Cross of Agadez

Agadez Cross (Agadez region, Niger)

Of the twenty-odd crosses that the Tuareg of Niger can wear, the one of Agadez is, without a doubt, the best known and celebrated. Its origin is associated with those others worn by Punics and Egyptians, and which are associated with fertility and life. The Nilotic Ankh and the crosses of Tanit and Agadez coincide in presenting a circular female half from which masculinity and its three arms hang. A union that, according to the Ker Tamanshek legend, depends on a love that seemed impossible and a pumpkin destined to collect milk... But that, my friend, is another story.

The one we offer in Black Market was designed and carried out in a forge in Agadez by a silversmith who filled it with constellations, who gave it body until turning its male half into a rhombus that protects the female half from any mishap, a rhombus whose vertices are in themselves the woman seen from the back... Tchatchat they call it there.

Width: 5.8cm; Height: 11.7cm; Weight: 100g