Mali

Timbuktu, December 05, 2013 - Deputy Director Abdoulaye Cisse explains how over 10000 manuscripts were hidden and saved at the Institut des Hautes Etudes et de Recherche Islamiques Ahmed Baba in Timbuktu — A heroic effort to save and preserve Mali's long manuscript tradition.

Saving Timbuktu’s manuscripts

Seated Figure, terracotta, 13th century, Mali, Inland Niger Delta region, Djenné peoples, 25/4 x 29.9 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — Are these little-understood figures representations of diseased people, or an attempt to ward off illness?

Lost History: the terracotta sculpture of Djenne ...

Seydou Keïta, Untitled [Seated Woman with Chevron Print Dress], 1956, printed 1997, Mali, Bamako, gelatin silver print, 60.96 x 50.8 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — Studio photography produced mementos for the growing middle class: Keïta’s Bamako studio was abuzz with clients.

Seydou Keïta, Untitled (Seated Woman with Chevron ...

Kòmò Helmet Mask (Kòmòkun), 19th–mid-20th century, Guinea or Mali or Burkina Faso or Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, Komo or Koma Power Association, Wood, bird skull, porcupine quills, horns, cotton, sacrificial materials, 35.2 x 22.1 x 85.6 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — Intended to intimidate, this headdress was used by a member of the powerful Kumo society of blacksmiths.

Kòmò Helmet Mask (Kòmòkunw) (Bamana peoples)

Headdress: Male Antelope (Ci Wara), 19th–20th century Mali, Bamako region, Bamana, wood, metal bands, 71.1 cm high (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — These headdresses celebrate the divine Ci Wara, half man and half antelope, who introduced humans to agriculture.

Male and Female Antelope Headdresses (Ci wara) ...

Mask (Kanaga), Mali, Dogon peoples, 20th century, wood, fiber, hide, pigment, 53.6 x 97.2 x 15.9 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — Kanaga masks were traditionally worn during the dama, a six-day long funerary ritual for Dogon men.

Mask (Kanaga) (Dogon peoples)

Seated Figure, terracotta, 13th century, Mali, Inland Niger Delta region, Djenné peoples, 25/4 x 29.9 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — This hunched figure is a large part of the material record of an egalitarian society that disappeared around 1400.

Seated Figure (Djenné peoples)

Dogon Couple, 18th-early 19th century (Dogon peoples), Mali, wood and metal, 73 x 23.7 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — Is this a couple, or could this pair relate to a story from Dogon cosmology?

Dogon Couple (Dogon peoples)

A view of the Great Mosque of Djenné, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988 along with the old town of Djenné, in the central region of Mali. — The largest mud-built structure in the world, the Great Mosque of Djenné has been reconstructed multiple times.

Great Mosque of Djenné (Djenné peoples)