The most recognizable art forms from Easter Island are its colossal stone figures, or moai, images of ancestral chiefs whose supernatural power protected the community.

Since becoming Director, I have stressed two priorities: scholarship and accessibility. Our new website, which launched today, certainly embodies both of these aims, featuring complete listings of the Museum's catalogued collections, an interactive map—with descriptions of every gallery in the Main Building and at The Cloisters—suggested itineraries to help you plan your visit, special content for Members, and much more.

Strategically located between southern gold-producing regions and Saharan salt mines like Taghaza, the kingdoms of the western Sudan were well positioned to amass great wealth through the taxation of imports and exports.

The Mali empire extended over an area larger than western Europe and consisted of numerous vassal kingdoms and provinces.

The sculpture of the Dogon people of Mali constitutes one of the richest artistic traditions of West Africa and is a highlight of the Metropolitan Museum's permanent collection of African art. This handsome book features sixty-three of the finest pieces of Dogon art collected by Lester Wunderman, several of which have been donated to the Museum's permanent collection. The text, written by the Museum's assistant curator of primitive art, incorporates the most up-to-date research and thinking on the complex subject of ritual art and on the context in which Dogon sculpture was originally produced and used. Each piece has been especially photographed for this volume and is accompanied by a detailed discussion of its function, style, and significance. Also included are maps, a bibliography, and more than eighty photographs, some of them taken in the field by Eliot Elisofon and Lester Wunderman.

Figures with no clothes are peculiarly common in the art of the Western world.

Drawn to universities and large cities, Franciscan and Dominican friars lived and preached among the people, supporting themselves by working and begging for food.