FRANCE IS RETURNING LOOTED TREASURES BACK TO BENIN

Thu 28 October 2021:

Emmanuel Macron, the French President, was a special guest at a ceremony commemorating the return of looted treasures to Benin.

The “Abomey Treasures” are a collection of 26 artefacts taken from the African country by the French soldiers 129 years ago.

The relics, which include wooden anthropomorphic statues, royal thrones, and holy altars, are on display at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac for one last time in France before being returned in November.

Macron remarked that the return of the items to their country of origin represented a moment of unity between the two nations.

France has 90,000 African artifacts, which were mostly looted from African countries. 70,000 of them are inside the Quai Branly Museum. pic.twitter.com/CnHTCKf132

— Africa Facts Zone (@AfricaFactsZone) April 15, 2021

“With this repatriation, we are opening new horizons rather than entrenching old divisions. Horizons of cooperation of change of sharing and it’s in this spirit that we along with our partners in Benin have pledged this extremely emblematic return. “

The treasures’ new home will be a museum in the city of Abomey which has been partly funded by the French government

It’s estimated that more than 90,000 artifacts from sub-Saharan Africa are held in French museums.

The story of the “Abomey Treasures” is as dramatic as their sculpted forms. In November 1892, Colonel Alfred Dodds led a pilfering French expeditionary force into the Kingdom of Danhomè located in the south of present-day Benin.

90 to 95% of Africa’s cultural heritage is held outside Africa by major museums. France alone has at least 90,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa in its national collections, of which 70,000 are inside the Quai Branly Museum. pic.twitter.com/xCf8wUVjBK

— Africa Archives ™ (@Africa_Archives) April 11, 2021

The colonizing troops broke into the Abomey Palace, home of King Behanzin, seizing as they did many royal objects including the 26 artifacts that Dodds donated to the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris in the 1890s. Since 2003, the objects have been housed at the Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac.

One hundred and twenty nine years later, their far-flung journey abroad will finally end.

Benin’s Culture Minister Jean-Michel Abimbola called the return of the works, a “historic milestone,” and the beginning of further cooperation between the two countries, during a news conference last week.

The country is founding a museum in Abomey to house the treasures that will be partly funded by the French government. The French Development Agency will give some 35 million euros toward the “Museum of the Saga of the Amazonians and the Danhome Kings” under a pledge signed this year.

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