DAIMA

DAIMA TERRACOTTA FIGURINES
Daima is the name of a high mound or "tell" about 10.5 metres high at the Nigeria-Cameroon border east of Dikwa, the old capital of the Bornu Kingdom. The mound was formed between the sixth century B.C. and the eleventh century A.D. An excavation of this mound by Graham Connah in 1965 and 1966 revealed that the earliest occupants of the site used stone and bone implements, as indicated by the presence of polished stone axes and bone fish harpoons. Later, these stone age people were succeeded by an iron-using people. The transition between stone-using and iron-using is placed, according to radiocarbon dating, between the fifth and sixth centuries. These stone, bone and iron users made clay figurines whose style seems to be homogeneous throughout all the occupation levels. However, the stone and bone users made representations only of humpless cows, while the iron users added models of humped cows, goats or sheep, human beings and wild animals.
The long legged goats or sheep illustrated here are a late development over lumpy models.