Protecting healing or punishing-people of various eras and origins have attributed such
powers to the sculptures that are being presented together here for the first time: be it the
sculpture of the Mangaaka from what is today the Republic of Congo the protective goddess
Mahamayuri from China or the Maria on the globe from Southern Germany. Forty-five objects
created between the fourth and the nineteenth century from two museums in Berlin provide a
vivid testimony to the ever-present need for protection and orientation when dealing with
individual or social crises. They represent the existence of an invisible world of gods
spirits or ancestors and create a connection between this world and a different reality. As a
result of how they are presented in museums their context of use is however often lost-a
situation that is reflected on by the authors of this book.
