The Nok culture
Nigerian terracotta heads, and iron smelting in West Africa.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 500 years
- Known to
- ± 100 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
The Nok culture of central Nigeria, from around 1000 BCE, produces near-life-size terracotta figures with elaborate hairstyles and pierced triangular eyes — the oldest figurative sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence for iron smelting at Nok sites suggests West African metallurgy developed early, and possibly independently of Mediterranean or Near Eastern transmission, though the question is unsettled. Much of the material has been looted rather than excavated.