Koma Terra Cotta Funerary Figure

Narrow as a dagger, with horned brow ridges and a ribbed muzzle.

This Koma terra cotta funerary figure is Koma, from Northern Ghana, West Africa. Hand-modeled from fired clay, Koma figures often show stylized faces, bodies and ornaments, and their surfaces record the pinching, coiling and incising used by the potters. Long and pointed, a piece in a smooth, deep russet. Two ringed eyes flank a ridge that runs down the center, and a band of tightly incised rings wraps the lower face. The upper edge rises in two small, rounded points. It is 0.75 inches wide, 1 deep and 4 high.

A face reduced to rings and ridges, and none the poorer for it.