Koma Terra Cotta Funerary Figure, Based

The base is broken. The head, still crested, carries on.

A Koma terra cotta funerary figure from Ghana, 13th to 17th century. Koma figures are known from mound sites in northern Ghana and are thought to have played a role in the rites that accompanied burial. Here a small head with a raised crest sits above a thick, textured collar or beard. The body below is smooth and cloak-like, with a single small knob on the chest, and the lower part ends in a broken edge.

The gray-brown clay is weathered and lightly encrusted. Six and a half inches high.

Some things are finished by time, not by the maker.