Carved stone (atal or akwanshi)

This stone sculpture is one of three hundred monoliths found in villages in the northern Cross River State, Nigeria. The heavy basalt rock, smoothed into an ovoid shape by the current of a river a few miles away, has been carved into an expressive face. The wide eyes and brows are raised in an expression of surprise. The hairline extends beyond the plane of the face, and below the chin abstract patterns cover the area where a torso might be. This example is one of the smaller sculptures, measuring just over two feet, although other monoliths measure up to six feet (180 cm) tall.

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.