Nok Terracotta Sculpture Tradition Flourishes
- Date
- c. 500 BCE
- Category
- Culture, arts & philosophy
- Region
- Africa
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
From around the 5th century BCE, the Nok culture of the Jos Plateau region in what is now central Nigeria began producing the earliest known large-scale figurative sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa.
Working local clays mixed with gravel and using coil-building techniques akin to pottery, Nok artisans crafted hollow, nearly life-sized terracotta heads and figures distinguished by highly stylised features, elaborate hairstyles and jewellery, and pierced, triangular eyes. Though their precise function is uncertain, many sculptures appear to have served funerary or ritual purposes, and they attest to a sophisticated Iron Age society. The tradition flourished until roughly the 2nd century CE, spanning a vast territory and demonstrating advanced technical mastery. As the seminal figurative art tradition of the region, Nok terracotta is widely regarded as ancestral to later West African artistic cultures, notably Igbo-Ukwu and the renowned sculptures of Ife.
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Empires active in c. 500 BCE
- Carthaginian Empire650 BCE to 146 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE to 350 CE
- Achaemenid Empire550 BCE to 330 BCE
- Roman Republic509 BCE to 27 BCE
- Scythians800 BCE to 300 BCE
- Zhou Dynasty1046 BCE to 256 BCE
Related culture, arts & philosophy events
- Life and teaching of Confucius in China551 to 479 BCE
- Panini composes the Ashtadhyayi, the first systematic grammarc. 400 BCE
- Darius I's Behistun Inscriptionc. 520 BCE
- Pythagoras founds his school at Crotonc. 530 BCE
- Construction of the Parthenon in Periclean Athens447 to 432 BCE
- Herodotus completes the Histories, founding the writing of historyc. 430 to 425 BCE
Essential reading
- Invention of Standardised Coinage in Lydia (the Lydian Stater)c. 630 BCE
- Han-Xiongnu Heqin Treaty Inaugurates Tribute-and-Marriage Diplomacy198 BC
- Earliest securely dated Maya/Mesoamerican Long Count inscription36 BCE (Long Count 7.16.3.2.13)
- Wang Mang nationalises land under the Xin dynastyAD 9
Further reading
The wider story
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