Benin Bronzes on Display in Berlin for Last Time Before Repatriation to Nigeria

Stolen during the colonial era, dozens of bronzes that once decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin in southern Nigeria will go on show for one last time in Berlin from Saturday before repatriation to their original home.

Thousands of Benin bronzes, as they are known, are scattered around European museums alongside metal plaques and sculptures from the area after being looted by the British at the end of the 19th century.

Among the items being exhibited at the Humboldt Museum in Berlin, beginning this weekend are a pair of thrones and a commemorative bust of the monarch. They used to decorate the walls of the royal palace in Benin City, in southern Nigeria.

Two rooms in the sprawling museum are being dedicated to the art and the history of the Kingdom of Benin, an exhibition realised “in close cooperation with partners in Nigeria”, according to the German side.

The removal of precious objects is explained in the gallery, while educational workshops are also planned around the display.

The recognition of the colonial injustices and the subsequent return of the items “will continue to define our work in the future,” Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the national museums in the German capital, said in a statement.

Berlin’s Ethnological Museum currently holds 530 items that were taken from the Kingdom of Benin, including some 440 bronzes, considered to be the largest collection behind the British Museum in London.

According to the Berlin museum’s Director Lars-Christian Koch a portion of the objects will soon be returned, another third will be kept as a loan, and the rest, not on display, will be studied by researchers.

Germany is not the only country to begin returning stolen artefacts. In November 2021, France returned 26 artefacts from the royal treasures of Abomey to the country of Benin, next to Nigeria.

The pressure is also growing on the British Museum, which has approximately 700 bronzes. It has long been argued that its vast trove of foreign artefacts, such as the Elgin Marbles taken from the Parthenon in Athens, are best housed there.

The repatriation of the objects was a long time coming in the opinion of historian Benedicte Savoy. “The requests for return go back to independence in the 1960s,” she told AFP. “They have been silenced, refused, forgotten for years.”

Nigeria is planning to build a museum in Benin City, to bring together the works on their return.

Exerots from AFP

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