Arts of adornment, like the thethana, have the amazing ability to function as signifiers of social belonging and individual status.
The Art of Africa
Paa Joe created large-scale, painted wood sculptures that represent architectural models of Gold Coast castles and forts, which served as way stations for more than six million Africans sold into slavery and sent to the Americas and the Caribbean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Paa Joe: Gates of No Return
This large sculpture was made for Mami Wata, pidgin English for “Mother of Water," a charismatic being of great spiritual power celebrated in West and Central Africa and reimagined as deities such as La Sirene (Haitian Vodou) and Yemanjá (Candomblé and Umbanda) in Afro-Atlantic spiritual traditions.
“Mami Wata” figure, Igbo artist
Curator Gus Casely-Hayford looks at the origins and history of the Asafo flags, made by the Fante people of the Gold Coast of Africa, now known as Ghana.
Gus Casely-Hayford on Fante Asafo Flags | ...
This exceptional mask has a solid wooden core carved with two similar faces in opposing directions, often referred to as a Janus face.
Janus-Faced Headdress (Ejagham or Bale peoples)
These carved wooden figures have human faces but animal attributes, and reflected the achievements of their owners.
Ikenga (Igbo peoples)
Odundo's pottery draws on traditions from around the world and reveals the relationship of clay to the body
Magdalene Anyango N. Odundo, Symmetrical Reduced Black ...
The Koutammakou landscape in north-eastern Togo, which extends into neighboring Benin, is home to the Batammariba with their remarkable mud tower-houses
Mud tower-houses (takienta), Koutammakou region
This spectacular natural site contains many caves and rock-shelters with the largest and most concentrated group of paintings in Africa south of the Sahara.
uKhahlamba Drakensberg rock paintings (San)
Timbuktu was an intellectual and spiritual capital and a center for the propagation of Islam throughout Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries
Timbuktu
This tomb bears testimony to the power and riches of the empire that flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries through its control of the trans-Saharan trade, notably in salt and gold
Tomb of Askia
The church, baptistry, basilicas, public buildings, streets, monasteries, houses and workshops in this early Christian holy city were built over the tomb of the martyr Menas of Alexandria, who died in 296 C.E
Abu Mena
The site consists of four large groups of stone circles that represent an extraordinary concentration of over 1,000 monuments
Stone circles of Senegambia
The ruins of the ancient city of Aksum are found close to Ethiopia's northern border.
City of Aksum
with its imposing stone walls, Loropéni is the best preserved of ten fortresses in the Lobi area and is part of a larger group of 100 stone enclosures that bear testimony to the power of the trans-Saharan gold trade
Ruins of Loropéni
From 1625 to 1900, 12 kings succeeded one another at the head of the powerful Kingdom of Abomey (in Benin)—and they built palaces.
Royal palaces of Abomey
The mosque, whose prayer room has 13 aisles with eight bays, is one of the largest in Algeria.
Al Qal’a of Beni Hammad (mosque)(UNESCO/NHK)
The lamba (generic name for cloth in Madagascar) is worn as a shawl for everyday wear, but the Merina peoples of Central Madagascar also use it as a shroud in which to wrap the dead during burial ceremonies.
Silk textile (lamba akotofahana), Merina peoples
This brass head clearly portrays a person of status and authority, possibly a king (ooni) of Ife
Head of a ruler, Ife
From a live Smarthistory webinar: Dr. Allison Young, Teaching El Anatsui & "Global Contemporary" Art
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