Kneeling figure with "pustules", ca.11th century ·  Mali, Inland Niger Delta, Djenne · ID: 3051843

Description

light beige terracotta, red colour residue, rest.

Very expressive figure with interesting proportions. A strongly elongated body rests on voluminous knees and is crowned by a relatively tiny head. For a stylistically comparable figure, see AHDRC 0085721.

This terracotta sculpture comes from a site called Jenne-Jeno, the oldest known city in sub-Saharan Africa. Jenne-Jeno flourished in the ninth century A.D., but declined and was abandoned by 1400. Items of cast brass and forged iron, clay vessels, and figures like this one survive. They testify to what scholars contend was a richly varied and highly sophisticated urban society.

A few controlled archaeological digs provide only the vaguest outlines of the original significance of the art of this time and region. Sometimes the bodies of the recovered terracotta figures are covered with pustules that seem to represent a terrible disease.

Expertise

Thermoluminescence Report, P. H. Laycock, Brussels, 4 September 1991

Comparing literature

de Grunne, Bernard, Djenne-Jeno, Brussels 2014, ill. 154