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.

Objects that protect people and offer orientation in crisis situations -- a universal topic in the history of humankind