Vessels
These five vessels were among the first finds at the site of Kolima, a tumulus in the Méma region. Despite the Méma’s historical importance as an imperial and trading crossroad linking ancient Ghana, Mali, and Songhay, archaeological research there has been sporadic and, at best, superficial. At the end of the 1920s, French navigator Charles Bénard Le Pontois collected these vessels during his travels in the Sahara. It was not until the 1990s, however, that the late Malian archaeologist Téréba Togola developed a chronology of the region and established its importance from the Neolithic period until the beginning of the second millennium.
Artwork Details
- Title: Vessels
- Date: Various dates ranging 740–1340
- Geography: Mali, Kolima Tumulus, Méma region
- Culture: Ghana empire
- Medium: Terracotta
- Dimensions: H. 4 5/16 ×Diam. 7 7/8 in. (11 × 20 cm)
H. 5 3/16 × Diam: 6 in. (13.2 × 15.2 cm)
H. 15 3/16 × Diam. 13 3/16 in. (38.5 × 33.5 cm)
H. 9 13/16 × Diam. 9 7/16 in. (25 × 24 cm)
H. 4 1/8 × Diam. 5 1/4 in. (10.4 × 13.4 cm) - Classification: Ceramics-Vessels
- Credit Line: Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac, Paris
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
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