Koma Terra Cotta Funerary Figure

Long and narrow, with a wide-open mouth and one small knob of a breast.

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. Elongated slab-like form topped with a small head, a peaked nose and a deeply hollowed mouth. One small round bump marks the chest. The surface is dry, chalky brown and pitted, and the lower end is cut off bluntly. It is 1.25 inches wide, 1.25 deep and 4 high.

Mouth open wide, as if it has just remembered something.