The Nok terracotta discoveries at tin mines

Record summary

Terracotta heads and figures associated with the Nok culture came to scholarly attention after finds from tin-mining areas in the late 1920s. Bernard Fagg’s collecting, recording, and research in the 1930s and 1940s helped establish the importance of the material, which is notable for technically accomplished sculpture and early ironworking contexts. Many early objects lacked secure archaeological provenance because they entered collections through mining and the antiquities trade. Consequently, dates, workshop relationships, and social meanings remain more uncertain than the artistic fame of the terracottas suggests.