2021.1.1
Chokwe head, Angola/Democratic Republic of the Congo
Figure of the Mehrgarh type
Terracotta
5 1/2 x 2 x 2 in. (16 x 5 x 5 cm)
2021.1.1
About this object
The description of this terra cotta figurine as “Mehrgarh type” places its presumed origin west of the Indus River in present-day Baluchistan, Pakistan, at a Neolithic settlement that has evidence of farming as early as before 7000 BCE, and where the earliest known ceramic figures in South Asia have been found. Archeological digs at Mehrgarh have uncovered other similar terra cotta figures of mothers closely holding newborns, and by the beginning of the 4th millennium BCE these figures began to have the characteristic “elaborate hairstyles, ornaments, large hips, and pronounced breasts” (Sinopoli) seen on this figure. Some terra cotta female figures are identified as depictions of the mother-goddess, although there is not always evidence to label them as such and the current tendency is to identify them more simply as female or mother figures.
Jean-François Jarrige. “The Early Architectural Traditions of the Greater Indus as Seen from Mehrgarh, Baluchistan. Studies in the History of Art Vol. 31, Symposium Papers XV: Urban Form and Meaning in South Asia: The Shaping of Cities from Prehistoric to Precolonial Times (1993), pp. 25-33 (9 pages). https://www.jstor.org/stable/42620470.
Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, “The Indus Civilization,” in Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus, ed. Joan Aruz and Ronald Wallenfels (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003), 377-84.
Carla M. Sinopoli. “Gender and Archaeology in South and Southwest Asia,” in Worlds of Gender: The Archaeology of Women’s Lives around the Globe, ed. Sarah M. Nelson (Lanham, AltaMira Press, 2007), 73-96.
