Memorial head

This elegant terracotta head is a memorial portrait (nsodie) of an Akan ruler from present-day southern Ghana. It is an idealized representation whose serene expression and well-balanced features suggest the positive qualities such rulers are expected to embody. Created posthumously, royal images like this one were placed with the portraits of previous rulers in sacred areas within the cemetery called asensie. Generally, each royal figure was accompanied by sculptures of courtiers and servants, perhaps to provide aid and comfort to the deceased in the afterlife. Together, they formed sculptural assemblages that honored and preserved the memory of these respected individuals and the chiefly lineages of which they were part. At certain times of the year, the asensie was the focus of prayers, libations, and other offerings that ensured the continuing support and protection of the ancestors.

Sculptures associated with this tradition, which dates to at least the seventeenth century, were produced in a wide variety of regional styles. Like other commemorative sculptures in clay created by artists in the Aowin traditional area, this portrait is characterized by its oblong face, delicate features and serene expression. The head is personalized through distinctive individualized details: cicatrices adorning the temples and forehead, as well as a specific coiffure. The face’s features are symmetrically defined on either side of the straight ridge of the nose, terminated by slightly flared nostrils that seem to vibrate with life. The line of the nose splits into the eyebrows that arch over open, almond-shaped eyes. Rows of three horizontal cicatrices adorn each temple, and two over each eye would have adorned the forehead but one is missing on the right side, signaling that these defining elements would have been added to the modeled surface. Semi-circular ears are defined towards the back of the head, on both sides of the face. The carefully defined facial features contrast with the extreme simplicity of the coiffure solely marked by a hair line running around the head and a small bump atop.

In much of Africa, clay is an artistic medium primarily associated with women. European visitors to this region in the mid-nineteenth century documented a related Akan tradition of lifesize funerary sculpture crafted by female artists. Although earlier accounts did not identify the producers of these smaller memorial heads, it is probable that they were created by female sculptors as well.