Sukur

Sukur
Photo by sukur.info.

The Sukur Cultural Landscape with its palace, terraced fields with ritual features and villages has survived unchanged for many centuries. It is located in the Northeastern part of Nigeria.

The designated area comprises:

  • Hidi's Palace (ruined house complex of the chief)
  • Paved walkways
  • Domesticated landscape with extensive terraces (for agricultural use and spiritual significance)
  • Domestic architecture in the villages (granite and dry-stone)
  • Traditional cemeteries in the hills
  • Wells
  • Iron-smelting furnaces
  • (Ceramic) shrines
1 Locations 1 Reviews 0 Ratings 14 Connections 0 Visitors

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Community Reviews

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Hon Williams Joshua ADHA YOLA

nigeria -

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

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)
WHS on Other Lists
World Monuments Watch (past): Sukur Cultural Landscape (2018)
World Heritage Process
First inscriptions: Nigeria 1999
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
Potential Transboundary sites: Cameroon: "Le paysage culturel de Diy Gid Biy des Monts Mandara"

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