1933.29.17

Collection type

Object

Description

Human head, modelled in pottery, in which spirits of ancestors may dwell.

Geographical reference

Nigeria

Africa > Western Africa > Nigeria

Benue

Cultural groups

Tiv

Person

Field collector Roger Meaden Downes

PRM source Roger Meaden Downes

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1933

Date collected

By 1933

Acquisition information

Donated: 1933

Materials and processes

Material Pottery, Process Modelled

Dimensions

Length: max 210 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1933.29.17

Associated publications

Illustrated (in a drawing by Kenneth Campbell) as Figure 15 on page 77 of The Art of Eastern Nigeria, by G. I. Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). The caption (same page) reads: '15 Terracotta head'. The figure is also listed on page vii of the table of 'Illustrations': '15 Terracotta head: part of a pottery vessel (P.R.M.). Tiv.' The figure is used to illustrate the author's brief discussion on page 78 of Tiv pottery figures, in relation to the earlier Nok terracottas: 'A few crude pottery figures of humans and of animals were reported from pottery areas in Tiv country and in various other parts of the area, and many potters occasionally made pots with human or animal heads projecting from the rim or the sides, but these were indistinguishable from similar figures from other parts of Africa.' [JC 21 5 2009] Illustrated in black and white as Figure IV.38 on page 195 of The Arts of the Benue: To the Roots of Tradition, by François Neyt, assisted by Andrée Désirant, no place given: Editions Hawaiian Agronomics (1985). Caption (same page) reads: 'IV.38 Terracotta head, Pitt Rivers Museum, 15 cm.' Neyt writes (p. 196) of this and 1933.2918: 'They are probably of Tiv origin and could be connected with the cult of the ancestor Poor.' [JC 30 1 2015]

Search terms: Figure, Religion, Pottery, Religious Object