The colony · 1787–1895
Stone tools from rock shelters, nomoli figures turned up in farms, iron smelters, and the ivory carvings Sapi artists made for Portuguese traders in the 1400s and 1500s.
Many were made by colonial officials, missionaries and foreign visitors. Titles and descriptions come from the collections that hold them and can carry the attitudes and language of their time. We show them as historical records, not as endorsements. Dates, eras and categories were assigned automatically from those records and some will be wrong. If you or your family appear in a picture, you hold rights to one, a detail is wrong, or you think a picture should not be here, press “Report this picture” under it: your note reaches our editors with the picture attached, and they can take it down straight away. You can also write to hello@dt-ets.com.
Horn (Probably Mende people) 19th century
Probably Mende people artist · Public domain (CC0) · The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Source ↗ · Report this picture
Ivory and Silver Pendant 19th century
Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · Source ↗ · Report this picture
Harp-lute with an antelope head, collected in the 1790s Collected 1792–96
Original title: Harpluta, instrument, cordophone
Public domain (CC0) · Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm · Source ↗ · Report this picture