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Textile Fragment

11th–15th century
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
The individuals laid to rest within the Bandiagara caves were clothed and wrapped in cotton or wool blankets. Some five hundred textiles found in just thirteen Bandiagara cave burial contexts have been dated using carbon-14 testing. The earliest among these are eleventh-century fragments from Cave C. The latest, related to Cave F, were produced between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a period when late Tellem textiles overlapped with those produced by the Dogon. All are composed of finely spun cotton thread in its original, undyed white as well as dyed with indigo.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Textile Fragment
  • Date: 11th–15th century
  • Geography: Mali, Cave C, Bandiagara Escarpment
  • Culture: Tellem civilization
  • Medium: Cotton, dye
  • Dimensions: H. 16 9/16 × W. 20 1/16 in. (42 × 51 cm)
  • Classification: Textiles
  • Credit Line: Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Netherlands, on long-term loan from the Musée National du Mali, Bamako
  • Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing