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Female Body (Venus of Thiaroye)

Before 2000 BCE (?)

Not on view

The earliest societies to prosper in the Sahel were pastoralist communities. Their mobile elites accrued wealth and power in the form of cattle and semiprecious stones and memorialized themselves through the construction of tumuli—mounds for burials or the deposition of possessions. This delicately incised pebble, discovered casually in the vicinity of a dune, appears to have been imbued with symbolic meaning. Only minimal carving of the stone’s natural form was required to transform it into a tribute to procreation.

Female Body (Venus of Thiaroye), Sandstone — Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Title: Female Body (Venus of Thiaroye)

Date: Before 2000 BCE (?)

Geography: Senegal

Medium: Sandstone

Dimensions: W. 3/4 × D. 1 × L. 2 3/4 in. (1.9 × 2.5 × 7 cm)

Classification: Stone-Sculpture

Credit Line: Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal (SEN 67-21)

The Met

The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at The Met

The Met's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present.