The Nok Culture: what was and how was this ancient civilization

In 1943, the manager of a tin mine located on the Jos Plateau in West Africa led 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 this mysterious people that made such refined and exquisite terracotta figurines? A few years earlier, in the 1920s, the first traces had been found and, in 1932, the first group of terracotta figurines related to this culture. But it wasn't until the 1940s that Bernard Fagg, the administrator who had marveled at the "scarecrow" and who was also an archaeologist, painstakingly excavated in the area to unravel the mysteries of this lost civilization.

Join 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 astonishment caused by the discovery of the terracotta statuettes increased when Fagg's team carried out the first datings using the thermoluminescence technique. The dating placed the culture that had made these extraordinary works of art between 500 BC. C and 300 AD. C., although some statuettes were more than 3000 years old, which testified that the presence of the Nok in Africa must have started at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. c.

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

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

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What are the origins of the Nok culture?

The sophistication of the Nok culture and its extraordinary antiquity motivated some theories now already completely obsolete, like the one that maintained that it was 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 unmatched in the rest of the continent, with the exception of Egypt.

However, this hypothesis is now abandoned. First, because it lacks scientific evidence to support it; there is no proof of any contact between the Nok and Egypt and, furthermore, this 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 autochthonous capacities of sub-Saharan peoples and, furthermore, follows the 19th century diffusionist tradition, according to which "all" civilization comes from the Orient, a theory that was discarded long ago. time.

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

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A refined and exquisite art

The vestiges 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.

In addition, 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 was in control of raw materials. cousins. This has given rise to the theory, supported by specialists such as Peter Breunig, from the Goethe University, in Frankfurt, that the Nok culture was really a civilization, a kind of "state" at the heart of Africa.

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

The statuettes represent highly stylized male and female figures in various 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 jewelery worn by the figures suggests the existence of privileged and powerful status, as well as highly advanced metal production.

One of the most famous terracotta Nok figurines is the so-called “Thinker”, the depiction of a bearded man pensively resting his chin on his bent knee. On her head she wears a kind of diadem, while on her neck, wrists and ankles several turns of metal jewelery can be seen. 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 of the Nok terracottas are badly eroded (and even directly mutilated) as a result of being dragged by water, which has made it extremely difficult to find a complete figurine. However, it was precisely the organic vegetal elements adhered to its surface that allowed, through the carbon-14 technique, to specify the rise of the Nok culture and place it between the 500 B.C. c. and the 300 d. c. Specifically, the "Thinker" figurine we were talking about was dated around 298 BC. c.

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The question of the Iron Age

But one of the fundamental issues that has aroused 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 populations 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 the scholars of the 19th century), we have the question of how iron metallurgy came to a place as remote from Europe as the Jos Plateau in present-day Nigeria. Some theories point to a massive emigration of peoples from North Africa, who brought with them the art of making metal objects. On the other hand, there are not a few experts who have considered the possibility of a fluid exchange not not only with North Africa, but with the Middle East, especially with civilizations like 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. C., since numerous metallurgical furnaces have been found in the town of Taruga (Nigeria), dating from approximately 280 BC. C., 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 are considering 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 else would have conquered and eliminated it. The flowering of this new civilization coincides precisely with the decline of the Nok, in the first millennium AD. C., although the cultural expression of the latter can be traced back to the fourth century.

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