Alok Ikom Stone Monoliths

Alok Ikom Stone Monoliths

Nigeria is a beautiful place with amazing landmarks and cultural monuments. The Alok Ikom Stone Monoliths are unique to Cross River State in Nigeria. The Akwasnshi/Atal, as the monolith is called among the Ejagham people of Cross River, is distributed among over thirty communities. The Alok Ikom Stone Monoliths were added to the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. A monolith is a large single upright block of stone, especially one shaped into or serving as a pillar or monument.

In each community, the stones are found in circles, sometimes perfect circles, facing each other standing erect, except where they have been tampered with by weather or man. In some cases, the stones are found in the center of the village or in the central meeting place of the village elders, as in the case of Alok and Agba communities.

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In Etinan and Nabrokpa communities, the stones are in an area of uncultivated forest outside the villages. Most of the stones are carved in the hard, medium-textured basaltic rock, a few are carved in sandstone and shelly limestone. They have estimated 300 carved stones with varying heights standing upright in circles and facing one another. The images and markings inscribed on the stones, believed to be from prehistoric civilization, are yet to be decoded.

The stone monoliths of Alok Ikom bear a form of writing and a complex system of codified information. Although they seem to share the same general features, each stone, like the human fingerprint, is unique from every other stone in its design and execution. The geometric images on the monoliths suggest that their makers possessed an advanced knowledge of mathematics, not only because they are geometric, but also because of the obvious implication that there were computations and numbers on the layout of the stones.

The common features of the monoliths are that they are hewn into the form of a phallus ranging from about three feet in height to about five and a half feet. They are decorated with carvings of geometric and stylized human features, notably two eyes, an open mouth, a head crowned with rings, a stylized pointed beard, an elaborately marked navel, two decorative hands with five fingers, a nose, various shape of facial marks.

Visiting Cross River soon? Please send us recent pictures of the Alok Ikom monoliths.