1 A woman wearing print cloth with a pattern of conjoined arcs, the nsibidi sign for love. Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria, 1997. PHOTO COURTESY OF EKPO EYO. R ecent excavations in the region of Calabar, Nigeria, have brought to light an important corpus of archaeological ceramics, including vessels, headrests, and anthropo morphic objects. Interpretation of these ceramics bears upon our understanding of the graphic system known as nsibidi (or nsibiri), a central and defining characteristic of Cross River visual culture still employed by men and women throughout the region today. Considered one of the indigenous African scripts, nsibidi records, transmits, and conceals various kinds of information using a wide, fluid vocabulary of geomet ric and naturalistic signs placed on objects including calabashes, brassware, textiles (FIGS. 1-2), masquerade paraphernalia (FIG. 3), and wood sculpture, and on surfaces including the ground, the walls of buildings, and even human skin. Yet little is known of the history of nsibidi prior to the early twentieth century, when it caught the attention of colonial officials.' The Calabar ceramics, incorporating such a great variety of discrete motifs-including arcs, arrows, chevrons, concentric circles, crosses, lozenges, spirals, and stars-evidence an iconog raphy readily comparable to nsibidi. Moreover, the decoration found on the anthropomorphic figurines suggests that ancient people may have embellished their own bodies in a manner similar to the use of modern nsibidi and other motifs as body decoration. Hence, a close study of the archaeological ceramics, which span the period from the fifth to the fifteenth century CE, provides some historical depth to this important visual tradition and allows for a deeper understanding of art history in the Cross River region.2 Reviewing the varied historical contexts of nsibidi while keeping in mind its inherently multimedia quality allows us to begin consideration of its relationship to archaeological ceramics and their likely place within a culture (or cultures) sim ilarly permeated with meaningful signs inscribed on any num ber of different materials.