Sukur

Sukur
Photo by sukur.info.

The Sukur Cultural Landscape comprises a hilltop settlement that has survived unchanged for centuries.

The landscape includes the dry stone palace of the Hidi, the head of the community. On the lower ground lie villages with mud-walled houses, wells and terraced agricultural fields that also have ritual use. Remains of iron smelting furnaces have been preserved too.

Community Perspective: The site lies in the far northeast of Nigeria, in an area coloured red in most travel advisories due to Boko Haram terrorist activity, and is rarely visited by non-locals.

1 Locations 1 Reviews 0 Ratings 17 Connections 0 Visitors Plaques

Map of Sukur

Community Reviews

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Hon Williams Joshua ADHA YOLA

nigeria - 01-May-05 -

I visited this site during the 2004 world cultural day.It was so an interesting trip expecially when i was opportuned to see the palace which is not imaginable to the modern world.In view of my trip to sukur,my prayer is that UNESCO should intervain with great dextirity to see that cultural heritage at that site is maintained.

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Site Info

Full Name
Sukur Cultural Landscape
Unesco ID
938
Country
Nigeria
Inscribed
1999
Type
Cultural
Criteria
3 5 6
Categories
Cultural Landscape - Associative
Link
By ID

Site History

1999 Inscribed

Site Links

Unesco Website
Sukur Cultural Landscape
Official Website

Sukur, a culture of the Mandara mountains

Related

Mandara Mountains Homepage

In the News

Screening of The 13 Months of Sukur: Africa's First World Heritage Cultural Landscape (2011.03.17)

World treasure Sukur groans under neglect (2009.12.13)

Visitors to Sukur are warned not to approach a certain ancient baobab tree because, villagers say, it turns people into hermaphrodites. (2007.10.22)

Locations

The site has 1 locations

Sukur

Connections

The site has

Art and Architecture
Dry Stone Construction: The villages in the Sukur cultural landscape ...have their own characteristic domestic architecture. Among its features are drystone walls, used as social markers and defensive enclosures, sunken animal (principally bull) pens, granaries, and threshing floors (AB ev)
Constructions
Prison: "The traditional prison and the former execution site, neither of which is still in use, are partly ruined and in need of conservation and possible reconstruction." (Nomination file and AB)
Stepwells: "unique stone-built conical walk-in wells"
Damaged
Terrorist Attacks: December 2014 by Boko Haram: "They killed men, kidnapped women and children, burnt houses and stole all the goods and livestock they could carry."
History
Places of Execution: "The traditional prison and the former execution site, neither of which is still in use, are partly ruined and in need of conservation and possible reconstruction." (Nomination file and AB)
Human Activity
Iron production: Major iron-producing region for north-eastern Nigeria (17th to early 20th century)
Man-made Terraces: Terraced fields
Timeline
Built in the 17th century: "A later Iron age phase going back at least to the 17th Century is represented by the establishment of the current Dur Chiefly Dynasty and the development of Sukur as a major iron producing centre" (Nom file)
Visiting conditions
One thousand visitors or fewer: DD: the mgt plan suggests it is visitable, even has a souvenir shop and trained volunteer guides. Although “Most of the directional signs leading visitors to the site have been tampered with overtime.” Boko Haram Insurgency 2014-2016. https://whc.unesco.org/document/167904
Do Not Travel: Northern Nigeria
Most Remote Cultural WHS: Abuja airport is 14 hours away
WHS on Other Lists
World Monuments Watch (past): Sukur Cultural Landscape (2018)
World Heritage Process
Slow Starters: 1974-1999 : 25 years
Extensions on Tentative List: Le paysage culturel de Diy Gid Biy des Monts Mandara (extension du Paysage culturel de Sukur) - Cameroon
First inscriptions: Nigeria 1999
Potential Transboundary sites: Cameroon: "Le paysage culturel de Diy Gid Biy des Monts Mandara"

Visitors

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The Plaque

No plaque has been identified yet for this site.