Koma Funerary Figure with Four Faces

Crescent bristling with circles, spirals and little feet.

This terracotta funerary figure with four faces is Koma, from Northern Ghana, West Africa. It is terra cotta. Terracotta is clay shaped by hand and fired at a modest temperature, which leaves a porous, earthen body that ranges from buff to deep red-brown. Half-moon fragment with a scalloped edge, covered in raised rings and discs, small bumps and curling limbs around the border. The surface is warm brown and gritty, with a visible crack and rough, broken edges. It is 6 inches wide, 5 deep and 1.75 high.

Busy surface, calm temperament, and just a bit broken in.