Seated Figure. Culture: Djenné peoples. Dimensions: H. 10 x W. 11 3/4in. (25.4 x 29.9cm). Date: 13th century.This haunting figure huddles with its leg hugged to its chest and its head dropped on its knee. It simultaneously suggests the knotted tension of anxiety and the sublime absorption of deep prayer. Created over 700 years ago, in the Inland Niger Delta region of present-day Mali, this elegant work's intense emotional immediacy blurs the boundaries of time and place.This terracotta sculpture comes from a site called Jenne-jeno, the oldest known city in sub-Saharan Africa. Jenne-jeno flourished in the ninth century A.D., but declined and was abandoned by 1400. Items of cast brass and forged iron, clay vessels, and figures like this one survive. They testify to what scholars contend was a richly varied and highly sophisticated urban society.A few controlled archaeological digs provide only the vaguest outlines of the original significance of the art of this time and region. Recove