This object with African motifs and Western glaze inspires a worthwhile seminar because it raises questions that concern: 1) time and memory and how they allow, create, erase, and maintain human endeavor 2) collaborations between a European and Africans in an isolated spot in Nigeria 3) the conditions in Nigeria at the very dawn of independence and thirty years later with the first signs of Islamic movements that foreshadow the current Boko Haram movement.