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Textile Fragment

Tellem civilization

15th–16th century (?)

Not on view

The individuals laid to rest within the Bandiagara caves were clothed and wrapped in cotton or wool blankets. Some five hundred textiles found in just thirteen Bandiagara cave burial contexts have been dated using carbon-14 testing. The earliest among these are eleventh-century fragments from Cave C. The latest, related to Cave F, were produced between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a period when late Tellem textiles overlapped with those produced by the Dogon. All are composed of finely spun cotton thread in its original, undyed white as well as dyed with indigo.

Textile Fragment, Cotton, dye, Tellem civilization — This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Title: Textile Fragment

Date: 15th–16th century (?)

Geography: Mali, Cave C, Bandiagara Escarpment

Culture: Tellem civilization

Medium: Cotton, dye

Dimensions: H. 11 7/16 × W. 15 3/4 in. (29 × 40 cm)

Classification: Textiles

Credit Line: Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Netherlands, on long-term loan from the Musée National du Mali, Bamako

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.