This is a huntress representing the Sao civilization, a culture (or grouping of related cultures) that thrived in fortified towns along the Chari River in southern Chad between the sixth century BC to the sixteenth century AD. Among the artifacts this Central African culture left behind are sculptures of terracotta and bronze as well as funeral urns in which they buried their dead. A number of ethnic groups in the area of Chad and Cameroon, such as the Kanembu, Kotoko, and Sara, claim descent from the Sao, and some legends describe these bygone people as a race of giants.