What I wanted if I was born in the 1820

Early Nigerian culture

The Nok culture

Evidence of human occupation in Nigeria dates back thousands of years. The oldest fossil remains found by archaeologists in the southwestern area of Iwo Eleru, near Akure, have been dated to about 9000 BCE. There are isolated collections of ancient tools and artifacts of different periods of the Stone Age, but the oldest recognizable evidence of an organized society belongs to the Nok culture (c. 500 BCE–c. 200 CE)

Named for the village of Nok, site of some of the finds, the ancient culture produced fine terra-cotta figurines, which were accidentally discovered by tin miners on the Jos Plateau in the 1930s. Initially Neolithic (New Stone Age), the Nok culture made the transition to the Iron Age. Its people raised crops and cattle and seem to have paid particular attention to personal adornment, especially of the hair. Distinctive features of Nok art include naturalism, stylized treatment of the mouth and eyes, relative proportions of the human head, body, and feet, distortions of the human facial features, and treatment of animal forms. The spread of Nok-type figures in a wide area south of the Jos Plateau, covering southern Kaduna state southeastward to Katsina Ala, south of the Benue River, suggests a well-established culture that left traces still identifiable in the lives of the peoples of the area today. Many of the distinctive features of Nok art can also be traced in later developments of Nigerian art produced in such places as Igbo Ukwu, Ife, Esie, and Benin City.Igbo Ukwu Bronzes, which have been dated to about the 9th century CE, were discovered in the 1930s and ’40s at Igbo Ukwu, near the southwestern city of Onitsha. (See also African art.) They reveal not only a high artistic tradition but also a well-structured society with wide-ranging economic relationships. Of particular interest is the source of the copper and lead used to make the bronzes, which may have been Tadmekka in the Sahara, and of the coloured glass beads, some of which may have come from Venice and India, the latter via trade routes through Egypt, the Nile valley, and the Chad basin. It is believed that the bronzes were part of the furniture in the burial chamber of a high personage, possibly a forerunner of the eze nri, a priest-king, who held religious but not political power over large parts of the Igbo-inhabited region well into the 20th century.

If I was born during regime I could been an artist. We had a lot of discoveries I could have painted them in canvas and trade so other countries could see through my eyes what Nigeria was at it was. With time we could have been sponsored to go to school and acquire education and I could have studied law. With that I could have been able to preserve our culture artifacts. It could have been kept in a centralized museum where all regions could bring and be paid for display. I could have given back to the society to gain education base on their passion and capability. This could have had proper documentation of what the culture represented maybe just maybe our patriotism could have grown thicker in our blood stream exchange of money and favors killed softly the patriotism we didn’t value what we had. The country is rich and everything was sprayed round the country to be discovered one way or the othe. The urge to have more knowledge died. few farmers who Cultivate the soil to farm find more of these artifacts, who fish discovered alot everyday but they are traded and kept without proper documentation no trace at all.