12 Facts About Benin Bronzes

Benin Bronzes are a group of several thousand metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin in what is Edo State, Nigeria.

Benin Bronzes led to a greater appreciation in Europe of African culture and art.

The Kingdom of Benin was a hub of African civilization long before Portuguese traders visited, and it is clear that the bronzes were made in Benin by an indigenous culture, centuries before European contact.

Kingdom of Benin Bronzes, which occupied southern parts of present-day Nigeria between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, was rich in sculptures of diverse materials, such as iron, bronze, wood, ivory, and terra cotta.

Art in the Kingdom of Benin Bronzes took many forms, of which bronze and brass reliefs and the heads of kings and queen mothers are the best known.

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In 1939, heads very similar to those of the Kingdom of Benin Bronzes were discovered in Ife, the holy city of the Yoruba, which dated to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Benin Bronzes that were part of the booty of the punitive expedition of 1897 had different destinations: one portion ended up in the private collections of various British officials; the Foreign and Commonwealth Office sold a large number, which later ended up in various European museums, mainly in Germany, and in American museums.

Two largest collections of Benin Bronzes are located in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and in the British Museum in London, while the third largest collection is located in several museums in Nigeria .

In 2015, Mark Walker returned some Benin Bronzes that were taken by his grandfather during the siege on Benin Kingdom and he was received by Prince Edun Akenzua in Benin City.

The statue had previously been removed from display in 2016, after student calls for the statue to be repatriated; following investigation by the college's Legacy of Slavery Working Party, it was ascertained that the statue had been directly taken from the court of Benin Bronzes, and had been gifted to the college, by the father of a student, in 1905.

Benin Bronzes are more naturalistic than most African art of the period.

Hicks notes that many of the looted Benin Bronzes artefacts are in regional and university museums within the UK rather than the more well-known collections such as the British Museum, Royal Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum.