The Nok Frankfurt Exhibition: Matters Arising.
By
Zacharys Anger Gundu, PhD
Department of Archaeology
Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria.
takuruku@yahoo.com
An exhibition on the Nok Culture titled ‘Nok. Origin of African Sculpture’ opened in Frankfurt, Germany on 30th October, 2013. This is coming after close to 10 years of controversial archaeological investigations in the Nok valley by a German archaeological team led by Professor Peter Breunig of the Goethe University, Frankfurt. The Germans started their investigation of the Nok valley in 2005. Without a proper memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), the German team embarked on a suite of unethical activities involving wholesale exportation of excavated materials. Local communities in the Nok valley including community leaders and traditional chiefs were treated with contempt while the local archaeological community in the country was deliberately shut out of the project. Following sustained pressure and criticism of the project championed by the Archaeological Association of Nigeria (AAN), a MoU was signed between the Germans and the NCMM five years into the project. The AAN rejected this because it was badly skewed in favour of the Germans leading to a review by 2012. The extant MoU allows for the participation of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and the University of Jos as project collaborators.
The Frankfurt exhibition is a sad commentary on the management of archaeological and heritage resources in the country. As pointed out by the AAN in a statement against the exhibition, the Nok terracotta represent a strategic heritage resource in the country. They are the earliest of their type in sub Saharan Africa. This is the main reason why they ought to have been exhibited in Nigeria where the public has a direct connection with them before taking them to Germany. Debuting the exhibition in Germany undermines international best practice and shows that, Nigerians are yet to win the right to interpret their heritage and patrimony through preservation and display.
By starting the exhibition in Frankfurt, the European audience has been effectively privileged over Nigerians whose forefathers were directly responsible for the Nok culture. German scholars have also been effectively given a first opportunity to skew the interpretation of the Nok finds to reinforce European historiography and align with the philosophy of universal museums. The organizers of the exhibition have done this by exhibiting the Nok materials in dialogue with contemporary Egyptian and Graeco Roman sculptures. In the despicable philosophy of universal museums, the Nok materials are incompetent to stand alone before a European audience, hence the attempt to compare them as primitive art against figurative European art.
The exhibition is predicated on a skewed reading of the African past and it is clear, Nigeria had no input into the exhibition concept. This is unfortunate because the extant MoU with the Germans is particular on the fact that the Germans will only fund this exhibition and assist in the design of the exhibition concept. The 292 page exhibition catalog is also skewed. Not only is the catalog written in German, out of the 18 chapters in the catalog, only three of them are written by Nigerians, underscoring the exclusion of Nigerian scholars in the project.
The exhibition underscores the urgent need for Nigeria (and other African countries) to safeguard national patrimony and appropriate the right to interpret it. The European interest in African studies must be recognized for what it is, to take control of African past and validate the different ways of knowing it and to use Africa as a laboratory to breed European specialists in order to direct the direction of African studies and how to deploy knowledge on Africa in furtherance of European interests. Since 2005 when the Nok project started, the Germans have trained up to eight postgraduate students of European extraction at the Masters level using the Nok valley as a laboratory. At least two of these have started the PhD programme on different aspects of the Nok. Interestingly, no Nigerian is yet to be trained from this project at the postgraduate level. The Commission which is the ‘supervisory authority’ of the Nok project has been unable to coordinate properly for the training. In a recent reaction to the position of the AAN against the Frankfurt exhibition, the Director General of the NCMM, claims the Commission ‘has in mind’ the training of three Nigerian postgraduate students on the project at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. That this is coming close to ten years of the project after the Germans have produced eight Masters from the project is lost on the DG. Nigeria seems to be unprepared in effectively collaborating in this project. With the incompetence in the NCMM, it is not clear how Nigeria will benefit from the clause in the extant MoU that requires the Germans to support the training of at least three Nigerians at the PhD level at the Goethe University, Frankfurt.
The status of the Nok materials exhibited in Frankfurt is also not clear. Also obscured is how the materials even got to Germany. According to a press release by the organizers of the exhibition (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung), the exhibition comprises both original terracotta pieces and copies. In their words ‘Original terracotta will be presented next to faked pieces and copies’ The organizers claim that ‘countless forgeries and copies have found their way into the art market and into museum collections’. The organizers are silent how the ‘original terracotta’ and ‘copies’ on exhibition here were collected. Did all these come from the efforts of Professor Breunig and his team? What exactly did the organizers receive on loan from the NCMM to supplement the exhibition? Answers to these questions are important not only because they will help Nigeria hold Germany accountable when returning these materials, but also clear the German team of charges of involvement in illicit trade in antiquities in the Nok valley.
In the past, both the Germans and the NCMM have denied the wholesale export of the Nok materials claiming only small samples and broken terracotta were taken out for analysis and restoration. The sheer number of Nok materials on display at Frankfurt and the fact that even fakes and copies were on display means that both the Germans and the NCMM were economical with the truth about what the Germans were exporting from the Nok valley. Considering the huge competence gaps in the Commission and the demonstrable lack of patriotism by the leadership of the NCMM, it is any body’s guess whether we have good records of what was taken out of the Nok valley. It is also not clear if we will be able to hold the Germans to account when these materials are returned to the country. In at least one case highlighted by the Archaeological Association of Nigeria, the Germans were permitted to export a sealed deposit of Nok materials in POP from the site of Garaje. This was opened in Mainz where the so called restoration of the Nok terracotta pieces took place in the absence of Nigerian scholars even though the export permit gave this as a condition. No one knows what the Germans recovered from this cast except what they have told us.
The NCMM which has statutory stewardship responsibility over the country’s heritage resources is sadly nonchalant about securing these resources for the benefit of Nigerians. In 2007, the Commission approved the export of rare funerary materials from the site of Durbi Takusheyi in Katsina to Mainz in Germany, ostentatiously for restoration. After the restoration, the Germans retained the objects and put them on display in 2011 with the promise that the materials will return to Nigeria in 2012. These materials are still on display in Germany and no one knows when they will return to Nigeria.
German scholarship is extremely dubious with the national patrimonies of other nation states. The German, Leo Frobenius is still fingered in the disappearance and replacement of the Olokun head in Ife with a copy. The export of the bust of Nerfertiti from Egypt in 1913 by Ludwig Borcherdt also underscores German underhand dealings. The bust has remained in Germany all these years with the German Government contesting its ownership with Egypt. Yet in another development, German scholars exported the Bogazkov sphinx and other archaeological materials from Turkey for restoration after which they refused to return the items to Turkey. It was only in 2011 that international pressure compelled Germany to agree to return these treasures to Turkey. Nigeria and other African countries dealing with countries like Germany and rogue ‘universal’ museums must be very careful. At the moment, Germany is holding 1,038 Benin stolen artifacts between five of their museums in Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dresden and Leipzig. The Leo Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt alone has 5,670 Nigerian antiquities in its collections many of which were collected and exported under dubious circumstances. If the NCMM were genuinely concerned with safeguarding Nigeria heritage, they would have been exploring how to engage Germany in order to ensure the repatriation of some of these treasures. What we see instead is the continued legitimization of exhibitions of Nigerian treasures outside the country by rogue museums and other institutions who are totally unwilling to sit down to discuss the repatriation of Nigerian antiquities illegally held in their storerooms.
In the case of the Frankfurt exhibition (and others), the Commission has continued to argue that exhibiting Nigerian treasures outside the country brings ‘good will to Nigeria’ and is a window of opportunity to ‘sell the country outside oil’. This is warped thinking striving only because of the incompetence in the Commission. Exhibitions of Nigerian treasures originating in the west cannot bring good will to the country precisely because, they are predicated on exhibition concepts that are skewed against Nigeria. For rogue universal museums, such exhibitions do not only flaunt stolen Nigerian heritage treasures, they portray Nigeria as foolish when they invite us to legitimize such exhibitions through attendance and contributions to exhibition catalogs. We accept the portrayer when we actually attend such exhibitions and contribute to their catalogs. Nigeria is certainly in need of good will and must aspire to sell itself outside oil. Yet, doing this requires the cultural sub sector to come to the knowledge that foreign exhibitions of our treasures are not the way to go. Not when they do not originate from us and we are not writing the exhibition concept. The way to go is to first elevate our patrimony to premium status in the country before others can buy us outside oil.
Nigeria must use the unfortunate Frankfurt exhibition to review modalities for international collaboration in the study of the country’s patrimony. As custodians of our heritage, the NCMM must support Nigerian scholars to take control of the study of our past and appropriate the right to interpret it. The Frankfurt exhibition must be the last of its kind. Nigerian heritage treasures must debut in Nigeria before going out. The NCMM and Nigerian Government should also stop legitimizing the exhibition of illicit Nigerian treasures held by rogue museums in Europe and America. Time has come to put in all we can to engage countries and institutions laying claims to our antiquities.
6th November, 2013.