Urna Funeraria

Since the 1970s, there has been a knowledge of a culture developed over the centuries. XI a XVIIin the Niger's inland delta in Mali, lands often flooded between the cities of Timbuktu and Segou. With appeals as style Segou or Bankoni, these terracotta figures are grouped under the general name of “Djenne style“ Djenné is the closest city to archaeological sites, mainly to the most important “Jenné-Jeno” in the Niger Valley. These figures represent men or women, on their knees or on their feet, sometimes sitting on their heels, with their arms folded over their chests or resting along their thighs. The standing figures have their arms stuck along the body. The sculptures of Djenné, with labia thicker than those of Segou, would be related to the soninkéThe different styles correspond to the different peoples that have occupied these lands over the centuries.

Because of the reliefs in this glass, there is no doubt that it is a funeral urn. Two naked women, with an expression of feeling and tenderness, manifest their pain by embracing the glass or urn containing the relics of a loved one. These two women, with generous breasts, wear the same hairstyle in which the artistically collected hair forms a kind of grooves. For all clothing belts of various rows and wristbands, arms and ankles, but not on the neck what would be an inappropriate ornament for mourning. The serpent, symbol of immortality and fertility, as in numerous pieces of Djenné, cannot be lacking in this representation. It is worth highlighting the scarifications they carry in the spine.

The top of the urn is crowned by the figure of a young girl, who can judge by her breasts, who half lying on the side, takes her hand on a prominent belly, which invites us to think that the relics or funeral remains contained in the urn correspond to a young woman who died during childbirth. For the richness of the decoration, within its simplicity, and of the ornaments that stand out in their nakedness these women could belong to a high social environment and by the appearance of the lips and the shape of the heads this urn seems to have influence soninké.