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Ekpo Okpo Eyo, esteemed archaeologist, art historian, muse.oIo.gist, professor, and beloved colleague, joined the ancestors May 28, 2011. He was eighty years old. His career had a tremendous impact upon African studies and the museum world.
Eyo was born in Creek Town, near Calabar, in today's Gross River State of Nigeria. As a youth in colonial Nigeria he came to admire Kenneth Murray for his unusual work documenting local art traditions. Eyo later attended college at Cambridge University, where he earned the BA and MA in Archaeology and Anthropology in the mid-1960s. He then transferred to the University of Ibadan for the PhD, and completed his dissertation, "Recent Excavations in Ife and Owo and their Implications for Ife and Benin Studies," in 1974 under the direction of Thurstan Shaw and Alan Ryder.
While undertaking his graduate studies, Eyo was also building an enviable professional career as a museologist. Beginning in 1963 as an archaeologist/ethnographer for the Nigerian Federal Department of Antiquities, he was soon promoted to deputy director in 1965. And just three years later, he became director. During this time he also won the admiration of many students as a lecturer at Lagos University. In 1979, he continued as director general of the newly formed Nigerian National Cornmission for Museums and Monuments. He held this post until 1986 when, fed up with the corruption rampant in Nigerias government, he moved to the United States, where he signed on as full professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland. Eyo would later earn American citizenship while maintaining residences in both countries. "Prof" - as he was commonly known in Nigeria-retired from teaching in 2005. He was known for his anthropologists perspective; he wanted his students first and foremost to understand the local contexts of cultural production in Africa, and he invested much time and effort to organizing and accommodating the needs of his graduate students engaged in fieldwork in Nigeria. His generosity in this regard was unforgettable.
During his tenure as DG, Eyo was involved in some of the most significant developments in international museum policy of the modern era. He was a member of the UNESCO Expert Committees drafting the Convention on The Illicit Transfer of Cultural Property...