why - Chad (No reserve price)

Bronzes are common in African art, even more so among the Sao, who, more than a people, are a civilization now vanished. Archaeological discoveries bear witness to a civilization highly prodigal in material wealth. Very well known for their bronze horsemen, there is a variant, the camel driver. An indispensable animal of the desert plains.

The Sao civilization was found in a geographic region spanning the borders of Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria. It is, in fact, one of the oldest civilizations in West Africa.

subjected to successive assaults from their Kanem neighbors and then from hordes coming from the East, the Sao were forced to abandon their lands and settle in the northwest of Cameroon, where they mixed with the indigenous peoples, giving rise to an ethnic group named the Kotoko.

Their descendants, Bakoko, Beti, Fulani (Peuls), and Laobés, although long since Islamized, have retained pagan animist rituals that are normally incompatible with Islam. Indeed, some still today pay homage to the spirit of water, to certain trees, and to certain stones.