Human world

Africa

Throughout these pages you can see a selection of artefacts created by people from western and west central Africa. Most were collected between 1895 and 1916 and were brought to Liverpool on steamships involved in the West African trade.

In the gallery the objects are laid out so you can follow the shipping routes down the west coast of Africa, from Sierra Leone to Angola.

The gallery presents African cultures in three main themes:

• the links between African peoples and between Africa and other parts of the world
• the effects of European trade and intervention
• changing European perceptions of Africans and the influence of African sculpture on 20th century European art

“These artefacts will speak to you, and what they say will be shaped by what you are as well as by what they are. But that they speak to you should be a potent reminder of the humanity you share with the men and women that made them.”
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, 1995.

Follow the links in the navigation panel to explore just some of our collections.