Germany signs deal to return Nigeria’s Benin Bronzes
Germany has signed an agreement to transfer ownership to Nigeria of the Benin Bronzes, among Africa’s most culturally significant artefacts, looted in the 19th century.
The signing was done on Thursday between the Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage (SPK) and Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) to transfer their ownership from the Ethnological Museum collection in Berlin to Nigeria.
British soldiers took hundreds of bronzes – intricate sculptures and plaques dating back to the 13th century onwards – when they invaded the Kingdom of Benin, located in what is now southwestern Nigeria, in 1897.
The artefacts ended up in museums around Europe and the United States and for years, African countries fought to recover them.
Germany returned the first of the sculptures to Nigeria in July.
Thursday’s agreement, which the SPK described as the most extensive transfer of museum artefacts from a colonial context to date, covers 512 objects which ended up in Berlin in the aftermath of the 1897 looting.
