What are the typical design characteristics of Nok sculpture?

These artifacts are mostly terracotta sculptures of human heads, human figures, and animals. One of the identifying characteristics of Nok sculptures is the triangular or oval-shaped eyes on human faces. Human figures also often have elaborate hair styles.

What are the features of Nok art?

The most characteristic Nok artifacts are clay figurines of animals and stylized human beings, usually heads; perforated eyes of an elliptical or triangular shape are typical of the style. Other artifacts of the Nok culture include iron tools, stone axes and other stone tools, and stone ornaments.

What are the significance of Nok art?

Famous for the distinctive terracotta sculptures of human heads and figures, Nok was the first known culture in West Africa to produce such art and perhaps the first sub-Saharan culture to perfect iron-smelting technology.

What happened to the Nok culture?

The Nok Culture appeared in Nigeria around 1500 BC and vanished under unknown circumstances around 500 AD, having lasted approximately 2,000 years. Iron use, in smelting and forging tools, appears in Nok culture by at least 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier.

How did the use of iron tools affect Nok culture?

This helped the Nok because they were an agricultural people who needed things like plowed fields, wood to construct and then heat their houses, and so forth. It also helped the Nok because making iron and making their ceramic pottery have some similarities. Both require great heat to mold or harden the material.

What is one reason that the Nok head’s eyes and mouth are holes cut through the surface?

The pierced eyes, mouth, and ear holes are characteristic of Nok sculpture and probably helped to equalize the heating of the hollow clay head during the firing process. The earliest African sculptures in the round come from Nigeria.

What is the meaning of Nok culture?

The Nok culture (or Nok civilization) is a population whose material remains are named after the Ham village of Nok in Kaduna State of Nigeria, where their terracotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928.