Benin bronzes to the Zimbabwe birds

In 2022, Germany will be returning the world-famous Benin Bronzes to Nigeria over a hundred years after they were looted during the colonisation of Africa. They are a group of sculptures, plaques and ornaments, most of which are made of brass and bronze and date back some 500 years from the West African Kingdom of Benin (modern-day Nigeria). Many pieces were cast for the ancestral altars of past kings and queen mothers.

During the late 19th century, over a thousand of these individual artefacts were stolen from Benin by British soldiers. They were then auctioned off and scattered to private collections and museums across the globe.

Growing pressure from the international community for these culturally significant treasures to be returned to their homeland has sparked fierce debate recently about how looted artefacts should be treated. Some argue the objects serve as ‘cultural ambassadors’ when displayed internationally, others suggest they have no rightful place outside their ancestral home.

With regards to the Benin Bronzes, various museums along with representatives from Nigeria have joined the Benin Dialogue Group. The group has the objective of establishing new museums in Benin City, including the forthcoming Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA), to facilitate permanent displays of objects from the Kingdom of Benin.

The Benin Bronzes are one of many artefacts that represent the rich cultural heritage of Africa. Before the Rosetta Stone, nobody knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs. Discovered by Napoleon’s army in Egypt in 1799, the stone dates back to 196 BC. The one-metre high black basalt slab has an ancient priestly decree carved onto it in three different scripts. The multi-lingual inscriptions enabled scholars to decipher and understand Egyptian hieroglyphs for the first time. The Rosetta Stone now resides in the British Museum in London which describes its historical importance as ‘immense’.

Dating back some 3,300 years to Egypt’s New Kingdom, the tomb of King Tut was discovered in 1922 by a team of archaeologists led by Howard Carter, a British Egyptologist. Although it was the smallest royal tomb found in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, it was the most intact. Containing a treasure trove of thousands of ancient Egyptian objects, including an iron dagger made from a meteorite and an elaborate funerary mask, the tomb revealed to the modern world the sheer wealth that ancient Egyptian pharaohs took with them to the grave.

Dating back between 2.5 and 1.2 million years ago, Oldowan chopper tools were created by ancient humans known as Homo habilis for chopping, cutting and scraping. Originally discovered at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania in the 1930s, the primitive objects are considered one of the oldest stone tools in existence. Their discovery, along with many others at Olduvai Gorge, helped to establish the fact that the first humans evolved in Africa.

history.co.uk