mother of all living beings. It is in this religious sense that, according to the Yoruba theologian J. O. Lucas, the Yoruba people perceived themselves as her descendants [Lucas, 1948, p. 95]. However, over time, the tendency to consider Oduduwa a leader, a hero, prevailed, and in the more common myths of the present time, she acquired a male appearance.

Today, the prevailing version is that Oduduwa is the male ancestor of the Yoruba people, sent by the supreme deity to rule the people. He had no earthly parents and was, according to one version, the son of Olorun. This option, in turn, has several more varieties. According to one

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of these, Olorun sent Oduduwa along with 16 assistants to create land on the already existing water surface. To do this, he handed Oduduwa a snail shell filled with sand and a giant magic bird with powerful claws. Under Oduduwa's supervision, the assistants threw sand on the water, and the bird began to rake it with its claws, resulting in hills, valleys, the seabed, etc.The central part of the land formed - Ile-Ife - Oduduwa took for himself, and the rest of the territory was divided into 16 parts between his assistants, who became the founders of the 16 Yoruba dynasties.

The second, more common version differs from the first in that instead of the mythical giant bird Oduduwa was helped by a rooster, also unusual: on each paw it had five fingers. In addition, according to this version, Oduduwa received from the supreme deity not only sand, but also pieces of iron.

Along with these canonical myths, there is an oral tradition that states that it was not Oduduwa who created the earth, and that Ile-Ife was inhabited by Obatala followers even before Oduduwa appeared there. A group of Oduduwa appeared in the city, began to deprive the first settlers of the right to dispose of land and began to plant beliefs that were hostile to Obatala. This version is confirmed by the annual rituals of mock battles between Obatala and Oduduwa adherents during traditional calendar holidays in Ile-Ife (Parratt, 1969, p. 344).

Modern Yoruba historians tend to see Oduduwa and Obatala as real historical figures, and the myths about their rivalry at the creation of the world reflect the struggle for power between two warring factions - the first settlers and newcomers. So, the Yoruba archaeologist Fr. Eluemi, based on a study of oral tradition, assumes that the territory of Ile-Ife and some other Yoruba city-states was inhabited before the appearance of Oduduwa, which apparently had military and technological superiority. In support of his hypothesis, Father Eluemi recalls the rite of coronation of the Ooni, the traditional ruler of Ile-Ife: in the coronation ceremony, he believes, the leaders representing Obatala still play an important role; a necessary part of this ceremony is the act of handing the crown to the Ooni who ascends the throne from the hands of the leader and priest of Obatala, symbolizing the voluntary transfer of power to the direct A descendant of Oduduwa (Eluyemi, 1975, p. 125).

It is likely that the oral tradition and related rituals reflect in a mythologized form the real historical processes of the distant past: the formation of the city and the royal power took place in the context of the struggle of the local population with a politically cohesive group of newcomers. As the well-known American anthropologist I. Kopytov has shown, such processes were a characteristic feature of the pre-colonial political culture of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. "The first dweller," writes I. Kopytov, "was in a certain sense the 'owner of the land', with a special ritual attitude towards it and its spirits. To recognize a pioneer in Africa was to recognize his authority and his special ritual position in the local order of things. The usual strategy of newly arrived immigrants was to expel the former inhabitants... But if the local groups were large, it is difficult to do so" [Kopytoff, 1987, p. 54-55].

By sea and. The myth of saving Ife. In this myth, Oduduwa and Obatala meet again, but already in their human incarnation: Oduduwa - "master of the palace", i.e. the sacred ruler of Ife; Obatala - " chief artist "(variant - "sculptor").

The Moremi myth begins with the story of Oduduwa and Obatala's quarrel and the latter's expulsion from the city. After many years, the conflict was resolved peacefully, Obatala returned to the city, but some of his supporters remained in the forest. The place where they set up camp was named igbo-igbo after a fantastic wild and warlike bird,

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and they began to call themselves Igbo. They dressed themselves in bark armor from head to toe and made regular raids on Ife, approaching the town near Esinmerin Creek and slaughtering the inhabitants with clubs. Moremi decided to save Ile-Ife from the annual disaster. The Oracle of Ifa blessed her for the feat with one condition: if her mission is successful, she must sacrifice to the gods the first living creature that meets her when she returns home from Igbo-igbo.

Moremi went into the forest, let herself be kidnapped, and was given to the Igbo leader as war booty. Captivated by Moremi's beauty, he told her that the Igbo army might not be able to resist if they attacked with burning torches that would burn the warriors ' wood armor. After discovering the secret of Igbo vulnerability, Moremi escaped, safely reaching her home in Ifa, where, unfortunately, the first person to meet her was her only son Ela. Moremi's heart was so full of joy that she did not remember her vow.

Under Moremi's instructions, preparations were quickly made to repel the next Igbo raid. The Igbo army was defeated, the Ife warriors destroyed the Igbo camp in the forest, and the remaining wild people scattered through the forests to the east and south of Ile-Ife. Meanwhile, the Esinmerin Creek overflowed its banks, threatening to flood the city. This meant the wrath of the gods, for Moremi had not kept her vow. The Oracle of Ifa was again requested, and its answer was that Moremi should sacrifice her only son, Elu, to the deity of the stream. After the sacrifice was performed, the Esinmerin Stream entered its former banks.

The role and place of this myth in the political culture of Yoruba, preserved and propagated to this day among the population by the priesthood, traditional authorities and patriotic circles of the Ile-Ife intelligentsia, is revealed in a set of events in memory of Moremi. The city has an ancient shrine to Moremi, and a kind of modern monument is the building of the women's dormitory at the University, named after her1. In memory of Moremi and her sacrifice, Ile-Ife hosts the second most important and large-scale holiday of the annual traditional holiday cycle. It's called Edi. In modern Ile-Ife, some of the rites and rituals of this holiday are a thing of the past. Only information about its main elements dating back to the middle and second half of the XX century has been preserved. The Edi Festival is celebrated in November and lasts for seven days. At this time, work on agricultural plots is stopped, market trade and all business activity is reduced to the limit. Tradition forbids drumming on these days as a sign that the people of Ife mourn the untimely death of Moremi's son.

In the past, at dawn on the first day, the chief of the Moore quarter, located in the place where, according to legend, Oduduwa originally lived, loudly announced the beginning of the holiday: all the townspeople had to echo his cry, after which a ceremony was held in each household to set fire to splinters of very hard wood, symbolizing the final victory of the Ile-Ife people over the wild igbo people. After that, mass wrestling competitions between youth teams from different districts of the city began on the city streets. They lasted all seven days of the holiday. In the second half of the 20th century, this custom virtually disappeared, but the ritual of a mock fight on the square in front of the palace between the Ooni and its leaders remained [Fabunmi, 1985, p. 94].

One of the enduring traditions of the Edi festival was the performance of offensive songs by the crowd in front of the homes of those citizens who were "famous" for stealing during the year. Crowds of people ran around the city, singing and shouting loudly ime-

1 According to the first half of the 20th century, in addition to Moremi, the goddess Obashin, daughter of the lightning god Oramfe, was the savior of Ife from the Igbo invasion.

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the perpetrators and their parents were pelted with all sorts of garbage at the entrances to their homes, the thatched roofs of houses were torn off, shouting that they had destroyed the thief's house. In modern Nigeria, such actions associated with mass rampant passions are classified as offensive and criminal, and in the past they served an educational function.

The second and seventh days of Edi are filled with an important semantic load. The focus of the second day is the "search" for Ela's corpse. Several men go to the forest and return to the city with a bundle, in which they allegedly placed the remains of the victim they found. An imaginary corpse is carried through the streets, and people following it, pointing to the bundle, sing something like: "Here is the child we have been looking for everywhere "(Fabunmi, 1985, p. 207). The seventh day of the festival is the day of Ela's funeral outside the city. It is believed that along with an imaginary corpse, all the evil accumulated during the year is taken out of Ife. This duty is invariably assigned to the so-called tele-stranger, i.e. not a native of the city. Ordinary people usually do not know the contents of the cargo being taken out, but it is believed that it consists of all sorts of dirty and unnecessary items. According to tradition, they should be wrapped in tree leaves, and it is also customary to be dressed and dressed in them.

Tele's journey begins in the palace, and crowds of people accompany Tele carrying the cargo of "evil" all the way through the city. They dissipate as the tele leaves the city and begins to gradually release its cargo, scattering its contents right and left until it reaches the burial site of Ela, accompanied by a woman representing Moremi and a man whose duty is to bury an imaginary corpse (Fabunmi, 1985, p.207-208). According to data collected in the late 60s of the XX century, the rite of expulsion of the" cargo of evil " consisted in the fact that a man wrapped in a sheet (i.e. body - N. K.) passed through the territory of the palace, then he was expelled from the city for a year, symbolizing the expulsion of evil, sin, and diseases and misfortunes from Ife [Parratt, 1969, p. 348].

About some interesting details of the Edi holiday at the end of the XX century. notifies about. Eluemi, who combined a scholar-archaeologist and a traditional leader. The acts cited by him show that the national holiday is skillfully managed by the priests and courtiers, and that it is an integral part of the ceremonies, the main role in which is assigned to the traditional ruler. According to O. Eluemi, the command to start the festival comes from the palace: it is there that the first bonfire is lit and a mock battle is played out between the Ooni and its leaders, setting an example for comic battles and bonfires in the city. On the third day of the festival - the day of the public bonfire - the sacred flame is also first lit in the palace, then the Ooni servants carry torches out of the city, arranging mock battles with people pretending to be Igbo on their way. This is followed by a ceremony symbolizing the submission of all the chiefs to the descendant of Oduduwa, the traditional ruler: the chiefs fall to their knees and prostrate themselves before the Ooni [Eluyemi, 1980, p. 65-72].

1. It is easy to see that the myth of Moremi and the Edi festival associated with this heroine consists of several layers of different beliefs and customs, obviously reflecting a number of events and changes in the centuries-old history of Ile-Ife. This is, first of all, the myth of the battle of the city's inhabitants with the wild Igbo. It contains an echo of the real events of the distant past-the struggle for the existence of a young city, surrounded by the virgin forest and its inhabitants advancing on it from all sides. In the Yoruba language, the word igbo does not mean the name of a bird or a people, but a wild forest, a forest thicket (Abraham, 1958, p. 286). In Yoruba culture, Igbo is contrasted with the city, a space that has been cultivated by human activity, as the home of wild animals and evil spirits. The fact that the Moremi myth contains a very ancient substratum is also supported by the fact that it does not mention such a characteristic element of traditional urban planning as igbo ile-a specially planted strip of dense bush.-

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the circle of the city wall, which served as an additional means of protection for citizens from external enemies.

2. The name Moremi sounds like a yorubized version of the name Mary (Mariam), and the story of the sacrifice of Ela gives rise to associations with the biblical story of the sacrificial death of Christ. Most likely, this is a later layer on the above ancient myth of getting rid of the Igbo.

3. In the Edi festival, the main rituals are essentially a modification of the ancient rite of lustration-purification for rebirth with the help of a"scapegoat".

Recall that the expression "scapegoat" migrated to the scientific literature from the Old Testament [Bible, Leviticus 9, 10]. As J. R. R. Tolkien has shown in numerous examples. According to Fraser, many peoples of the world had the custom of publicly transferring the disasters of the past year to the "scapegoats" every year and getting rid of them by rites of their expulsion (from the city, village, etc.) [Fraser, 1983, p. 4]. 508, 513, 529, 532 - 534, 539 - 541, 543]. "Scapegoats" could be animals, people, plants, inanimate objects. "Scapegoats" represented darkness; darkness; infertility; the old age of the year, which, having completed its circular course, had to die in order for the revival and rebirth of nature to become possible [Freudenberg, 1978, p.96]. This can also be seen in Edi's holiday. The last day of this festival was its high point, since its main event was the expulsion from the city of the "scapegoat" tele, symbolizing the expulsion of all troubles and misfortunes. According to an eyewitness of the festival in the late 60s of the XX century, during all the following months, the local population was confident that they were provided with good luck and favor of the gods until the next Edi (Parratt, 1969, p. 340). In the XX century. there is a clear tendency to manage a national holiday from the palace.

2. The Atlantic Hypothesis

The author of the Atlantic hypothesis of the origin of Ile-Ife was L. Frobenius. Initially, based on the study of museum collections from Africa, he classified the Yoruba people's area of residence as part of the vast West African cultural circle, which included the Congo River basin and the Guinea coast. Among the common features of this circle, he noted such as rectangular houses, a bow with a vegetable string, musical instruments with vegetable strings, hourglass drums, masks. All these characteristics were really characteristic of the Yoruba culture.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, L. Frobenius found confirmation of his classification during several expeditions to various parts of Africa and confidently put forward the idea that in the part of West Africa inhabited by the Yoruba, there should be an ancient cultural center and that the bronze sculptures of Benin, which struck the Western world with their originality and high artistic merit, were created under the influence of this center.

A scientific expedition led by L. Frobenius visited Ile-Ife in 1910 and stayed there for about three weeks, including two weeks of archaeological work in the city and its environs2. They managed to unearth an ancient pottery, a melting shop for the production of multicolored glass beads- "evidence of an ancient and well-established production" [Frobenius, 1913, p. 309], a bronze sculpture of a man's head, "beautifully engraved, like the best Roman samples" [Frobenius, 1913, p. 310], as well as dig up and exchange the locals have several terracotas-

2 In total, the stay of the German expedition in the area of the Yoruba people (Yoruba) lasted three months.

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these sculptures, about which L. Frobenius later wrote that " these are explicit portraits. They differ in type and interpretation. Some of them are absolutely black, while others are very far from being Black, and you might think that they represent Libyans or Berbers... I don't think there can be the slightest doubt that we are dealing with a local art form whose perfection is simply amazing" [Frobenius, 1913, p.312-313].

The discovery of a bronze head was of particular importance in shaping the Atlantean hypothesis of L. Frobenius. The place where it was found was the sanctuary of Olokun, the Yoruba deity of the sea. When L. Frobenius saw a sculpture of amazing beauty covered with a dark green patina, he was sure that it was Poseidon of Atlantic Africa.

During the time of the German expedition to Ile-Ife, its population was in deep decline, having not recovered from the violent upheavals caused by the internecine Yoruba wars of the XIX century. The loss of cultural traditions was also evident in the attitude of the city's residents to the Ifa shrines: they easily parted with sculptures that they themselves had once found in ancient abandoned shrines and could not give a satisfactory explanation for their purpose. This further confirmed L. Frobenius in the assumption that the modern Ife was nothing more than an accidental and ignorant heir to a lost civilization.

As a museum specialist and ethnographer, L. Frobenius could not but admit that the objects of art he found were far superior in their artistic merits to everything he had seen in contemporary Ioruba. Bronze 3 and terracotta sculptures undoubtedly belonged to the distant past. But which one? The finds were like the work of one master or at least one school of masters: they all looked equally perfect, without any traces of stylistic or technological development. This circumstance, according to L. Frobenius, "did not allow us to think that great perfection in art was achieved by spontaneous generation, i.e., spontaneously, in the country itself... When observed on the spot, one gets the impression that this magnificent legacy of a civilization that has penetrated here from afar has very quickly reached the peak of its perfection" (Frobenius, 1913, p.316).

Not limited to these assessments of the layer of art that opened up to him, L. Frobenius modeled a fantastically bold Atlantic hypothesis of the origin of Ife and Yoruba culture in general. The main points of his hypothesis are as follows::

1. " The Yoruba civilization in its present form (i.e., by the beginning of the 20th century) should not hesitate to be declared essentially African. .. However, we are faced with the problem of whether it developed locally or was transplanted from outside, i.e., whether we can consider it self-originated or in harmony with foreign civilizations "(Frobenius, 1913, p. 326).

2.At the same time, the modern Yoruba civilization is clearly in decline and has been regressing for at least several centuries. In the past, it appears to have spread along the entire Atlantic coast from the Gambia to Angola.

3. Many of its features, such as the design of drains, the type of hand-held female loom, the shape of bows, are repeated on the northern coast of Africa. However, there are no traces of cultural influences and borrowings resulting from connections between Northern and coastal West Africa overland, across the Sahara Desert and Western Sudan.

3 In the second half of the 20th century, it was proved that the if "bronzes" were actually cast from brass (an alloy of copper and zinc).

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4. At the same time, there is a clear similarity between the Yoruba civilization and the Mediterranean civilization of the ancient Etruscans. Both have similar drainage systems and rainwater storage pools. Only among the Yoruba and Etruscan peoples are found perfect terracotta sculptures made in a similar artistic manner. Obviously, both of these civilizations are sisters. The heyday of the Etruscan civilization dates back to the XII century BC. e. At this time, the Etruscans attacked Eastern civilization (in particular, the states of Asia Minor). Such a movement, L. Frobenius continues, from west to east, generally speaking, contradicts the generally accepted concept of world history, but the contradiction disappears if we take into account the ancient reports about the Atlantean state.

5. The civilization of the West, that is, the Atlantean civilization, included Gaul, Spain, and Libya in particular. However, over time, the younger eastern civilization began to attack the western one, pushing it to the sea, which inevitably led to the settlement of the Atlantic coast. Yoruba was one of the peripheries of this civilization: "The Yoruba culture is a crystallization of that mighty stream of Western civilization, which in its Euro-Asian form flowed from Europe to Africa" [Frobenius, 1913, p.326-350].

Defending his hypothesis, L. Frobenius developed the idea that myths and legends often contain a fabulously reworked reality; in particular, " the story of Atlantis, as it is conveyed by Solon, in reality is nothing more than fiction, a saga woven into myth, but its grain is as real as it turned out to be." real stories about pygmies... or the tale of Troy, which Schliemann's works revealed as a historical fact "[Frobenius, 1913, p. 347]. Drawing parallels between himself and Schliemann, L. Frobenius believed that he " rediscovered Atlantis, the center of Western cultures beyond the Strait of Gibraltar... A Yoruba whose distinctive features do not differ from the Platonic descriptions, this Yoruba, I claim, is Atlantis, the home of the descendants of Poseidon, the god of the sea, whom they call "Olokun", the land of the people of whom Solon said: "They have extended their dominion even to Egypt and the Tyrrhenian Sea! "" [Frobenius, 1913, p. 345].

The Atlantic hypothesis of L. Frobenius did not find supporters among his contemporaries. Moreover, it was ridiculed, especially by the British, who were irritated by the German scientist's violent activities in a country that they considered their property [Read, 1911, p. 24]. Later, the Atlantic hypothesis was opposed by Yoruba scientists. In particular, J. O. Lucas, as the main counterargument, put forward the version that the ancestral homeland of the Yoruba people was Ancient Egypt [Lucas, 1948, p. 346-352]. The Atlantic hypothesis was also criticized by the well-known Yoruba historian SO. Biobaku is a proponent of the hypothesis about the Middle Eastern roots of the Yoruba culture [Biobaku, 1955, p. 12].

Modern yorubovedenie rejected the Atlantic hypothesis as an anachronism and, unfortunately, rarely recalls the real merits of L. Frobenius in the study of the Ife culture. First of all, he was the first scientist who initiated the archeology of Ife. The methods that he used are rejected by modern archaeologists, but, as I have already noted, many attacks against him seem unfair, and the achievements of the German expedition are underestimated [Kochakova, 1968, p. 20]. The merit of L. Frobenius is not only that he opened to the rest of the world such examples of Islamic art as terracotta and bronze sculptures,and appreciated them. It was he who first raised the problem of the origin of the Ife culture and attracted the attention of the world scientific community to it. Yes, his Atlantic hypothesis is utopian, but it is also true that almost a century after his expedition, neither British nor Yoruba archaeologists were able to solve the mystery of the appearance of naturalistic terracotta and brass sculptures of the classical period.

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ifsk art. From what source did these perfect creations come? The question first posed by L. Frobenius at the beginning of the 20th century has not been adequately answered by modern specialists. (As you know, their closest predecessor is recognized, for lack of anything else, the culture of Nocs, but the time gap between them is a whole millennium!)

As for the legendary Atlantis, the question of whether it actually existed at the end of the XX century went beyond purely speculative constructions. In particular, one study by Atlantean scientists provides evidence for its possible localization in the Eastern Mediterranean (Galanopoulos and Bacon, 1983).

3. Foreign trade hypothesis of the Ile-Ife rise

This hypothesis was proposed in the late 70s of the XX century by the famous British archaeologist T. Shaw, the author of the discoveries of the Igbo-Ukwu culture in Eastern Nigeria. The scientist suggested expanding the field of research beyond Ile-Ife and considering the dynamics of its development from the point of view of historical processes in the West African region as a whole. T. Shaw drew the attention of colleagues to significant differences in the living conditions of the peoples of the forest zone who settled to the west and east of the river. Niger. In the east, the Igbo people felt safe from external threats, while to the west of the Niger, the Edo and Yoruba peoples had to settle in compact masses in fortified villages, which eventually turned into cities with high population density, which contributed to the complexity of their social structure [Shaw, 1978, p.158].

Who were they defending themselves against? - asks T. Shaw and answers that the source of external threat could be commercial and military domination in the West African region of the medieval trading states of the West African North-Mali (since the XII century) and later - Songhai. In fact, the pressure on the South from the North probably became noticeable not earlier than the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD, and the pressure from Mali extended down the Niger River to a distance of no more than 100 km from the northernmost Yoruba settlements, most likely dictated by the interests of acquiring slaves. There were definitely slave raids south of Mali, but how early they started and how far into Yoruba the slave hunters traveled remains unclear. However, it is clear that they were using well-trodden paths, since there was an ancient system of exchanging savanna products for kola nuts from the forest zone. Ile-Ife, conveniently located at the center of the northern tip of a forest that jutted out into the savanna, may have been the focus of the exchange system and organization of cults necessary to protect the farming community from external threats. It was easier for Northerners to buy slaves than to catch them in the woods. In the period of the rise of the Ife, T. believes. For example, the slave trade with the Northerners may have been the main source of Ife's wealth. Slaves were exchanged for salt and luxury goods (Shaw, 1978, p. 159). It is not known how the art of casting sculptures from copper alloys and the art of making beads originated in Ile-Ife. It can be assumed that Ooni obtained through the merchants of the north a master who trained his domestic slaves. For copper and brass, Ife paid for slaves - there are no copper deposits in Nigeria. Foreign trade strengthened the local system of exchange, and it added power to the chiefs who directed the distribution of profits derived from trade (Shaw, 1978, p.160).

In support of his hypothesis, T. Shaw cites data from various sources, which, in his opinion, can be interpreted as traces of the influence of northern neighbors on the Yoruba culture in general and Ile-Ife in particular: 1) according to one version of the oral tradition of Ile-Ife, the creator deity Obatala was white; 2) some features of the art and architecture of ancient Ife may date back to the late Roman (Byzantine / Arab) world of North Africa, but they may be explained by accidental similarities (Shaw, 1978, p. 160).

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The hypothesis of T. Shaw, weighty due to the high authority of the scientist and his great contribution to the archaeology of Nigeria, is still very speculative. Nevertheless, it occupies a worthy place in the complex of historical, archaeological and cultural studies of the Ife phenomenon. More than 60 years after the publication of L. Frobenius ' hypothesis, the British archaeologist returned the historical perspective to Ife research, expanded the horizons of the Ife problem at a new level of scientific knowledge, taking it beyond the necessary and important, but private and highly specialized studies.

4. The Golden Hypothesis

Its author is the British archaeologist J. R. R. Tolkien. Sutton, known for his excavations in the countries of West and East Africa. Like T. Shaw, he connects the rise of Ile-Ife and the flourishing of its culture with participation in the trans-Saharan trade, but, unlike T. Shaw, suggests that the main commodity exported from Ile-Ife to the north in exchange for copper (more precisely, brass) was gold, and not gold. slaves and ivory. J. Sutton notes a weak link in the argument of the famous compatriot: it is impossible to explain, he believes, how a state located so far to the south managed to trade so successfully with resources that are very common in sub-Saharan Africa, while regions located north of Ife and closer than the latter to trans-Saharan trade routes, they could more productively supply slaves and ivory to the north. Even if the demand for these goods was great enough to attract the peoples and States of the forest belt to trade, these States could not dictate the price. The wealth and high political position of the Ife in the fourteenth century, its ability to obtain imported copper in the quantities it needed, according to J. R. R. Tolkien. In fact, the authors of the Sutton report suggest that he controlled a more specific resource, which at that time had a greater international value and demand, namely gold. Along with the gold-bearing areas controlled by medieval Mali, Ife "could theoretically also be a gold mining center" [Sutton, 1997, p. 228; Sutton, 2001(1), p. 57; Sutton, 2001(2), p.52].

It is obvious that the starting point for the hypothesis of J. R. R. Tolkien is Sutton's analogy was to construct a scheme for the development of Ife on the model of historically attested processes that took place on the territory of the medieval states of Ghana and Mali and their southern periphery. The attitude towards gold in sub-Saharan Africa was radically different from the rest of the world, which recognized the high value of this precious metal. The peoples of ancient civilizations of the Far and Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Pharaonic Egypt initially used gold for sacred purposes (for decorating temples, royal burials, etc.) due to the fact that gold was associated with the idea of eternity due to its permanent radiance and non-resistance to corrosion and deterioration. Later, it also became a means of wealth accumulation and exchange.

As for the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, they valued not gold, but copper and its alloys - brass and bronze. Gold was mainly intended for exchange.

Prior to Columbus ' discovery of the Americas (1491), Africa was the main supplier of gold to Europe and the Middle East. In ancient times, Nubia was the center of gold mining in Africa, and Egypt of the XVIII and XIX dynasties (New Kingdom) was the main consumer of this metal. Gold came to the north - to Egypt and the Mediterranean via the so-called Nile Corridor, which for almost three thousand years until the last centuries BC was the only safe trade route from the depths of Africa to the north (Adams, 1980, p. 29). Nubian gold mines did not lose their importance in the Middle Ages. The Arab authors Al-Balazuri (VIII c.), Al-Ya'qubi (late IX c.), Al-Hamadani (early X c.), Al-Istakhri (mid X c.), Al-Husayn (mid X c.) and others wrote about this. [Arab sources..., 1960, p. 79].

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To the west of the Nile Valley, the ancient trans-Saharan trade roads, the so-called chariot routes from North Africa south to the "Sudan" or "land of the blacks," were laid by the Garamantes no later than 2,500 years ago. At that time, the Sahara was not yet a desert. Until the first centuries AD, the Garamantes controlled the trade of North Africa and the Aegis with the areas of the Niger Bend, delivering gold to the Mediterranean coast, among other African goods [Kubbel, 1990, p. 27]. Traces of four main routes have been preserved. Their southern extremities (using a modern geographical map) can be traced in the area of Gao on the Niger River; in the area of Kano and south of it; the oldest route ran through the Jada plateau and ended in the area of Lake Baikal. The most recent route ended in the area of Timbuktu on the Niger River (Poplinsky, 1978: 97-100). Which of these items were related to the gold trade and to what extent-this information has not been preserved. Most likely, the volume of trade was relatively small, but also not so insignificant, if it was considered necessary to mention Herodotus (V century BC) [Herodotus, 1972, p. 236].

The gold boom, which had a significant impact on the socio-political development of the West African region, occurred later, with the development of caravan trade after the appearance of the domestic camel in Africa (III-IV centuries AD) and the penetration of Arab merchants into Western Sudan no later than the VIII century AD. one of the main suppliers of gold to the European world in the Middle Ages " [History..., 1976, p. 14]. The caravan trade of Western Sudan's gold in exchange for sugar salt, and later for horses and luxury goods, played a prominent role in the rise and development of the X-XV centuries. Western Sudanese states - trade intermediaries of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (Kubbel, 1966; Kubbel, 1974; Kubbel, 1990). These processes are quite fully documented by written sources - Arabic (from the VII to XIV centuries), Sudanese (XVII century), etc.

Further south, there did not seem to have been any centers of direct trade with the Islamic world in the part of West Africa that we are interested in, although offshoots of the trade routes also reached the forest area south of Lake Baikal. Chad and further east. But there is no direct reference to the involvement of Ife or any other Yoruba States in the intermediary gold trade during the birth and flourishing of Ife culture in any of the sources known to us. However, according to the author of the "golden hypothesis", there are indirect data on this subject that deserve attention, namely: the mention of the country of "Iufi" in the work of the famous Arab traveler of the XIV century. Ibn Battuta. J. Sutton believes that "Iufi" is most likely a distorted " Ife " (Sutton, 1997, p. 225). How valid is this identification?

Ibn Battuta did not visit the country of" Iufi " himself, but reports the following about the territories and roads located to the north: "...from Zaga (in the territory of modern Mali), the Nile (the Niger River. - N. K.) descends to Tumbuktu (Tombuktu. - N. K.), and then to Kau-Kau (Gao. - N. K.), then to the town of Muli (in the territory of Mali. - N. K.), which is located in the country of al-limiyoun (i.e. songhai or hausa. - N. K.). And Mulli is the last district of Malli (Mali. - N. K.). Then the Nile reaches Iufee, which is one of the largest countries in the Sudan, and its sultan is one of the most powerful among the Sudanese sultans. White people (meaning Arabs) do not enter this country, because they are killed before they reach it" [Ibn Battuta, 2002, p.549].

This is not the only mention of "Iufi" in the writings of Ibn Battuta. In the chapter "The Story of Sultan Makdashu", he writes the following: "A merchant told me that the city of Sufala (Sofala - a city in the southern part of Mozambique - N. K.) is located at a distance of half a month's journey from the city of Kilwa and that between Sufala and Iufai, in the limiyun country, the distance is one month's journey. Gold dust is brought from Yufai 4 to Sufala."

4 In the French edition of Ibn Battuta's writings, published in the 19th century, the spelling "Nufi" is given instead of"Iufai".

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Battuta, 2002, p. 537]. It is clear from the above passages that the tempting identification of " Iufi "("Iufai") or "Nufi" with Ife is very shaky, but I will try to find evidence in the history of the West African region that supports the hypothesis of J. R. R. Tolkien. Sutton's:

1. In the fourteenth century, when Ibn Battuta twice heard of the power and wealth of the "Iufi," Ife was in its prime.

2. There are indeed gold deposits in Nigeria, with the largest being located in the Ife-Ilesha area. In addition to Ife, gold deposits (according to the first half of the 20th century) were also found in northern Nigeria - in the territory of Zaria, Birnin Gwari (Kaduna district), Nupe, Kontagora, Sokoto, Ilorin, Kebbi. During this period, gold mining employed a total of about 17 thousand people, and most of the development was carried out manually [Buchanan, 1958, p. 179-180; Ekundare, p. 179-182]. Some experts, however, believe that "despite the presence of small gold deposits in the vicinity of the cities of Ife and Ilesha, there is reason to believe that all of them are recent discoveries that did not play a role in the trade of the early period of the region's history" [History..., Vol. 1, 1976, p. 259].

3. There was a trans-Sudanese caravan trade route from medieval Ghana to Egypt, which continued earlier than the tenth century and passed north of the territory of modern Nigeria. This path was described by Ibn Al-Faqih Al-Hamadani (early 10th century) in his book "The Book of the Creation of the Earth". "It is said that if you cross the country of Gana on your way to Egypt, you will reach the black people called kuku 5, then the people called marnada, then the people called murawa, then the oases of Egypt near Malsana..."[Arab sources..., 1960, p. 79]. Translated into modern geographical names, this means that " the route from Ghana to Egypt led through a bend in the Niger, skirting the Tijeddi massif south of Agadez in the area of the modern city of Marandet, beyond Lake Chad, it descended to the south of Wadai in the Murro region, and from there... to the southern oases of Egypt "[Berzina, 1992, p. 163].

Later, the trans-Saharan routes changed their direction from "east-west" to "north-south".

The above facts indirectly support the assumption of J. R. R. Tolkien. Sutton on the possibility of connecting ancient Ife and its northern neighbors (nupe 6 and Hausa) to trans-Saharan trade from the tenth century and later. However, there are arguments that deny this hypothesis, or at least call it into question:

1. It would be wrong to ignore G. S. Kiselyov's point of view that "before the sixteenth century ...trade relations between West Africa and the Arab world bypassed present-day Northern Nigeria" (Kiselyov, 1977, p.24), and Ife, as is known, is located much to the south of the southern regions of Northern Nigeria.

2. In the middle of the 19th century, during the creation of the Poliglotta Africana dictionary, only one of the Yoruba respondents was able to give a name for gold [see: History..., Vol. 1, 1976, p. 259], i.e. the informants did not know what they were being asked about. This, however, is a rather weak argument against the "golden" hypothesis, since the dictionary compiler did not visit the Ife.

3. If the gold trade played an important role (according to J. R. R. Tolkien). Sutton-crucial) in providing Ife with raw materials for creating the main objects of worship, then why all the-

5 Kuku-Kaukau-most commentators of the "Arab Sources..." identify this name with the town of Gao on the left bank of the Niger River, founded in the 7th century, or with the point of Kookaua near the lake. Chad or s Kuki - the ancient capital of the Songai (see: Arab sources..., 1965, p. 406; Arab Sources..., 1985, p. 262-263.

6 The earliest references to the early Nupe State (north of Ioruba in the Niger River Valley) date back to C. [History..., 1976, p. 24].

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why is this fact not reflected in the Ife culture? On the contrary, in the religion and mythology of Ife, the cult of iron is clearly traced.

Summing up, we can conclude that the little reliable information that we know about the culture of ancient Ife does not allow us to accept or completely reject the "golden hypothesis". In any case, we should not forget about it in the future, when the archeology of Ife is enriched with new data, because the "golden hypothesis" encourages new searches and, as its author writes, "while there is no direct evidence, it is possible to imagine from indirect data that the richness and significance of Ife in the XII and XIV centuries The northern orientation to Nupa, as well as the interest of the Mali Empire in the Lower Niger region (and its capture of Gao in 1320), attest to the position of Ife in the richest but limited gold deposit east of the Volta River - rich enough for a "gold rush" to break out, as well as to the situation of the Malian empire in the Lower Niger region. in 1941-1942. Although not a single gold object has been found among the art and archaeological collections of Ife, one brass royal head contains a significant amount of gold, 2.4%7 - this is more than just a trace and can hardly be an accident " [Sutton, 1997, p. 225].

* * *

Collected in one article, the four versions of the origin and causes of the rise of Ile-Ife, despite their dissimilarity, show the same tendency: they all focus (mainly or exclusively) on external (mythical or real) factors. This is largely due to the insufficient archaeological survey of the city-state and the lack of written sources earlier than the XIX century. Be that as it may, expanding the field of research beyond the city and Ioruba as a whole may reveal new approaches to solving the Ile-Ife mystery.

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Arab sources of the VII-X centuries on the ethnography and history of Africa south of the Sahara, Moscow: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1960.

Berezina S. Ya. Meroe i okruzhayushchiy mir (I-VIII vv. n. e.) [Measure and the surrounding world (I-VIII vv. n. e.)]. Moscow: IVL, 1992.

The Bible. The books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are canonical.

Galanopoulos A. G., Bacon E. Atlantis: behind the legend - the truth. Moscow: IVL, 1983.

Herodotus. History in Nine Books, Nauka Publ., 1972.

Ibn Battuta. A gift to the contemplative about the curiosities of cities and the wonders of travel//Arab sources of the XII-XIV centuries on the ethnography and history of Africa south of the Sahara. Vol. 4. Moscow: IVL, 2002.

Kiselev G. S. Nekotorye problemy etnogeneza hausa [Some problems of Hausa ethnogenesis]. 1977. N3.

Kochakova N. B. Goroda-gosudarstva yoruba [Cities-States of Yoruba]. Moscow: IVL, 1968.

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Kubbel L. E. Songhai Power, Moscow: IVL Publ., 1974.

Kubbel L. E." Strana zolotogo " - veka, kul'tury, gosudarstva ["Country of Gold" - centuries, Cultures, states]. Moscow: IVL, 1990.

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J. Frazer Zolotaya vetv, Moscow: Politich Publishing House. lit-ry, 1983. Ed. 2.

Abraham R.C. Dictionary of Modern Yoruba. L.: University of London Press LTD, 1958.

Barker H. Examination of the Ife Bronze Heads // Man (Old Series). 1965. N 65.

Biobaku S.O. The Origin of the Yorubas. Lugard Lectures 1955. Lagos, 1955.

Buchanan K.M., Pugh J.C. Land and People in Nigeria. L., 1958.

The Cradle of a Race. Ife from the Beginning to 1980. Port Harcourt: Sunray Publications LTD, 1992.

Ekundare R.O. An Economic History of Nigeria, 1860 - 1960. N.Y., 1973.

7 js. Sutton refers to X. Barker, 1965, p. 23-24.

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Eluyemi O. The Role of Oral Tradition in the Archaeological Investigation of the History of Ife // Yoruba Oral Tradition. Ile-Ife: Ibadan University Press, 1975.

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Frobenius L. The Voice of Africa. Vol. 1. L.: Hutchinson, 1913.

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Ooni of Ife; His Historical Place and His Historical Position Within the Yoruba Nation. Ile-Ife: De-Kings Press, 1976.

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