Africa

What this unit covers

The topics below follow the published Art History course framework for Unit 6. This unit is worth 6% of the exam, so budget your time against that rather than against how long the unit takes to teach.

Lessons in this unit

• Architecture & the Arts of Kingship14 min · 3 objectivesDescribe how African monumental architecture used local materials and communal labor · Explain how royal arts in Benin, Asante, Kuba, and Yoruba courts expressed and preserved power · Analyze how form and material communicate status, history, and the sacred
• Masks, Performance & Power Objects14 min · 3 objectivesExplain how African masks function only in performance, uniting sculpture, music, and dance · Describe how power objects such as the nkisi n’kondi work through activation and community belief · Analyze how ideals of beauty, memory, and social order are embodied in masks and figures

Every term in Unit 6

All 12 terms we publish for Africa, with definitions. Reading them through is the fastest way to find the ones you cannot define — then drill those in cram mode until you can produce them without the prompt.

Conical tower, Great Zimbabwe

Shona peoples, c. 1000–1400 CE, coursed granite. Mortarless stone walls up to eleven meters. European accounts long refused to credit local builders — the site is a case study in interpretive bias.

Great Mosque of Djenné

Mali, founded c. 1200, rebuilt 1906–1907, adobe. Torons — projecting palm beams — are permanent scaffolding for the annual replastering, so maintenance is a communal festival.

Wall plaque, Oba's palace

Edo peoples, Benin, 16th century, cast brass. Lost-wax casting and hierarchic scale. Looted by the British in 1897, which makes these objects central to repatriation debates.

Sika dwa kofi (Golden Stool)

Ashanti, Ghana, c. 1700, gold over wood. Said to have descended from the sky; it holds the soul of the nation and is never sat upon.

Ndop portrait of King Mishe miShyaang maMbul

Kuba, DR Congo, c. 1760–1780, wood. Not a likeness but an idealized commemorative figure, identified by the emblem at its base.

Female (Pwo) mask

Chokwe, c. late 19th century, wood and fiber. Worn by male dancers to honor female ancestors; scarification marks are carved as beauty and identity.

Portrait mask (Mblo)

Baule, early 20th century, wood and pigment. A specific person's idealized double, danced in their honor — portraiture without likeness.

Bundu mask

Sande Society, Mende, 19th–20th century, wood and raffia. One of the few African masking traditions worn by women; the high forehead and neck rings signal beauty and health.

Ikenga (shrine figure)

Igbo, c. 19th–20th century, wood. Horns signify personal achievement; the object grows in significance as its owner does.

Lukasa (memory board)

Luba, c. 19th–20th century, wood with beads and shells. Beads are read by touch by trained officials — a mnemonic device for history rather than a picture of it.

Aka elephant mask

Bamileke, Cameroon, c. 19th–20th century, beads and cloth. Beadwork restricted to royalty; the elephant signals power and wealth.

Reliquary figure (byeri)

Fang, Gabon, c. 19th–20th century, wood. Guards ancestral skulls; the calm face over a powerful body balances stillness and force.

What examiners penalize here

• African royal arts repeatedly use **relative scale** to encode status and relationships — the Oba dominating attendants, or Olowe of Ise making the senior wife larger than the king to show she upholds his rule. When asked how a work conveys power, describe *who is bigger and why*, not just that the ruler appears.

Practice Art History

Our practice bank is drawn from across the whole course rather than filtered to one unit, which is closer to how the exam asks anyway — it will not tell you which unit a question is testing.

Questions about this unit

All 10 units of AP Art History

1. Unit 1 · Global Prehistory
2. Unit 2 · Ancient Mediterranean
3. Unit 3 · Early Europe & Colonial Americas
4. Unit 4 · Later Europe & Americas
5. Unit 5 · Indigenous Americas
6. Unit 6 · Africa
7. Unit 7 · West & Central Asia
8. Unit 8 · South, East & Southeast Asia
9. Unit 9 · The Pacific
10. Unit 10 · Global Contemporary