Part 0 · 1 chapters · ~8 min

Nok and the Early Iron Age

The Nok culture of central Nigeria (about 1500 BCE to about 1 CE), its terracotta sculpture, early iron smelting and the debate over its origin, farming and settlement, Bernard Fagg and the 1943 discovery, looting and the art market, and later early sites (Igbo-Ukwu, Jenne-jeno).

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Terracotta and iron

Nok shows that complex societies with skilled artists and iron technology existed in central Nigeria more than two thousand years ago. Jenne-jeno on the inland Niger delta in Mali (from about 250 BCE) shows early urbanism without a single ruler's palace, challenging the idea that cities need kings.

Bernard Fagg, Nok Terracottas (1977); Peter Breunig and Nicole Rupp, Goethe University Frankfurt Nok project publications (2005 onwards); Roderick and Susan McIntosh on Jenne-jeno (1980s); UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. II.

NOK AND THE EARLY IRON AGE
dates from radiocarbon and luminescence dating; approximate
c. 1500 BCEearliest Nok settlement
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who and where
The Nok culture, named after the village in today's Kaduna State where finds were made, occupied central Nigeria from around 1500 BCE to around the turn of the era (dates from the Goethe University Frankfurt project).
central Nigeriac. 1500 BCE to c. 1 CE