Koma Ceramic Funerary Figure, Based

Eyes like two round buttons, and lips stacked in thick ridges.

This funerary figure, based, is Koma, from Northern Ghana, West Africa, and dates to the 13th to 17th century. It is terra cotta. In Koma terracotta the body below the head is often reduced to a simple tapering post, which some scholars suggest was meant to be set into the earth. A twisted band crowns the open top. Below it, two round, bulging eyes sit over a short nose, and the mouth is formed from thick horizontal ridges. The column tapers smoothly to a rounded point, its reddish clay grainy throughout. It is 7.5 inches high and 2.5 wide.

Keeping its own counsel.