Koma Terra Cotta Funerary Figure

Burial mounds in northern Ghana give up their secrets slowly. Now and then, a face.

The Koma people made this one between the 13th and 17th centuries. A tapering cone of terra cotta, crowned by a head of real intensity: deep-set eyes under a heavy brow, a broad nose with pierced nostrils, a mouth hollowed wide open in the clay. The surface is orange-red and gritty with sand. Seven inches tall, on a custom mount.

Funerary work. It does not say what it is mourning. It does not need to.