Speaker
Description
The clay statuettes left behind by settlers in the Mamprugu Moagduri District of northern Ghana over 1000 years ago raise more questions than they answer. The folks who created the figurines are unknown.
Some have ascribed the development of the various mounds of buried figurines to Komaland being the point of gathering of slaves who brought these sculptures from their homes, while others have related it to trade with the other towns north of ancient Ghana.
This ongoing collaborative research project on characterization of some ancient clay figurines from Yikpabongo, in Koma Land of Ghana seeks, among other things, to answer the question of “who manufactured these figurines?”. Different analytical methods, including ion beam analysis approach, are being employed for the study of the figurines.
Chemical signatures of soil samples, primarily clay samples, dug from Koma Land, where the majority of Ghana's figurines were discovered, are compared to those of the figurines with the aim of establishing their provenance.
