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Salt Plaque

Before 1938
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
Salt, a physiological necessity, was available in the desert and along the coast but was relatively difficult for the agriculturalist populations of the savanna to obtain. Urban communities along the Niger River traded agricultural goods and dried fish for large blocks of the mineral, which Saharan peoples quarried from desert rock-salt deposits.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Salt Plaque
  • Date: Before 1938
  • Geography: Mauritania, Hodh el Gharbi
  • Medium: Salt, pigments
  • Dimensions: W. 5 7/8 × D. 1 5/8 × L. 11 7/8 in. (14.9 × 4.1 × 30.2 cm)
  • Classification: tablets and plaques
  • Credit Line: Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac, Paris (71.1938.17.37 D)

  • Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing