Broken bowl of a locally made clay smoking pipe, 2 views (left: bowl interior; right: bowl exterior). Pipes like this were made across West Africa after Europeans learned the practice of smoking tobacco from First Peoples of the Americas and introduced it to Africa in early centuries of the trans-Atlantic trade. This pipe bowl flares outward toward its rim and inward toward its base. Its inward-flaring bottom is decorated with red paint in a zone marked by a deep horizontal groove. Above this, decorated zones are separated by two vertical grooves. Zones of hatched incised lines alternate with vertical rows of rectangular impressions. The top half of the bowl' s interior is blackened from use. The bowl' s base and the pipe' s stem are missing. The potting clay used to make the pipe is tempered with fine white grit. Photo scale in cm. Site Kuulo Kataa. 6 July, 2000.
