Lydenburg Heads

On my last road trip I passed Mashishing, a small town in Mpumalanga which used to be called Lydenburg. This is the site of the discovery of the Lydenburg Heads. The town has a nice museum in which replicas of three of the seven heads are displayed.

Here is what the museum site says about them: "Carbon dating proved that the heads date to approximately 490 AD and were made by Early Iron Age people. These people were Bantu herders and agriculturists and probably populated Southern Africa from areas north-east of the Limpopo river. Similar ceramics were later found in the Gustav Klingbiel Nature Reserve and researchers believe that they are related to the ceramic wares (pottery) of the Lydenburg Heads site relating to form, function and decorative motive. This sequence of pottery is formally known as the Klingbiel type pottery".
I was surprised to see how little information there was about them. I guess little is known.
They are quite small. Apparently of the seven five are quite small and two are a little larger, possibly large enough to be worn as mask by children. Of course as is always the case thing that cannot be understood they are assumed to have had ceremonial/religious functions.
That always made me laugh, if we do not understand something we always say "it was used for religious purposes". Goes to show that we do realize that religions appear completely nonsensical to the non initiated.

These are not great photos but the heads are obviously under glass and unfortunately the museum is kept slightly dark which made for terrible reflections.
Either way I was happy that I had seen them and if you find yourself near Mashishing I recommend going to the museum.