Colonial contexts

Ownership of all Berlin “Benin bronzes” transferred to Nigeria

Her­mann Parzinger, Pres­i­dent of the Prus­sian Cul­tur­al Her­itage Foun­da­tion (SPK), and Ab­ba Isa Ti­jani, Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Mu­se­ums and Mon­u­ments (NCMM), last week signed a con­tract on the trans­fer of own­er­ship of the Benin ob­jects from the col­lec­tion of the Eth­no­log­i­cal Mu­se­um of the Na­tion­al Mu­se­ums in Berlin – Prus­sian Cul­tur­al Her­itage to Nige­ria.

The con­tract con­cerns 512 works that ar­rived in Berlin as a re­sult of the so-called British puni­tive ex­pe­di­tion of 1897. It is the largest trans­fer of own­er­ship of col­lec­tion ob­jects from a colo­nial con­text to date. The first ob­jects will be repa­tri­at­ed to Nige­ria this year. Around one third of the ob­jects trans­ferred will re­main on loan in Berlin for an ini­tial pe­ri­od of ten years and be ex­hib­it­ed at the Hum­boldt Fo­rum.

Min­is­ter of State for Cul­ture Clau­dia Roth: “This resti­tu­tion serves as a mod­el for all mu­se­ums in Ger­many that own col­lec­tions from a colo­nial con­text. I am very pleased to see that more resti­tu­tion agree­ments are to fol­low in the next few months. All these ef­forts form the ba­sis for clos­er, on­go­ing cul­tur­al co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Nige­ria and Ger­many.”

Benin bronzes en­tered col­lec­tions world­wide af­ter the con­quest of the King­dom of Benin by British troops in 1897. The last in­de­pen­dent king, Oba Ovon­ramwen, was ex­iled to the city of Cal­abar and the roy­al palace was sacked. Thou­sands of ob­jects were shipped to Lon­don as war booty and sold there. Oth­er loot­ed ob­jects re­mained in colo­nial Nige­ria for some time, sub­se­quent­ly al­so end­ing up in Eu­ro­pean and North Amer­i­can mu­se­ums. The Berlin Mu­se­um al­so prof­it­ed from the colo­nial sys­tem and its “ac­qui­si­tions” that were gained as a re­sult of the use of vi­o­lence. Since 2010, the mu­se­um has been a mem­ber of the Benin Di­a­logue Group, in which Eu­ro­pean mu­se­ums dis­cuss the fu­ture of Benin ob­jects in their col­lec­tions to­geth­er with Nige­ri­an part­ners.

Ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Ger­many and Nige­ria be­gan at gov­ern­ment lev­el in 2021 and were suc­cess­ful­ly con­clud­ed in Ju­ly of this year with the sign­ing of a Joint Dec­la­ra­tion that pro­vides the frame­work for resti­tu­tion from all Ger­man mu­se­ums.
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