A KINGDOM CAST IN BRONZE
A as he fled Benin City in February 1897, Oba Ovonramwen looked back to see his royal palace in smouldering ruins. Hundreds of intricate plaques, showing the royal lineage stretching back to the 12th century, had been prised off the palace walls and lay in piles, together with thousands of other precious decorative artefacts that had made his capital a wonder to foreign visitors.
This hoard of treasures – today known as the Benin Bronzes, though including plaques and sculptures made from brass and ivory as well as bronze – was then packed up and taken away by British soldiers. They seized intricately carved elephant tusks, brass castings of the heads of monarchs at least 500 years old, and ivory leopards later given to Queen Victoria, all described by previous visitors as displaying truly “artistic workmanship”.
Six months later, after his kingdom had been absorbed into the British empire, Oba Ovonramwen returned to surrender. He found Benin City unrecognisable, its palaces and holy places destroyed and replaced with British administration buildings and a new golf course.
Back to Benin
The Benin Bronzes taken by the British, later held in museums in London and elsewhere in Europe, as well as America, have long been the subject of great controversy, spawning a proliferation of books, news reports and
