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Citing Kemondo Iron Age Sites:

60% of the KM2 furnaces were lined with termite earth, but only one of the KM3 furnaces had traces of an artificial liner.

Discovery of Igbo-Ukwu:

The initial finds were made by Isaiah Anozie while digging in his compound in 1938. He was not aware of the significance of the objects he had found and gave away some of them to friends and neighbors, as well as using some of the vessels to water his goats. Several months later, J.O. Field, the British colonial district officer of the area, learned of the finds and purchased many of them, publishing the finds in an anthropological journal. In 1946, he handed over the artifacts to the Nigerian Department of Antiquities. Other bronze artifacts found in Anozie’s compound were collected by Surveyor of Antiquities Kenneth Murray in 1954. From 1959 to 1964, under approval of the Nigerian Department of Antiquities and the University of Ibadan, Thurstan Shaw and his team excavated three areas: Igbo Isaiah, around the original find, as well as Igbo Richard and Igbo Jonah. The archaeological digs revealed hundreds of copper and bronze ritual vessels as well as iron swords, iron spearheads, iron razors and other artifacts dated a millennium earlier.

Following a 2014 memorial for Shaw, Igwe of Igbo-Ukwu Martin E. Ezeh granted permission for new fieldwork at Igbo-Ukwu. New plans for exploration of the site were coordinated by Shaw’s wife, Pamela Jane Smith Shaw, in 2019 and 2021. Fieldwork on this project aimed at expanding the temporal and spatial record of the ancient settlement. Archaeologists further excavated Igbo Richard, Igbo Isaiah, and Igbo Jonah, discovering an assemblage of large ceramic pottery and evidence of cultural deposits.

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