Koma Ceramic Funerary Figure

Stacked ridges climb from chin to nose, like a smile told several times over.

This funerary figure is Koma, from Northern Ghana, West Africa, and dates to the 13th to 17th century. It is terra cotta. On many Koma heads the mouth and chin are built up in layers of rolled clay, a treatment that gives the lower face its strong horizontal rhythm. Here a notched band runs around the open top, above two large almond eyes with incised lashes beneath. Below the nose, five or six thick ridges wrap the face, ending in a fringe of vertical grooves at the chin. The clay is a gray-brown with sandy patches. It is 4.5 inches high, 2.5 wide and 2 deep.

Layered like a good argument.