Pictures at an Exhibition: Koma Figurines Return to Ghana

Koma exhibition in Accra, Ghana

It is a couple of months since the Koma figurines exhibition Fragmentary Ancestors came to an end at Manchester Museum. That was not the end of the story, however, because after the end of the exhibition in Manchester the figurines were shipped back to Ghana and the exhibition was recreated in the museum in Accra. From there the figurines will travel back to Yikpabongo in Koma Land where they will be displayed for the enjoyment of local people and to stimulate tourism.

You can read a review of the exhibition in the Journal of Museum Ethnography:-

Pole, L. (2014). Fragmentary Ancestors: Figurines from Koma Land, Ghana (Manchester Museum, University of Manchester). Journal of Museum Ethnography 27, 168-174.

Despite the fact that high temperatures typically accelerate DNA damage, and consequently there are only a few previous reports of the recovery of ancient DNA from exposed sites in Sub-Saharan Africa, Professor Terry Brown and PhD student Heather Robinson managed to recover ancient DNA from inside three of the figurines using forensic-style swabs and a magnetic extraction method.

A member of Manchester Museum’s conservation team, Irit Narkiss, accompanied the figurines with a Ghanaian courier and helped re-install the displays. Thanks to the sterling work of Peter Farmer of FDA Design, the graphics were made in such a way that they could be dismantled and travel to the new venue.

Here you can see the dedicated team at Accra Museum installing the figurines in the new displays. Francis, the Ghanaian courrier, tells me that exhibition from June to July 2014 attracted 1,134 and 1,945 visitors respectively. We wish the Ghanaian Museums and Monuments Board every success and we thank them for kindly entrusting the figurines to us for the temporary exhibition at Manchester Museum.

Installation of Koma exhibition in Ghana (courtesy of Mme Irit Narkiss)

Attentive Ancient Worlds blog readers will no doubt recall that the figurines were made by a previously little-understood people in Koma Land in Ghana in West Africa between approximately 500 and 1300 AD.  This corresponds broadly-speaking to the early to mid Medieval Period in Britain.

We don’t know a great deal about how the figurines were used but it would appear that they were used in special ceremonies and rituals in which the spirits of the ancestors were invoked. In the course of these ceremonies the figurines were deliberately broken. The fragments are often found in mounds, possibly because they were felt to have residual power and had to be disposed of carefully.

When they are discovered in the ground the figurines are often fragmentary but depict stylised two-headed creatures, bird figures, and animals. It is thought that they represent the ancestors. It is possible that cavities and channels in the figurines had liquid offerings or libations poured into them, and that some might have been linked with healing and medicine.

Whilst the figurines were in Manchester detailed scanning was carried out to study these channels in detail and to try and identify any substances that might survive in them. Once the presence of substances was confirmed by the scans swabs were taken by researchers at University of Manchester in order to analyse the DNA and identify the nature of the material. This work is at an early stage though I gather the preliminary indications look promising. I hope to report about this in a future blog post.

Sampling Koma figurines before their return to Ghana (photo courtesy of Erin Lemke).

The figurines were discovered during archaeological fieldwork directed by Professor Ben Kankpeyeng (University of Ghana) working with Professor Tim Insoll (University of Manchester) and the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. The Fragmentary Ancestors exhibition was made possible thanks to generous grants from the Wellcome Trust, the Zochonis Trust  and the Morel Charitable Trust, to all of whom the Museum is very grateful.

 

Koma Figurines interview with Prof. Ben Kankpeyeng

Prof.Tim Insoll talking to Prof. Ben Kankpeyeng about the Koma figurines

This is the transcript of a filmed conversation between Prof Tim Insoll of University of Manchester and Prof Ben Kankpeyeng of Univeristy of Ghana talking about the mysterious figurines from Koma Land that are currently on display at Manchester Museum. An edited version of the filmed conversation will be posted in the third floor exhibition space shortly.

TI: I’m Prof Tim Insoll in  the Archaeology Department here in the University of Manchester and it’s my great pleasure to able to have a conversation with Prof Ben Kankpeyeng who’s the current Head of Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at the University of Ghana and who I’ve  been fortunate to be working with since 2004 in northern Ghana and in , in particular, since 2010 in the village of Yikpabongo, which this exhibitions is about, and of course, is the source of the fantastic figurines that you see in the exhibition here.

So Ben, why did you decide to, er, start the work in Yikpabongo again, because I know you were continuing the work of an earlier Ghanaian archaeologist?

BK: Yeah, Yikpabongo is significant for a number of reasons, er, within Yikpabongo we have some of those stone circular mounds that contain the unique cultural tradition that is now dated to about the 5-6^th centuries.

TI: Yes.

BK: Yes, the people of Yikpabongo have been very cooperative since work started on these mounds in 1985 and, therefore, we felt that we should go back and do and carry out a lot more research in the area.

TI: And am I right that you actually worked here in 1985. You were one of the original team members?

BK: Indeed we worked there in 1983. We had to walk for twenty-five miles.

TI: Twenty-five miles?

BK; Twenty-five miles to the site and twenty-five miles back.

TI: So this got your interest going didn’t it and this was with Professor James Anquandah, who was the original discoverer?

…

BK: Er, following the end, I mean there was massive looting of the site because antique dealers got interested and, er, it was so horrible. We had to carry out some educational campaigns to get together on with Mr Ben Baluri Saibu the elected MP for Yikpabongo. Er, with the staff of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, we carried out some educational campaigns within the area, talking to the people. They need to preserve these sites because of the importance not only for archaeological research but also for the development, er, of these areas through tourism.

TI: But I’m right, well I know it is, because I’ve worked there with you since 2010 that it’s a difficult area to visit, isn’t it, so the tourism potential isn’t something that can grow at the moment. Is that correct?

BK: That’s correct. The area is called ‘the Overseas’

Sign at border with ‘Overseas’

BK: … first of all it’s exciting sending… when you send students to the site, they get more interested in archaeology because as they excavate they see these figurines. It’s very fantastic for them. They get very excited. Not only do they get the figurines per se but they get the context that is exposed. It means the students need to think…

Camel figure in situ

TI: I’d like to talk to you a little bit more about these contexts because one of the amazing things is because you can almost predict the figurines are going to appear by the material above it, can’t you? A sort of contextual arrangement of the sherds and the grinding stones and the sort of material that we have here and then as you dig down a bit further, I remember you teaching me this in the field, the first time I was there, and as you dig down a bit further then you begin to find these arrangements of these wonderful figurines as well.

BK: Yes

….

TI: I’d like to say this is something the University of Manchester has been helping with and it has been a privilege to be able to work on these figurines, and, in particular, again, as the exhibition shows, with that scanning that we’ve been involved in… That Computed Tomography Scanning, which is really giving us an insight into this interior of the figurines, because people before only treated them as art objects, as representations, didn’t they, as you were saying about the art market. Once the scanning has looked inside, we can see that they were seen as powerful objects that may themselves have held medicines or some sort of substances so that has been very good, our collaboration on that.

BK: That’s the reason I invited you.

…

TI: I think your use of the term partnership is the right one because all this research, not just collaboration, it should be partnership, and this is something we’ve been able to do. Turning to the figurines themselves many of these are body-related that we can see that they are representing the human body and many of them are broken. They are fragmented and I know that we’ve been thinking that they are deliberately fragmented. Would you like to say a little bit more about that, why we…

Where does the other head go?

BK: Some of them were intentionally, er, broken and whereas, some of the pieces, we can’t tell, er, but it’s likely part of ritual procedure which in some cases where you have a double head and one head is missing, where does the other head go? Some rituals were carried out, took place in different settings, those heads were removed to other areas.  …

TI: Absolutely.

…

TI: Because I think the original hypothesis was that these are burial grounds and … You’ve sort of overturned that.

BK: Yes the context in which we recovered human remains does not really indicate that they were intentional human burials. Rather we see a situation where probably only the long bones were placed somewhere. You don’t get the entire human remains and therefore you really wonder why these ones were placed here. And there was one part… we mentioned about the skull we excavated and we discussed a skull…We have searched all around, excavated all round, we never found any other part of the human remains.

…

TI: So there’s a lot of different heads put in there but besides the body we’re also learning a lot about how these people were dressed, aren’t we, and what they wore on them and their weapons and I think the most fantastic find that you made and we’ve given great centrepiece in the exhibition is the great camel or a horse. What do you think it is? Do you think it’s a camel or a horse (and the rider)?

Horse or camel rider (photo: Alan Seabright)

BK: I think it’s clear that it is the camel that is showing that the people who produced the cultural tradition have long distance contacts with the people to the North…

…

TI: Entirely right but it does comes to an end doesn’t it, Koma Land and we see a depopulation and an abandonment of the area. When? And Why? Why do you think and when does this occur?

BK: I think so far we know very well that in the 19^th century the area suffered very severely under slavery. And we know very well that a lot of people emigrated from that area to different parts of Ghana.

TI: But before that we have a decline in the mounds. Your archaeology is showing, as we say in the exhibition, it indicates that there’s a sort of stop to the production of figurines tor example, isn’t there?

BK: Exactly. The time the real range is about the 8^th/9^th to 12^th/13^th centuries. That’s the age range we see the figurines coming in but since the but we know currently that we have the Koma people living within the area but the Koma oral tradition so not point to the fact that their ancestors produced the tradition.

…

TI: Yes that’s it. Then finally many of the figurines also show animals don’t they? … We don’t think that they are only wild animals. They are also animals there that may be symbolically important  aren’t there? There are those strange, er, sort of bird-like human figures. Samuel Encumba who you mentioned earlier, based on ancient understanding of Northern Ghana has said that are perhaps witches. Would you agree with him?

Kite figurine

BK: Yes, you have to agree with him, looking like that but birds with human faces. That should tell you something that what is happening. We do have, er, local folk stories and we do and we do see it happening ethnographically that witches transform themselves into birds or other forms of animals whether cats or dogs and move around at night where they carry out their activities. That should tell us that some of these figurines so reflect the world view and the way people believe in…

TI: So they weren’t just making models of wild animals for fun?

BK: No.

TI: More symbolic.

….

BK: There are situations where they are curing the people. They had the diviners or who was participated in … cast out disease form individuals and pass it on to inanimate objects and these

TI: What we refer to as scapegoats?

BK: Some of these are appliqués that we found on what you call it, pieces does suggest yes some of the connections.

Chameleon or lizard with pustules for casting out disease?

TI: Because there’s one reptile or snake that has large sort of boil-like representations on it that could be them wanting the disease to go to that rather than to the human being.

BK: Exactly, the Human being yes

TI: Well it’s been an absolutely fascinating conversations and thank you very much.

BK: You’re welcome.

You can read a review of the exhibition in the Journal of Museum Ethnography:-

Pole, L. (2014). Fragmentary Ancestors: Figurines from Koma Land, Ghana (Manchester Museum, University of Manchester). Journal of Museum Ethnography 27, 168-174.

See the Journal of Archaeological Science for publication of the sampling of the Koma Land figurines at the University of Manchester.

A transcript of a filmed conversation between Prof Tim Insoll of University of Manchester and Mr Ben Baluri Saibu from Koma Land Ghana talking about the mysterious figurines from Koma Land has been made available separately on the Ancient Worlds blog.

 

Faces and Places Big Saturday at Manchester Museum

Anna, Campbell and Jamie at the recent faces and Places Big Saturday

Yesterday (16th November 2013) Campbell Price and Anna Garnett, volunteer, Jamie Skuse, and I helped out at the Faces and Places Big Saturday  at Manchester Museum. The aim of the event was to promote the Koma figurines from Ghana that are now displayed in the Museum’s third floor temporary exhibition space. The faces of the figurines are very expressive and Vicky in Public Programmes set out tables in the Discovery Centre so that visitors, especially families with young children, could make their own figurines out of modelling clay. We selected objects from the Egyptology and Archaeology collections with the intention of inspiring the children’s imaginations to make figurines but they were also a popular talking point with other visitors.

Egyptian faces on the handling table

Campbell and Anna brought out some objects from the Egyptology collection: facial reconstructions of the Two Brothers, a replica of an encaustic protrait, similar to those on display in the Museum’s dedicated gallery, the lid from a Canopic jar depicting the ancient Egyptian god Imsety, busts from Alexandria and a shabti (above).

Heads from the Archaeology collection

For my part I brought out some head related objects from the archaeology collection including a late Iron Age/Romano-British stone head from Tyldesley near Manchester, a tricephalic piece from Standedge Tunnel, some replica carved stone  heads and some rather handsome carved wooden head made for an earlier Lindow Man exhibition. I suspect they are copying discoveries from the important votive deposit at the source of the River Seine at Sequana in Burgundy, France, as well as some stelae found at Rochdale (see above). Keith Sugden, the Museum’s Curator of Numismatics, kindly entrusted us with a selection of coins showing Roman emperors.

Head inspired by one of the Koma Land figurines

It was great fun recognising some of the figurines that visitors made and displayed on the table outside the Discovery Centre.

‘Sanctuary’ or ‘shrine’ showing off the clay figurines made by visitors

As part of the day I showed members of the Museum’s branch of the Young Archaeologists’ Club the facial reconstruction display in Ancient Worlds. There was even time to join Maxine’s inaugural ‘Women in Ancient Worlds’ tour which explored the topic of women and the contribution of women archaeologists and Egyptologists in the new displays. Maxine, who is a Visitor Assistant and  member of the Museum’s Front of House team, showed us the copy of Amelia Edward’s A Thousand Miles up the Nile, the Etruscan terracotta womb votive in the archaeology gallery as well as exhibits in the Egyptology gallery of Ancient Worlds.

Maxine with visitors on the Women in Ancient Worlds tour

We saw over a hundred people at our handling table and gathered some really useful feedback about how interesting visitors had found it. Jamie’s contribution went well beyond the call of duty when he kindly posed for a photograph with one of  the carved wooden figurines (below). What a trooper! As well as being a brilliant Movember photo opportunity, this makes me think there might be some mileage in a future photographic  project comparing the profiles of Roman emperors and empresses with those of modern day visitors. A great time was had by all as they say. A big thank you to everyone who gave up their Saturday to help with the event.

Jamie and carved wooden head

Fragmentary Ancestors Figurines from Koma Land Exhibition

Head of horse or camel rider from the Fragmentary Ancestors exhibition

With little more than a week to go before we open our new temporary exhibition, Fragmentary Ancestors Figurines from Koma Land Ghana, on 25th October there is a real sense of expectation and anticipation building at Manchester Museum.

Work on this project began about a year ago when it was decided to put on an exhibition featuring the results of archaeological fieldwork in Koma Land in Northern Ghana involving the University of Manchester, the University of Ghana and the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB). In May, Sam Sportun, Senior Conservator at Manchester Museum, flew to Ghana to pack a selection of the figurines for exhibition in Manchester. Since that time Prof Tim Insoll and the Ghanaian partners wrote the text for the exhibition and the accompanying  booklet, and FDA Design Ltd designed the new displays.

Head of figurine from Koma Land

This exhibition is the first ever officially approved showing of the clay figurines, which were made by a previously little-understood people in Koma Land in Ghana in West Africa. The figurines are often fragmentary and depict stylised two-headed creatures, bird figures, and animals. They are believed to represent the ancestors. It is possible that some had liquid offerings or libations poured into channels in the figurines, and that some might have been linked with healing and medicine. Scanning is now being carried out to study these channels in detail and to try and identify any substances that survive in them.

Head of man wearing a cap from Koma Land

The figurines were discovered during archaeological fieldwork directed by Professor Ben Kankpeyeng (University of Ghana) working with Professor Tim Insoll (University of Manchester) and the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB). The Koma figurines have been dated to between approximately 500 and 1300 AD.  This corresponds broadly-speaking to the early to mid Medieval Period in Britain.

We don’t know a great deal about how the figurines were used but it would appear that they were used in special ceremonies and rituals in which the sprits of the ancestors were invoked. In the course of these ceremonies the figurines were deliberately broken. The fragments are often found in mounds, possibly because they were felt to have residual power and had to be disposed of carefully.

Janus figurine from Koma Land

As will be clear from the photos the figurines are full of character and have tremendous presence. The people who made the figurines were very skilled. For that reason the Koma Land figurines have generated considerable interest amongst collectors on the international art market with the result that the mounds where the figurines are found have been looted by treasure hunters. Of course, once removed from their original contexts and localities and the relationship between the objects as archaeological finds destroyed, a huge amount of invaluable information is lost. The GMMB and the University of Ghana have been working with local people to explain to them the cultural importance of the figurines and to support them in protecting the mounds. Though other figurines have been displayed outside Ghana these are the first to be exhibited abroad with the approval of the Ghanaian authorities. After the exhibition closes the figurines will be put on display at the Museum in Accra in Ghana.

The Fragmentary Ancestors exhibition opens to the general public on 25th October and runs until 5th May 2014.

You can read a review of the exhibition in the Journal of Museum Ethnography:-

Pole, L. (2014). Fragmentary Ancestors: Figurines from Koma Land, Ghana (Manchester Museum, University of Manchester). Journal of Museum Ethnography 27, 168-174.

Alan Seabright took the photographs for the exhibition and exhibition booklet (available price £3.50 from the Museum shop).

Sampling of the Koma Land figurines by Dr Heather Robinson was published in 2017.