Three Swiss museums have returned 18 royal and spiritual artifacts from the Kingdom of Benin to Nigeria, marking one other important repatriation of the so-called Benin Bronzes.
A handover ceremony came about at this time on the College of Zurich between Swiss Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider and Nigeria’s Minister of Tradition, Hannatu Musa Musawa. The college returned 14 objects from its Ethnographic Museum, whereas two further Benin Bronzes got here from Museum Rietberg Zurich and one other two from the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève.
The Benin Bronzes discuss with the roughly 5,000 bronze sculptures, ceremonial objects, and ivory carvings looted by British forces from the Kingdom of Benin, in what’s now Nigeria, in the course of the 1897 punitive expedition. Scattered throughout museums and personal collections worldwide by way of illicit channels, the bronzes have change into emblematic of efforts by previously colonized nations to reclaim cultural heritage, in addition to the broader—and infrequently contentious—debate over the ethics of ethnographic collections.
Among the many artifacts returned by Switzerland is a Benin Eroro, a four-sided ceremonial bell that performed a central position in royal rites, political features, and battle. The bell’s pyramidal face is adorned with depictions of deceased kings and queens, and its toll was believed to invoke ancestral spirits. The bell was joined by a container for herbs and medicines depicting the top of Ofoe, a divine emissary of the deity Ogie’uwu. With out a torso, the container balances on three legs.
Based on the College of Zurich, a few of the returned artifacts might be exhibited on the Nationwide Museum in Lagos, whereas most might be transferred to Edo State and quickly housed on the Nationwide Museum in Benin Metropolis, underneath the care of the Nationwide Fee for Museums and Monuments (NCMM).
The Swiss handover is the most recent in a gradual stream of restitutions by European museums to Nigeria. Final yr, the NCMM acquired 113 Benin Bronzes from the Netherlands—the biggest single return of Benin antiquities instantly linked to the 1897 British looting, in accordance with the fee.
