A Moba iron sculpture; Northern Ghana, encrusted, oxidise patina; incl. stand. The “iron sculpture” associated with the Moba (also called Bimoba) of northern Ghana (and adjacent Togo) is part of a broader sculptural‑ritual tradition more commonly manifested in what are called Tchitcheri (or plural “tchitcheri sakab”). The tchitcheri are stylised anthropomorphic figures: reduced geometry rather than realistic likeness — a vertical trunk, often slender and elongated; minimal limbs (arms and legs often short and simplified); a roughly rounded head without neck; almost no facial or bodily detail. Within Moba ritual life tchitcheri perform ancestral and protective roles. A figure may be commissioned by a diviner when individuals, families or clans face misfortune — illness, infertility, poor harvests, or other crises. Once created and ritually activated, the tchitcheri becomes a spiritual mediator: through it the living commune with ancestors or spiritual forces, seeking protection, fertility, health or social balance Traditionally most tchitcheri are carved in wood. However there also exist versions rendered in iron (and occasionally in other materials such as bone) — the iron ones are much rarer and more exceptional. The iron gives these objects a radically different aesthetic effect: the abstraction appears even stricter, the forms more ascetic, the presence more austere and perhaps more “timeless.” Some of these iron figures have come onto the art market or ethnographic auction circuits, described as “striking examples of indigenous religious statuary in West Africa. CAB32621