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23 · TREASURE · 19th century

19th-century kora

19th-century Mandinka kora

Gourd, skin, wood and strings form an instrument linked to the jali repertoires of Senegambia.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

Image 1 of 2 · Main image
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction for museographic context; it is not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

Image 1 of 2 · Main image
Visual proposal for 19th-century Mandinka kora, Senegambia
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction for museographic context; it is not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

History and context

An instrument made of gourd, skin, wood and strings, associated with jali repertoires in Senegambia.

It helps explain a historical and living musical tradition shaped by material changes and diasporas. Limitation: this is not Sunjata’s kora, nor does it demonstrate that the twenty-one-string form existed in the 13th century.

Evidence and interpretation

VIVA+CUR. An instrument made of gourd, skin, wood and strings, associated with jali repertoires in Senegambia. What this does not establish: this is not Sunjata’s kora, nor does it demonstrate that the twenty-one-string form existed in the 13th century.

Catalogue facts

Narrative date
19th century
Location
Senegambia
Material
instrument in a museum collection
Context
New York, accession 89.4.498. Custody: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Curatorial reading
The documented fact and its interpretation appear separately in the evidence block.
Dossier axis
art-music
Research record
MANDE · EVI-09
Documentary coverage
2 museum, heritage, primary corpus or research sources for this stop.

A SHARED TOPIC, DIFFERENT MOMENTS

Objects connected through time

Follow a topic across the collections. A shared tag is a way to compare objects, not proof that one culture influenced another.

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Musical instruments6 dated objects

6 / 6In the centre: 19th-century kora

Also connected, without a comparable date (5)

These objects are not placed after the others: an unknown date does not mean a more recent object.

  • Daegok-ri grave goodsGojoseon and early Korea · from c. 5th century BCE
  • Living m’bolonMande Worlds · The present with historical memory
  • Musical bowsSan histories · Twentieth-century ethnomusicological documentation
  • Sosso-BalaMande Worlds · Tradition linked through narrative to the 13th century; the present instrument and its custodianship have their own chronology
  • Trumpet from NumantiaIberians · No individual dating published on this record

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

A bridge that divides the voices

The kora’s bridge rises perpendicularly over the resonator’s skin and distributes the strings across its two sides. The leather braid rings on the neck allow them to be fastened and their tension adjusted. The Metropolitan’s essay relates this arrangement to performance: thumbs articulate deep rhythmic patterns while the index fingers develop melodic lines; fingers of opposite hands can combine octaves. Thus, accompaniment and melody do not require two instruments. The description explains a technique from the kora repertoire, without supposing that every interpretation or tuning is identical.

Where it is held

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Item or group in the record · Documented collection

The holding institution is documented; public display may change. Check its official record before visiting.

Sources and references

Expand this information and consult its sources

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