Koma Ceramic Funerary Figure, Based

Ears like coiled snails, and a chin stacked in neat ridges.

This based funerary figure is Koma, from Northern Ghana, West Africa, and dates to between the 13th and 17th centuries. It is terra cotta. Thousands of these figures have come from mounds in the Koma-Bulsa area, and scholars usually link them to burial and remembrance while admitting how much remains unknown. The head is an open cylinder of pale orange clay, with a straight nose, faint brows and two large coiled discs at the sides. Horizontal ridges stack beneath the nose like a stylized beard, and the form narrows to a rough lower end. It is 5 inches high and 2.5 wide.

Small, but very much listening.