The Nok culture

Art Nok truly developed at the VII century before j-c. It thrives until IVe century of our era.

Nok, village located at the North of the confluence of Niger and Bénoué in central Nigeria, gave its name to a prehistoric culture of first importance in the development of the African statuary.
The Nok culture covers a very broad zone of approximately 500 km length and 170 broad on the plate of Bauchi , (see map) from the Northern center of Nigeria to the areas of Katsina and Sokoto of the North-West of Nigeria.

The culture of Nok was identified into 1943 of a score of sites distributed in a vast surface which, of est in West, extends on more than five hundred kilometers. It is a terra cotta statue which was put at the day.

These statuettes, as you can note it, in this gallery, show four principal characteristics, namely:

1 - The eyes have a characteristic form. Indeed, the lower edge is formed by a triangle or a half-circle and the higher part by an eyebrow in arc of circle.

2 - The pupil is often perforated of a round hole, as well as the ears and sometimes the openings of the nostrils and the mouth.

3 - The human representations have very stylized hairstyles (hulls or braidings).

4 – The realism of the modelling of the lips, the broad face and a right nose with broad nostril.

All these attributes constitute the guarantee of the authenticity of these masterpieces.