Lost Civilizations: Prof. Acholonu and African Prehistory (Pt 3)
Image by Wikimedia Commons
In this third installment of our exclusive interview, Professor Catherine Acholonu delves into the lost civilization of Africa, the ancient origins of the Ikom Monoliths, the mysterious dwarf custodians of tradition, and the geometric code behind Nsibidi writing. Explore a forgotten era where science, spirituality, and sacred knowledge were one.
Part 3: The Dwarfs, the Monoliths, and the Hidden Science of Nsibidi
FeelNubia: In the oral traditions surrounding Ikom, there’s mention of dwarfs as the original inhabitants. Can you tell us more?
Professor Catherine Acholonu: Yes, the Ikom people migrated from Cameroon, but when they arrived, the stone Monoliths were already there. The people they met, those who had carved the Monoliths, were dwarfs. These weren’t mythical beings; they were real people. Most stories you hear from the Niger Delta acknowledge that the first settlers in southern Nigeria were dwarfs.
If you study old traditions gathered by researchers like Alabowa and others who documented folklore from various regions, you’ll find consistent references to these early inhabitants. When taller migrant groups began arriving, the dwarfs were gradually displaced. Yet, they remained present until relatively recent times, up to the 1960s, even during colonial rule.
As a child, I saw some of them. During a research project tracing the lineage of an 18th-century Nigerian slave, I uncovered fascinating insights. These dwarfs weren’t just cultural figures—they were the living embodiment of tradition. They carried out rituals, lifted taboos, and served as mediators between the spiritual and physical realms. People respected them deeply because they were considered vessels of sacred power. When they spoke, things happened. Their blessings restored lands; their curses brought ruin. They were the spiritual pulse of the communities they served.
FeelNubia: One of your groundbreaking discoveries was the symbol that brought you back to Ikom. Was this connected to the Nsibidi writing system?
Professor Acholonu: Absolutely. The local people told me the carvings were made by the “Stone Age” people, what they called the first age-grade. These early people worked with stone and were responsible for the inscriptions. They were dwarfs, and it’s from their writing that Nsibidi evolved.
In fact, the term “Nsibidi” in Igbo can be broken down into nsi meaning dwarf, and bidi meaning written. So, it literally translates to “written by the dwarfs.” Interestingly, the Ejagham people who use the Nsibidi symbols today adopted them but don’t know their full meaning because the language of origin was Igbo.
These carvings were not randomly etched; they showed signs of advanced craftsmanship, perfect circles, squares, and triangles. You can’t create such geometric precision on stone without mechanical tools, which suggests a high level of technological advancement. Their symbols weren’t just art, they encoded geometry, astronomy, and spirituality.
FeelNubia: How did you start decoding these ancient symbols?
Professor Acholonu: It began with recognizing shapes, squares, circles, triangles. Only someone familiar with geometry would carve such forms. That alone pointed to a mathematically literate culture. From there, we began looking at what the symbols might mean beyond shapes.
Most of the Monoliths had faces, human faces, with open mouths. That detail intrigued me. Why were their mouths open? It wasn’t arbitrary. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, a slightly open mouth symbolizes “I am” (ego). When paired with another symbol, an n sound, it becomes ren, meaning “my name is.” So we found a pattern: each Monolith was saying something. They were declaring their identity. They had names. These were individuals, not just statues.
FeelNubia: So these weren’t generic carvings, they were representing people?
Professor Acholonu: Exactly. These were beings who lived long ago, spiritual leaders, teachers, sages. They were god-men, people who, in that ancient time, walked with the Divine. When the scriptures say, “Let us make man in our image,” I believe it refers to such beings, made in God’s likeness, connected directly to the spiritual source. And yes, many of them were dwarfs.
FeelNubia: You mentioned using modern technology in your research. How did that help?
Professor Acholonu: We incorporated information technology to cross-reference multiple ancient scripts, Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, and others. I worked with a brilliant software engineer who created a linguistic database to input autographs from various ancient languages. By matching symbols, we started identifying recurring patterns and meanings.
One of our most helpful breakthroughs came from examining an artifact uncovered by British archaeologists. It showed remarkable symbolic parallels that tied back to the Monoliths and confirmed that these ancient people were not only literate but were scientists, mathematicians, and spiritualists in one.
Next up in Part 4: Professor Acholonu discusses the celestial city of the gods, the Osun Grove revelations, and the prophetic dreams that guided her research toward decoding the deeper cosmology hidden within African stone inscriptions.
