Portrait Head
Nok, Nigeria
Terracotta
4th century BCE - 1st century CE

The geological process of erosion and accumulation are of such intensity in West Africa that great movements of earth occurred in the course of only a few centuries. Compared to Europe (as an example), it is extremely difficult to locate archaeological material in West Africa, and finds are discovered almost exclusively by chance. It was a chance find of this kind in the 1940s that brought to light the oldest evidence of African sculpture outside Egypt. Although one head had previously been discovered in the village of Jaba in 1928, this second head was discovered at a tin-mining site called Nok, and so the culture was named.  

Burial sculptures from the so-called Nok, Sokoto, and Katsina cultures all date back as far as 500 BCE, and show clear similarities and mixtures of styles, despite the three sites being separated by a few hundred kilometers (Schaedler, Earth and Ore, 1997). 

Thermoluminescence tested by Francine Maurer (Alliance Science Art) in 1997; 2150 +/- 200 years old.

9 in :: 23 cm

InventoryID #13-619