Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke
Two extrem rare Tellem
Two extrem rare Tellem
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Estimated price 2.400 - 2.800 €
Two extrem rare Tellem stone sculptures, Mali, once collected in the caves of the Fallaise, incl. stands.
There is no literature on these specific figures; they are likely among the masterpieces of the otherwise numerous Tellem/Dogon stone figures. Their age is unlikely to be verifiable, but the location of their discovery in the Tellem caves could provide an indication of their great antiquity. Since the 1950s, there have repeatedly been members of the Dogon who climbed into the Tellem caves under dangerous conditions and lowered their finds to the foreland of the Fallaise. What the Dogon did with their Tellem objects, whether they were used ritually, is unclear. The figures were last collected in the Sanga area at the foot of the Fallaise. There are said to have been no artifacts in the Tellem caves since the 1970s.
The Tellem stone sculptures are among the most enigmatic and understudied archaeological remains from West Africa, particularly associated with the Bandiagara Escarpment region in present-day Mali. The Tellem people, who are believed to have inhabited the cliffs before the arrival of the Dogon around the 14th century CE, left behind a remarkable material culture, including granaries, burial caves, textiles, wooden figures, and a small but significant corpus of stone sculptures.
Height: 65 cm / 60 cm
Weight: 15,2 kg / 13,3 kg
