Terracottas

The word terracotta comes from the Italian terra cotta or cooked soil. Clay, clay is the component of what has been universalized under the word terracotta. Without a doubt it is the mud that is the oldest material of humanity that man has used to leave us his memory throughout the centuries. It is the easiest material to work with, just make f high hands to model and shape it. Human remains made of terracotta have been found that date back several millennia. The man built in clay the first containers that served him to contain the food. Clay were also the first ornaments that served to beautify women, as demonstrated by the beads of necklaces that appeared in different deposits. In the beginnings, mud and sun were sufficient. As man became civilized, he developed ever more perfected objects. Many of them had a marked religious sense, funeral urns, votive figures or altar statues. Others represent naked or dressed men even with magnificent galas, according to cultures, and also animals are represented. Archaeology shows that many African peoples had in remote times artists who perfectly mastered these techniques, with varying degrees of elaboration, such as Djenne, Nok, Sokoto or Katsina. And there is practically no decade in which no new vestiges of lost civilizations appear, Sao, Komaland or very recently the stones carved from Gohitafla in Ivory Coast. The stone has also been used, but since it is a harder material it has required tools to be able to be worked, being therefore the origins of the stone carved very after the terracottas. Most African carved stones have a ritual and rather funerary value, let's talk about stones Kissi of Guinea or the Mintadi of Congo.