Female Portrait Head

In Ife, southwest Nigeria, a substantial number of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures were produced from terracotta between the 11th and 15th centuries. Among them were life-sized heads and exceptional figurines around 20 inches high, crowned and wearing heavy necklaces. Many such terracottas would be associated with shrines but most of these pieces have been found in secondary sites where they were integrated into contemporary ritual, making it difficult to know their original function. Some of the faces feature delicately rendered vertical etchings, generally thought to represent scarification marks.