us testifies that
there were an extraordinary number and variety of these stone figures,
and that they represent very different periods. Some show a coarse
type of workmanship, but others represent a very superior grade of
work. The following is, in the main, Frobenius's description of these
objects:

"When, on leaving the main road, we arrived at the first small
palm plantation, a group of quite coarse little stone pillars
about waist high came into view. They are angular, roundish, and
at all events roughly hewn or chipped off, absolutely bare of any
detail. Going forward we came to another, rather more to the
left. Here there is a wilderness of weeds, a mass of roof battens
and the straw of a collapsed thatch, surmounted by a few stakes
and climbers amidst which rises a stone image. This is about
thirty-two inches high, roughly executed and defaced. It has one
chain around its neck and another hangs over an apron skirt down
to the hands folded over the stomach. On its left side it has a
peculiar hanger, something like the tassels of a Houssa
sword."[23]

In another nearby spot he describes the find of a smaller statue:

"When I first made its acquaintance," he writes, "it was housed
in a badly damaged little hut whose thatch almost hid it. It is a
granite figure about thirty-six inches high above ground level. I
could not find out whether its feet were covered by the earth. It
is exactly like the other figure, with the hands over the belly,
aproned and ornately tasseled on its left. It has armlets and a
ruff-like ornament round its neck. The interesting part of the
statuette is most decidedly its head, which had been knocked off
and only insecurely replaced, when I first set eyes on it. The
thick-lipped, broad-nosed face is negroid in type.... The
treatment of the hair in this granite head is especially of the
very greatest interest. The hair is represented by little iron
pegs inserted in small holes; here, for the first time, we come
upon this singular use of iron, which metal, as we shall see,
played a quite extraordinary part in the realm of Ilifian
antiquities."[24]

Under these same circumstances, he continues,

"a group of all kinds of well-preserved relics is met with in a
carelessly constructed hut in the fourth and last enclosure.
Symmetrically