Our Deep History Our Deep History A museum of unexplained ancient sites and relics
Nigeria rooms

Alok and the Ikom villages, Cross River, Nigeria

Ikom monoliths

One result near 200 CE, or a king-list from about 1500 (the carving and the charcoal are not the same clock)

A clearing of Ikom stones. Several are still upright. Others lie in the grass. Faces and body marks are not readable at this distance. The wall and the palms are the modern village edge. Dotun55, CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown unedited.

In the villages of the Cross River, carved stones stand in circles, often facing inward. People call them akwanshi, ancestors in the ground. A king-list puts the carving between about 1500 and 1900. An excavation at Alok is reported with a radiocarbon result near 200 CE.

Why this is extraordinary

The stones are called akwanshi, ancestors in the ground. They stand in the villages around Ikom, in Cross River State, often in circles that face inward, with faces and marks cut on the body. A British Museum note puts the original number at 400 to 450 and the survivors at fewer than 250, mostly basalt, about 0.9 to 1.8 metres high. A museum essay of the 1960s survey says close to 300 were seen in place, some under half a metre and some two or three metres tall. A field paper says the count across the clans had already passed 300. The lists disagree because stones move.

So how old is a face? One method counts thirty-nine rulers in a clan, gives each about ten years, and arrives between about 1500 and 1900. Stretch the reigns to twenty-five or thirty-five years, which a critique says was ordinary, and the start slides backward while the method stays the same. The other method is a dig at Alok. The result cited from it is 1780 plus or minus 50 radiocarbon years, read as about 200 CE. That is one number, not a stack of laboratory codes. It dates carbon in the ground. The link to the chisel is that the carbon and the stone were found together. If the layers were mixed, the face could be older or younger than the fire.

The circles are the sky question, and it is unanswered. People gathering inside a ring of faces is a meeting. A solstice would need a measured line from a gap to the horizon, and none is printed in the sources used here. Rings cut on the stone read, in those descriptions, as body marks. The photograph shows the clearing, the fallen ones and the standing ones, not a close face. Alok and Emanghabe were scheduled as monuments on 19 March 1963. What this changes: if the charcoal belongs to the carving, these ancestors were cut a thousand years before the king-list begins. If it does not, the list can stand, and the carbon is a fire in an old village.

Why it matters

If the stones are a few centuries old, they are a late ancestral monument still close to the genealogies people recite. If the Alok charcoal belongs with the carving, the same faces were being cut in the early centuries CE, and the king-list is a memory of later use, not of the first chisel.

A British Museum note counts an original 400 to 450 stones, now fewer than 250, mostly basalt, about 0.9 to 1.8 metres high, with faces and body marks. A Metropolitan Museum essay, drawing on a 1960s survey, says close to 300 were recorded in place, from under half a metre to two or three metres, set in circles or ovals. A later field paper says more than 300 had been counted between the clans. The tallies do not match, which is what happens when stones are moved, buried, or taken. The pin is Ikom. Alok is one of the village clearings, and it is the one with the reported date.

Photo tour

1 photograph, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.

A clearing of Ikom stones. Several are still upright. Others lie in the grass. Faces and body marks are not readable at this distance. The wall and the palms are the modern village edge. Dotun55, CC BY-SA 4.0

What is still unexplained

These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.

Open Two clocks that were never one series The king-list reading counts thirty-nine rulers in one clan, allows about ten years to a reign, and lands between about 1500 and 1900, with the last of those rulers dying around 1900. A critique of that arithmetic says reigns often ran twenty-five to thirty-five years, which would push the start earlier without changing the method. The other clock is an excavation at Alok and Emanghabe, reported as 1780 plus or minus 50 radiocarbon years and read as about 200 CE. That is one result. It is not printed in these sources as a laboratory series with a sample code. Radiocarbon dates the carbon, usually charcoal in a layer. It dates a carved face only if the fire and the chisel are one event. A later offering in an older circle, or an older charcoal under a later stone, would slide the number off the ancestor.
Open Circles, and no sunrise yet The uprights are often set in circles, sometimes described as near-perfect, facing one another around a middle space. That plan is a meeting ground: people stand inside, and the faces look in. It is also the plan you would use if you wanted a ring to mark a direction, but a ring facing inward does not by itself point at the sun. At this latitude the equinox sun rises due east and the solstices swing well north and south of east. No azimuth, no measured bearing from a stone to a horizon notch, is published in the sources used here. Concentric circles cut on the stone are body marks in the museum descriptions, the same family as the faces and the scar patterns. They are not presented there as a star map. A circle of ancestors and a calendar can be the same ring. Until someone measures the gaps, the circle is a gathering, and the sky reading is still a candidate.

Location and dating

Location
The Ikom area of Cross River State, Nigeria, in village clearings of the Bakor and neighbouring communities. Alok is the clearing tied to the reported radiocarbon result. The coordinate is Ikom town, not a surveyed centre of one circle.
Period label
Current consensus — open to revision Either about 1500 to 1900, from a king-list, or about 200 CE, from one reported radiocarbon result at Alok. Both cannot be the first cut unless the list and the charcoal are dating different moments of one long use.
How this dating was done
A genealogical count of rulers, and one radiocarbon result, 1780 ± 50, cited from the Alok excavation and read as about 200 CE. Not a series with a printed laboratory code.
What could change it
A set of dates on charcoal sealed against a stone that was clearly in place, with the laboratory codes published, would show whether 200 CE is the carving, an earlier fire, or a later rite. A longer reign-length applied honestly to the same king-list would move the 1500 start without new digging.
Published ranges, drawn as bars. A bar is a claim about a span, not a point.
King-list windowContested
Alok radiocarbonContested
120 CE1000 CE1900 CE
  • King-list window. About ten years to a reign, thirty-nine rulers. A longer reign would start earlier. Not a laboratory date.
  • Alok radiocarbon. 1780 ± 50 radiocarbon years, read as about 200 CE. The bar is a rough calendar sketch of that uncalibrated result, not a new calibration. One sample, not a series.

What is actually there

Open questions

Question Status
Does the Alok charcoal date the carving, or a fire in the same ground? Open. One result, without a printed laboratory code, cannot choose.
Do the circles face a sunrise, or only one another? Open. No azimuth is published in the sources used here.

The current narrative

Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.

Emerging narratives

Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.

An emerging narrative

Ancestors cut between about 1500 and 1900

The circles are memorials of rulers and a place of offering. A count of reigns in one clan puts the carving in the last five centuries before 1900.

What supports this

  • The name akwanshi is glossed as ancestors in the ground, and offerings are still described at the stones.
  • A king-list of thirty-nine rulers, at about ten years each, was the dating method of the 1960s survey, and it lands between about 1500 and 1900.
  • Circles in a village meeting place fit a memorial people could still name.

What pushes back

  • Reign length is the whole of the arithmetic. Twenty-five to thirty-five years to a reign, which a critique says was common, moves the start by centuries.
  • A radiocarbon result from Alok, 1780 ± 50, is read as about 200 CE. A king-list that begins in 1500 does not explain that carbon if the carbon belongs to the carving.
  • Stones taken, re-erected, or lying in grass can be younger than the tradition, or older than the last rite held at them.

What would settle it

It stays because it is how the stones are still talked about, and the name is a meaning, not only a date. It is not the only clock while one reported result sits more than a thousand years earlier.

An emerging narrative

An older carving, near the start of the first millennium CE

The Alok excavation dates the stones’ context to about 200 CE, so the faces are an early Iron Age work and the king-list remembers a later life of the same circles.

What supports this

  • The reported result is 1780 ± 50 radiocarbon years, read as about 200 CE, from the excavation at Alok.
  • Pottery in Calabar with related designs has been placed between about 400 and 1400, which is a longer run than 1500 to 1900.
  • A single late genealogy often records the generations people can still name, not the first stone.

What pushes back

  • One result is not a series, and these sources do not print a laboratory code. A date on charcoal is the fire’s date.
  • The king-list is evidence too. Ignoring it because a charcoal number is older assumes the charcoal and the chisel are the same day.
  • Counts of the stones already disagree. A context date from two villages does not date every circle in the district.

What would settle it

It stays because 1780 ± 50 is a real reported number and it does not fit inside 1500 to 1900. It is not the centre until more than one sample is tied to a stone that was in place.

Should the current view be reevaluated?

Open to revision

The circles, the faces, and the ancestor name are firm. The year is not. A king-list and one radiocarbon result answer different questions, and neither has been published here as a series that dates the chisel. Open keeps both clocks.

What drives this

  • Village circles of carved basalt, called ancestors in the ground.
  • A king-list window of about 1500 to 1900, sensitive to how long a reign was.
  • One Alok result, 1780 ± 50 radiocarbon years, read as about 200 CE.

This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.

Weigh it yourself

Anonymous. Nothing here is stored except on this browser. Your lean does not change the assessment beside it.

Ancestors cut between about 1500 and 1900 Unsure An older carving, near the start of the first millennium CE

If the contested reading is right

What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.

The Alok charcoal dates the carving

The faces would be a first-millennium monument, and the genealogies would be the later care of it. Other Cross River carvings would be worth dating the same way, stone by stone.

Why it is still worth a test

A published series, with laboratory codes, on charcoal or bone sealed against stones still in their sockets.

Sources

  1. The Akwanshi Stone Monoliths The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  2. Ikom monoliths British Museum
  3. An archaeological investigation of the monoliths of Alok and Emanghabe The 1780 ± 50 result, cited from the Alok excavation

Image credits

← Nigeria World map