TWO OF NIGERIA’S LOOTED BENIN BRONZES RETURNED MORE THAN 100 YEARS LATER

Sun 20 February 2022:

More than a century after they were pillaged by British troops, two Benin bronzes have been returned to a traditional palace in Nigeria, raising hopes that thousands more artefacts will be returned to their ancestral home.

The artefacts were stolen from the Benin Kingdom, now southwestern Nigeria, by explorers and colonisers and are among Africa’s most important heritage objects.

According to the British Museum, they were created as early as the 16th century.

At a colourful ceremony in Benin City on Saturday to mark the return of a cockerel sculpture and head of an Oba (king), palace spokesman Charles Edosonmwan said some of the bronzes had been taken as far away as New Zealand, the United States and Japan.

The two artefacts were handed over to the Nigerian High Commission in October by the University of Aberdeen and Cambridge University’s Jesus College but have yet to return to their ancestral home.

“They are not just art but they are things that underline the significance of our spirituality,” Edosonmwan said in an interview on the sidelines of a ceremony attended by traditional leaders.

The return is a defining moment in Africa’s years-long fight to reclaim looted art, as numerous European institutions grapple with colonialism’s cultural legacies.

According to French art historians, 90 percent of Africa’s cultural heritage is believed to be in Europe.

The Musee du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris alone houses 70,000 African artifacts, with the British Museum in London housing tens of thousands more.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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