The Nok Culture: What it Was and What This Ancient Civilization Was Like

In 1943, the director of a tin mine located on the Jos Plateau in West Africa brought to the then city manager a strange head that a miner had found and had been using as a scarecrow. Although it was not known at the time, one of the first manifestations of the Nok culture, the oldest known in central and western Africa

Who was that mysterious people that made those terracotta statuettes so refined and exquisite? A few years earlier, in the 1920s, the first vestiges had been found and, in 1932, the first group of terracotta figurines related to this culture. But it was not until the 1940s that Bernard Fagg, the administrator who had been amazed by the “scarecrow” and who was also an archaeologist, painstakingly excavated the area to unravel the mysteries of this lost civilization.

Come with us to discover what the so-called Nok culture was, the oldest and one of the most refined in West Africa.

The Nok culture: the oldest civilization in West Africa

The stupor produced by the discovery of the terracotta figurines increased when Fagg’s team carried out the first dating using the thermoluminescence technique. The dating placed the culture that had created these extraordinary works of art between 500 BC and 300 AD, although some statuettes were more than 3,000 years old, which attested that the presence of the Nok in Africa must have begun at the beginning. from the 1st millennium BC

If the dating was correct, the experts were looking at the first great civilization in West Africa, with a clear social hierarchy and a sophisticated production of artistic objects. Not only that; With the advancement of research, A significant number of iron furnaces were discovered in the Nok area which left the specialists even more stunned.

Because, if the Nok culture really was as old as it seemed to be (and the subsequent carbon-14 tests left no room for doubt), it meant that, while the rest of the populations in the area were still in the Age of Stone, the Nok already knew and exploited iron metallurgy, without previously involving any copper or bronze phase. The mysteries around this civilization thickened.

What are the origins of Nok culture?

The sophistication of the Nok culture and its extraordinary antiquity motivated some theories that are now completely obsolete, such as the one that maintained that they were a people that came from the ancient Egyptians. Those who claimed this were based on the idea that their cultural expression was too refined and unparalleled in the rest of the continent, with the exception of Egypt.

However, this hypothesis has now been abandoned. First, because it lacks scientific evidence to support it; there is no evidence of any contact between the Nok and Egypt and, furthermore, these people most certainly spoke a language of the Niger-Congo family, which has nothing to do with the ancient Egyptian language. Second, the theory of Egyptian ancestry represents a disregard for the indigenous capabilities of sub-Saharan peoples and, furthermore, follows the diffusionist tradition of the 19th century, according to which “all” civilization comes from the East, a theory that was discarded long ago.

In this way, we would be talking about a completely indigenous culture, which originated sometime in the 1st millennium BC in what is now Nigeria and mysteriously ended around the year 300 AD. How did this people go from making stone utensils to making stone tools? iron, without going through any stage of copper or bronze? Why did they become extinct?

A refined and exquisite art

The remains that remain attest to the fact that the Nok culture had a fairly advanced social structure To begin with, the manufacture of terracotta figurines requires a social group in charge of this task, which gives us a clue about the hierarchy of this civilization.

Furthermore, it has been discovered that the clay with which these figurines were produced comes from a single source, which points to a strong central power and a powerful caste that had control of the raw materials. This has given rise to the theory, held by specialists such as Peter Breunig, from Goethe University in Frankfurt, that the Nok culture was, in fact, a civilization, a kind of “state” in the heart of Africa.

On the other hand, the terracotta statuettes show very varied human figures, from what appear to be leaders to what have been interpreted as representations of priests or kings. But, above all, what caught the attention of researchers most is its extraordinary execution.

The statuettes represent very stylized male and female figures in diverse attitudes, with a very large head in proportion to the rest of the body. The most characteristic of the “Nok style” are the eyes, very large and almond-shaped, as well as the luxurious and detailed headdresses and hairstyles that the figures wear

The enormous profusion of jewelry that the figures wear suggests the existence of privileged and powerful statuses, as well as highly advanced metal production.

One of the most famous terracotta Nok figurines is the so-called “Thinker”, the representation of a bearded man thoughtfully resting his chin on his bent knee. On his head he wears a kind of diadem, while on his neck, wrists and ankles you can see several turns of metal jewelry. The work is currently kept in the Palacio de Santa Cruz in Valladolid, Spain, and is part of the collection of the Alberto Jiménez-Arellano Alonso Foundation.

Most Nok terracottas are badly eroded (and even outright mutilated) as a result of water washing, which has made finding a complete figurine extremely difficult. However, it was precisely the organic plant elements adhered to its surface that allowed, through the carbon-14 technique, to specify the rise of the Nok culture and place it between 500 BC and 300 AD. Specifically, the figurine of the “Thinker ” which we were talking about was dated around 298 BC

The question of the Iron Age

But one of the fundamental questions that has sparked the most debate among the scientific community is the issue of the Iron Age of the Nok culture. We have already commented that, while the surrounding towns still manufactured stone objects exclusively, The Nok civilization knew iron metallurgy and, furthermore, without going through the previous phases of copper and bronze How can it be?

Leaving aside that the Iron Age does not always go through previous phases of copper and bronze (this is nothing more than an arbitrary classification of 19th century scholars), we have the question of how iron metallurgy arrived in such a place. as far away from Europe as the Jos Plateau in present-day Nigeria. Some theories point to a massive emigration of people from North Africa, who brought with them the art of making metal objects. On the other hand, there are many experts who have considered the possibility of a fluid exchange not only with North Africa, but with the Middle East, especially with civilizations such as Egypt and Carthage.

In any case, iron and its use in the manufacture of objects was already known in the Nok area in the 3rd century BC, since numerous metallurgical furnaces have been found in the town of Taruga (Nigeria), dating from approximately 280 BC, and experts do not rule out that there may be other, much older vestiges.

How was the end of the Nok culture?

Another of the big questions about Nok culture is how and why it ended Many specialists consider the hypothesis of an epidemic or a famine that would undermine the population of the area.

Other theories point to the rise of another civilization, in this case in the Chad area, which would have absorbed the Nok culture or would have conquered and eliminated it. The flourishing of this new civilization coincides precisely with the decline of the Nok, in the 1st millennium AD, although the cultural expression of the latter can be traced back to the 4th century.

Be that as it may, the culture of Nok powerfully influenced the artistic expressions of the peoples that emerged after it. We can find vestiges of its extraordinary production in the masks that centuries later became popular in the kingdom of Yoruba, with its capital in Ifé-Ifé, (which had its splendor in the 10th century), as well as in Benin.