From the British Museum
Written and introduced by Robert Erskine.

Tonight's programme looks at the Museum's collection of African art, and culminates with the magnificent bronzes and ivories from Ife and Benin.

To many people Africa is still merely a land of primitive technology, childish institutions, and rampant superstition. To some its culture is only interesting as a survival of the habits of our own primitive forebears.
Tonight's programme does much to dispel this view. Discoveries over the last few decades have revealed numerous new facts about African history. For instance, while Europe was still in the depths of the Dark Ages, Africans were making objects of quite extraordinary beauty and subtlety-like the portrait head in bronze from the city of Ife in Nigeria. But discoveries like the Ife heads, while they change preconceived ideas about African history and culture, frequently pose more questions than they answer. This is one of the most fascinating features of 'Unexpected Africa'.