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Monolith
Not on view
No local tradition or myth provides an explanation for the complex open-air installation of lithic monuments at the site of Tondidarou, a locale that occupied a place of importance among ancient Ghana’s territories. Recent research has suggested that the monoliths such as this example, produced and placed in the landscape during a period of immense social and political change, were innovative experiments in symbolic form. Their authors used iron tools to reshape quartz-rich sandstone from nearby cliffs into cylindrical shafts, which they carved with human attributes. This example features the vertical bridge of a nose terminating in a circular mouth, while other monoliths reference breasts, the pubic area, navel, or phallus.
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