Akwanshi monoliths, Cross River State, Nigeria

Akwanshi monoliths, Cross River State, Nigeria. 

Akwanshi monoliths were first recorded in 1903, and by the 1960’s, 295 carved basalt and limestone monoliths had been recorded at 39 ritual sites, including 27 stone circles, in an area northwest of Ikom, in the Middle Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria. They are known as “Akwanshi”, from the Bakor language, meaning “dead person in the ground” or “ancestor in the ground”, though the Akwanshi monoliths are not believed to be tombstones, as there is a strict ritual prohibition against burials within the stone circles. They are also referred to as “Bakor monoliths”, “Ejagham monoliths”, “Ikom monoliths” or “Atal”.  

Akwanshi generally range in height from about 40 cm up to 2 m, though the largest ones can reach up to 3 m. The stone used for these monoliths had been naturally shaped in nearby riverbeds, and subsequently had facial features, beards, arms, navels and decorative symbols carved into them. Some of these symbols have been suggested to be Nsibidi, a complex system of proto-writing that has been in use in the region since at least the first half of the 1st millennium AD.  

The dating of the these monoliths has proven to be notoriously difficult. Dates as late as the 17th century AD and as early as the 3rd century BC have been variously cited. 

“The Cross River monoliths were first recorded in 1903 by Charles Partridge, an officer of the occupying British colonial forces. Many of the sculptures were found overgrown with vines in the center of abandoned towns. At each site, groups of ten to twenty sculptures were set in a circle facing inward. Scholars at the time believed that the monoliths represented former leaders of the Bakor clans living in this region. Assuming that each sculpture was made to commemorate a chief at his death, these scholars proposed that the tradition began in the seventeenth century. In the 1990s, however, Chief Alul Nkap, an elder in the village of Alok, explained that the stones commemorated both men and women, clan leaders as well as individuals known for their piety, generosity, remarkable beauty, or remarkable ugliness. The monoliths are now included in the New Yam festival, a celebration at the end of the harvest season. Some families have moved the sculptures into the center of their villages, and women paint the surfaces for the festival to refresh the sculptures and honor the ancestors they may represent.”

-Museum of Fine Arts, Boston