Head
Unknown Artist
thermoluminescence date 20–620 CE
Medium
terracotta
Dimensions
38.2 × 20 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
African Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Accession Number
1995.21
About this artwork
More than 500 such sculptures—often full figures with elaborate hairstyles and jewelry— have been found in central Nigeria. Named after a discovery site, Nok culture (500 BCE–200 CE or 1500–1 BCE) produced the earliest large figurative artworks in Africa outside of Egypt. Little was known about their social context, as they were first found in mining deposits in the 1920s. Archaeological excavations conducted in the 2000s by a German-Nigerian team suggest that many sculptures were deliberately b...