Female Body (Venus of Thiaroye)

Before 2000 BCE (?)

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 earliest societies to prosper in the Sahel were pastoralist communities. Their mobile elites accrued wealth and power in the form of cattle and semiprecious stones and memorialized themselves through the construction of tumuli—mounds for burials or the deposition of possessions. This delicately incised pebble, discovered casually in the vicinity of a dune, appears to have been imbued with symbolic meaning. Only minimal carving of the stone’s natural form was required to transform it into a tribute to procreation.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

References

Title: Female Body (Venus of Thiaroye)
Date: Before 2000 BCE (?)
Geography: Senegal
Medium: Sandstone
Dimensions: W. 3/4 × D. 1 × L. 2 3/4 in. (1.9 × 2.5 × 7 cm)
Classification: Stone-Sculpture
Credit Line: Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal (SEN 67-21)
Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing