Nok Civilization
9 30'0 "N 8 0'0" E / 9.5, 8 The Nok civilization appeared in Nigeria in 1000 BC and off mysteriously in the late first millennium. It is assumed that his disappearance was due to an epidemic or a devastating famine. It now appears to have been a very advanced civilization both in its social organization as its refinement at a time when the rest of Africa in the era between southern Neolithic (Stone Age hunters and farmers when could not help as stone tools). It has, on occasion, spoken with an immediate offspring of ancient Egypt or ancient Nubia , which may explain in part the maturity of this civilization, considered the oldest producer of terracotta SSA.
The pieces of art that the time has preserved for us, through lavish terracotta express the technological lead of potters mastering the art of fire and cooking as well as the high quality of artists and sculptors. The subjects of their performances are mostly dignitaries, animals, relics, preserved for most parts in the form of scattered fragments. Therefore Nok art is mainly known today only through the heads of characters both male and female whose hairstyles are particularly detailed and refined. The reason for these fragments of statues is that the discovery of the terracotta is usually done by digging the mud alluvium, on land resulting from water erosion. The terracotta statues were found buried there, rolled, polished, broken. Few works are so large preserved intact, which explains the current market value of black art.
Summary |
A sculpture that springs from time immemorial
It was during research of mineral deposits on the Jos Plateau in 1929 as the Nok culture of the people is rediscovered. The first pieces are out of the ground but fall into oblivion.
In 1932 , a group of 11 statues in perfect condition was discovered near the city of Sokoto. Since then, statues from the city of Katsina were revealed.
Still later, in 1943 , near the village of Nok in central Nigeria, is taken across a new series of clay figurines from the operation of a tin mine. History is better known and deserves to be told: a worker had found a head that he had carried with him into a scarecrow, a role she fills perfectly for a year in a field of yams. However, it attracted the attention of the mine manager who bought it. He prevailed in the city of Jos and showed the trainee civil administrator, Bernard Fagg, an archaeologist by training, who immediately understood its importance. He then asked all the miners to warn of their discoveries, which brought together more than 150 pieces. Thereafter, Bernard and Angela Fagg directed systematic excavations which have proved more successful than the finds scattered over a large area, far exceeded the original site.
In 1977 , the number of terracotta objects found during mining work amounted to 153 units, mostly from secondary deposits (the statuettes had been carried by floods into the valleys) located in the beds of rivers parched savannah of central and northern Nigeria, south-west of the Jos Plateau.
Subsequently, new discoveries have occurred in an ever wider area, which currently covers an area of 480 to 320 km, encompassing the middle valley of the Niger and the Benue valley lower.
Memory of Africa
The first history of Africa was written in clay. It is the earth that are shaped more ancient figures found. Their great age, up to 3000 BC. BC for the oldest (dating tests thermoluminescence in support) is primarily explained by the lack of available material. Metals have aroused the greed of the founders who have transformed and reorganized. The timber was destroyed by termites. Terracotta, saw its minimum value, has rarely been reemployed.
She was on the other hand the advantage to be shaped with bare hands, without tools. For cooking, we had thousands of years experience of utilitarian pottery. Some works have been dried in the sun, others cooked in the ashes of a fireplace, 300 C, others, finally, to higher temperatures, providing more durable walls. The craftsmen who worked around Nok used for their figurines modeled the same material as for their utilitarian pottery: a clay coarse. Some statues may reach 1.20 meters, which requires excellent control of modeling techniques like cooking outdoors. Like many statues are hollow, the sculptor has ensured that the entire piece has an equal thickness and hollow parts that could explode in fire.
This technical competence, as the stylistic control found in these works, suggests that Nok art could be the culmination of a long artistic tradition already. Nowhere do we detect groping or research. The characteristics of this style are already clear. The eye first attracted attention for its importance. Sometimes it forms an arc, sometimes a triangle above the eyebrow which counteracts the curvature of the upper eyelid.
Trans-Saharan trade
Saharan Africa region that interests us at the time was divided into 2 circles: the savannah where small farming communities lived in the fertile northern area suitable for agriculture and livestock; the rainforest that covered the most of the southern zone which lived along the coastal populations of hunter-gatherers.
2500 years ago, populations of northern Africa, driven by drought are descended southward with women, children, livestock, arms and equipment to the Gulf of Guinea and South Africa. They introduced a new way of life because these tribes were cultivating cereals, legumes and raised cattle, sheep, goats. The men knew the metallurgy of iron, each group has its own style of pottery. It was the beginning of the Iron Age in Africa and the Nok culture is the first community certified to work the iron in West Africa. The merchants have probably started to cross the Sahara in the course of the 1st millennium BC, with carts pulled by horses. West African populations exchanged for gold, slaves, ivory and animal products cons of salt, fabrics, ceramics, glass, fruit and horses. Impressed by this animal, Nok artists have also modeled strange statues depicting horsemen, dignitaries on horseback, parts of which are now extremely rare and of great value on the art market.
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| Africa | Axum Carthage  Egyptians Kush Nok Numidia |
| America | See " Pre-Columbian civilization "(in this continent, the concept of antiquity extends until its discovery by Europeans). |
| West Asia | Akkadian  Armenian Assyrians Babylonians Israel / Jews Hittites " Ancient Persia " Elamites , Achaemenids , Parthian , Sassanid Phoenicians Scythians Sumerians |
| Europe | Celtic Etruscan Germanic Greek Huns Italics Minoans Mycenaeans Romans |
| Far East and India | Champs " Ancient China ": Shang , Zhou , Spring and Autumn Period , Warring States , Qin , Han , Three Kingdoms , Sixteen Kingdoms Funan Indus |
| Category "Civilization" Category "Ancient" Portal of the ancient world Portal archeology | |
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