a superb funerary head - Achantis - Ghana (No reserve price)

Funerary head - Ashanti - Ghana
In Africa, pottery is almost always the work of women, sometimes professionals or wives of blacksmiths as in Sudan. The clay coming from the "womb of the earth", the work of this material by women thus bears a strong symbolism.

Akan funerary sculptures are one of the pillars of the rich cultural heritage of this people. Oral and written sources confirm the association of this practice with royalty, at least in the oldest times, before it became popular toward the middle of the 19th century.

These heads are stylized representations of the deceased, modeled on commission after death.

They were meant to be placed on a platform protected by a thatched roof, on the gravesite of the deceased. The portrait created ensures the presence and participation of the departed at his own funeral.

The artistic expression reproduces a face whose eyes are almost closed. Only a thin slit allows a tenuous link to filter between the world of the living and that of the dead.

There are often traces of paint associated with the customary graphic incisions such as scarifications.

The Akan term encompassing several subgroups, many stylistic variations coexist.

Black-toned pottery generally comes from the Ashanti, who give it this color by exposure to smoke or the application of a varnish.

In the case of fragments with a flat head like the one presented here, it would be a fragment of the "pots of the lineage" (Abusa Kuruwa). One can see, on page 97 of the book "Ghana yesterday and today", a 19th-century photo showing a heap of these pots often very large, with 3 to 6 heads of this type around the upper rim, and a larger one on the lid.

The photo is not captioned but, according to other sources, these Abusa Kuruwa pots would serve as receptacles for the hair of the lineage's deceased, apparently laid in a pile away from the village and outside.