纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 063伊费头像（7）（在线收听）

Our head is almost certainly the portrait of an ooni, but it's not at all obvious how such a portrait would have been used. It was clearly not meant to stand on its own, so it might well have been mounted on a wooden body, and there's what looks like a nail hole at the neck that could have been used to attach it. It's been suggested that it might have been carried in processions, or that in certain ceremonies it could have stood in for an absent or even for a dead ooni.

Around the mouth there are a series of small holes. Again, we can't be quite certain what these are for, but they were possibly used to attach a beaded veil that would hide the mouth and the lower part of the face. And we know that the Ooni today still covers his face completely on some ritual occasions - a powerful marker of his distinct status as a person apart, not like other human beings. And astonishingly our sculpture suggests this dual nature - an ooni who is a man and also something more. Here's Ben Okri again:

"This is not just sculpting as representation. I think it's really important to understand that. This is not just 'this is what a certain person or a certain king looked like' - this is more than that. This is kingship in its ritual aspect, this is kingship in its relationship with divinity, this is kingship in relationship with the centrality of the myths of a tribe and of a people. This is kingship as an embodiment of the mysterious power of a people."

这座黄铜头像无疑是一位奥尼的肖像，但我们并不清楚制作它的初衷。它一定不是单独摆放的，可能曾经被安在木制身体上，脖子上的那个小钉孔也许是用于固定的。有人说，它可能会在游行队伍里使用，或在某种宗教仪式上代替无法出席或亡故的奥尼。

头像嘴部周围有一连串小孔，其用途我们也无法确定，可能是用来悬挂遮盖嘴唇与下颌的串珠帘子的。我们知道，如今的奥尼仍在某些仪式上将整张脸遮盖起来，这是表明他不同于普通人的强有力的标志。