NOK ART DATING

Although most of the terracotta sculptures have been recovered from alluvial deposits, we know from laboratory tests on the charcoal collected at Nok sites that the culture flourished between 900 B.C. and A.D. 200, i.e. more than 2000 years ago. A few primary sites which have been discovered and excavated recently, those at Taruga and Katsina Ala, for instance, with terracotta figures and fragments in situ, and in association with iron-smelting furnaces at Taruga, have yielded the same date range.
Thermoluminescent dating of the works themselves, for example, the Jemaa head, (plate 12) confirms the radiocarbon dating, and suggests that the culture was ‘in its prime during the last four centuries B.C.
Who were the Nok people?
Where did they come from and where did they go? These are questions that must be asked, although no answers have yet been found. That they were Africans is known for certain from the study of the physical features of the sculptures. That being so, we have here evidence of the oldest known Black African civilization. Nok sculptures themselves are so developed that they are not likely to have been at the beginning of an artistic tradition. Was there, therefore, a pre-Nok civilization? The questions raised here are nagging and call for all Africans to devote time, money and energy to finding out more about Africa’s oldest civilization. No one knows what information is lost already; no one knows what more information may be lost in future. Only through a massive effort to retrieve evidence can we be satisfied that we are fulfilling our obligations to the future generations of our people.

Nok Culture