Benin Bronzes
- The piece is held at the British Museum. It is with others like it, controversially unreturned to its place of origin.
- The Europeans originally thought the people of Benin got the plaques from trade with the Greeks because of the sophisticated lost wax casting technique used with bronze.
At that point, the Benin bronzes had been displaced like many of the people of Africa. To be fair, the British Museum has done an excellent job of maintaining the Bronzes. The Museum seeks to continue to return the Bronzes to museums in Nigeria and along the gold coast so long as the Bronzes can be returned. The Bronzes are sacred, but it is likely that if they remained untouched, they would not be in a museum. These plaques would still be on the walls of palaces illustrating the great lineage and beliefs of the Benin people. Many of west and south African origin and descent protest the illegitimate British hold of sacred property.In the autumn of 1897, the British Museum displayed 304 Benin plaques on loan from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and subsequently petitioned successfully to receive 203 of these as a donation. The majority of the remaining plaques were sold to UK and German museums and to private dealers, while a few were retained by the Foreign Office. Other early collections were purchased or donated by members of the Benin expedition.
¹ “Benin Bronzes.” The British Museum, 2021, www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/objects-news/benin-bronzes.