An extremely rare high quality Idoma terracotta bust, Nigeria. Depicted is a female person in a colourful, blue-dominated garment with a black collar at the base of the long neck. On her head she wears a high, flat and curved headdress extending to the chin at the sides. A round mirror is embedded at the height of each ear and at the top in the middle. Here, too, the blue colour dominates, along with ochre, red and black. The headdress sits on an almost smooth skull with suggested extremely short black hair. Over a red grounding the face is painted white, only the lips are left red. The coffee bean-like closed eyes are protruding, the curved eyebrows are connected to the short, straight nose. The mouth underneath is similarly shaped to the eyes, only slightly larger.
The bust is astonishing in several respects. It is a singular piece, our archaeologist knows of nothing comparable. The mirror on the right side of the bust was already broken in two when it was inserted. All three mirrors have strange scratches in their centre, besides the obvious damages, as if to make them intentionally blind.

The Idoma are an ethno-linguistic group that primarily inhabit the lower western areas of Benue State, Nigeria, and kindred groups can be found in Cross Rivers State, Enugu State and Nasarawa State in Nigeria. The Idomas are known to be 'warriors' and 'hunters' of class, but hospitable and peace-loving. The greater part of Idoma land remained largely unknown to the West until the 1920s, leaving much of the colorful traditional culture of the Idoma intact. The population of the Idoma is estimated to be about 4 million. The Idoma people have a traditional ruler called the Och'Idoma who is the head of the Idoma Area Traditional Council while each community has its own traditional chief . The Palace of the overall Och'Idoma is located at Otukpo, Benue State. Source: Wikipedia

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Height: 75 cm
Weight: 11,2 kg