NIGERIA: THE NOK CULTURE-by Natalia Borrueco

Hi there!

This month I’m going to talk a little bit of the Nok culture which comes from the richest country in Africa.

I’m writing about it because at my school we are trying to accomplish projects about this amusing country as we do every year with many different poor locations. I say ‘’try’’ because not in all of our subjects we can do it, for example, in Physics we can’t do a thing related to Nigeria in consequence of this is not a totally developed country with physical knowledge like we do.

• WHAT IS THE NOK CULTURE?

The Nok culture is the first recognized as an African one which appeared between the 5^th century B.C. and the 2^nd century A.D. This is a civilization that assembled towns of people who spoke different languages, occupying the Central and East area of Nigeria.

 

They also adopted common techniques such as pottery or metallurgy as we can observe, nowadays at many museums that conserve a lot of ceramic sculptures of clay, previously founded in Nigeria after archeological excavations.

If we talk about their art, these sculptures were made to represent their leaders, ancestors, funerary steeles or good-luck charms, mostly. These people were very accurate because, even, when they were making a woman out of pottery, they modelled it with her traditional hair style and a considerable amount of jewellery that they used to wear at that moment. Unluckily, not all of these pieces of art are in good conditions because of the climatic conditions and its subsidence under the land too, so it took a long time to find them. Today, this social structure is considered extremely forward-thinking because this civilization was very far away from other cultures giving consideration to the fact that the people belonging to this lifestyle were living in the Neolithic.

However, this is a culture that disappeared after the famine or some epidemic in the first millennium of our era.

• NOK CULTURE EXPOSITIONS

The most important European exposition that has ever existed until now is, by chance, a Spanish one: Fundación Alberto Jiménez – Arellano.

This is a non-profit organization taken over by the University of Valladolid and created in the 3^rd of May of 2004. Its exposition is public and if you visit it, you can admire the fantastic collection of African terracotta’s figures that they maintain at the Palacio de Santa Cruz.

 

• OPINION

From my point of view I see the Nok culture as one of the most important ones but its public recognition is not as big as it should be since without this group of people maybe the Africa we know wouldn’t be as ‘’industrialized’’ as it is now, maybe they would be even more rudimental than these days.