Koma Terra Cotta Funerary Figure

Goggle-eyed and lopsided, this face has lost its chin but kept its opinions.

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. Boxy in outline, a head with an open, uneven rim and ringed eyes set under a furrowed brow. Dark smudges sit near one eye, and a swollen band of lips runs below. The pale orange surface is pitted, with a nibbled lower edge. It is 1.75 inches wide, 2.6 deep and 2.5 high.

Battered a little, but the stare has survived intact.