Nok Terracotta Sculptures: A Reflection of Ancient Ideology and Philosophy Found in the Earlier and Recent Discovered Sculptures

Many ancient cultures around the world in the past have used art especially sculptures as a way of expressing their culture, tradition and belief system. In doing so they engaged in the used of variety of materials ranging from wood, stone, bronze, brass and terracotta among many others. However, terracotta was widely used in ancient arts especially in Chinese, Greek, Mesopotamian, Egyptian sculptures, and many more. In Africa and Nigeria in particular terracotta was also used in ancient cultures such as the Benin, Ife, Owo, Esie and the Nok culture. The Nok culture being the earliest culture is known for its terracotta sculpture tradition in the whole of sub- Sahara Africa. The prehistoric Nok society is mainly known for its terracotta figurines (depicting three different kinds of creatures; humans, animals and combination of both known as anthropomorphic figures. It is important to note that, all forms of artistic expressions in the Nok culture are driven by ideas and philosophies. The paper adopted qualitative research method in carrying out the research using historical approaches to establish the background on Nok terracotta sculptures, while Descriptive approached was used to describe the terracotta sculptures. The paper therefore seeks to discuss the concept of ideology and philosophy, it also discusses the ideology and philosophy that accompany the Nok terracotta sculptures. The paper further identifies some of the recently discovered terracotta sculptures, and compared them with the already established ones' base on their ideology and philosophy. It concludes that there is no much differences and variation between the recently discovered terracotta sculptures with the already established ones