Terracotta Female Torso from Niger in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2020

Female Torso
3rd–11th century


Object Details

Title: Female Torso

Date: 3rd–11th century

Geography: Niger

Medium: Terracotta

Dimensions: H. 9 1/8 × W. 5 13/16 × D. 4 3/4 in. (23.2 × 14.8 × 12 cm)

Classification: Ceramics-Sculpture

Credit Line: Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines, Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, Niger


Between the third and tenth centuries, the dead were laid to rest at a site in present-day Niger downstream from the Inland Niger delta. The burial ground’s density and expanse suggest a veritable city of the departed. Several hundred individual graves were marked by upturned pottery urns, some of which were cylinders topped by figurative imagery such as this torso. The most elaborate of these were full-bodied equestrians, while the most basic were highly abstract, independent heads.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/757399