Two ‘Benin Bronzes’ due to return to Nigeria were made in 1980s and have no links to colonialism

Two ‘Benin Bronze’ sculptures gifted to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1982 that are set to be repatriated to Nigeria were made in the 1980s, officials have said. 

Sculptures and plaques made for royalty in the former Kingdom of Benin and seized by British forces in 1897 have been the subject of growing calls for repatriation to Nigeria after Black Lives Matter protests.

The Benin Bronzes, among the most famous treasures taken, are currently on display at the British Museum, but a number of galleries have recently agreed to send similar items back, with the University of Aberdeen saying last month it would return a sculpture to Nigeria within weeks. 

Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, then pledged to return two statues to given to former Archbishop Robert Runcie and the Church of England by the University of Nigeria in a visit nearly 40 years ago. 

However, the two sculptures that are set to be returned as a ‘gesture of goodwill’ were in fact made in the 1980s, 100 years after most Benin Bronzes were seized, and have no links to Britain’s colonial past.

Experts are now questioning why the sculptures are being returned at all, with critics accusing the Church of England of ‘penitent decolonialisation’ despite the items being unrelated to imperialism. 

A spokesman for the palace told the Telegraph: ‘The sculptures that we received as gifts in the 1980s are likely to be contemporary from that time.’ 

Two ‘Benin Bronze’ sculptures gifted to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1982 that are set to be repatriated to Nigeria were made in the 1980s, officials have said 

Prof Nigel Biggar, professor of theology at the University of Oxford, said: ‘Quite what would be intended by such a returning of gifts is not clear.

‘Given the present context, it would appear to be an act of penitent ‘decolonisation’.

‘The items were not seized during the colonial period, indeed, they were not seized at all.

‘They were made in the 1980s and have nothing to do with the controversial ‘Benin Bronzes’.’

How British forces looted treasures known as the Benin Bronzes 

In 1897, a British naval expedition was raised to avenge the deaths of nine officers killed during a trade dispute between the king of Benin and Britain. 

Britain sent a force of 500 men to destroy what was then the Kingdom of Benin, which is in modern-day Nigeria.

After ten days of fierce fighting, the British burnt down the palace and looted the royal treasures: delicate ivory carvings and magnificent copper alloy sculptures and plaques – now known as the Benin Bronzes.

After the sacking of Benin, the bronzes were taken by the British to pay for the expedition.

One of them, a bronze cockerel, ended up being a permanent fixture in the dining hall at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Many people have campaigned for the cockerel to be returned over the years and in November last year, Cambridge University agreed to return it to Nigeria.

A number of other museums and universities have since also agreed to send items back in recent weeks. 

One campaigner was BBC historian David Olusoga who said The British Museum, which holds hundreds of the sculptures, should have a ‘Supermarket Sweep’ where countries have two minutes to take back their artefacts.

Lambeth Palace said that after being contacted by campaigners calling for the Benin Bronzes to be repatriated, it was decided to hand over the statues as a ‘gesture of goodwill’.

It said in a statement: ‘We have recently been contacted by the Digital Benin project at the MARKK (Hamburg) who enquired about our collection of gifts at Lambeth Palace and if we had received any Benin kingdom objects as gifts over the years. 

‘In response, we have confirmed to the Digital Benin project that we have two bronze busts, given to us by the Benin kingdom in 1982. These were gifted to Archbishop Robert Runcie by His Excellency Chief (Prof.) Ambrose F. Alli and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

‘We have offered for the two busts to be included in the Digital Benin project and eventually, returned to our friends in Edo, Nigeria where they may remain. We are currently in discussions with the EMOWAA, via the Legacy Restoration Trust, to arrange this.’

The Benin Bronzes were taken by a British naval expedition in 1897, which was raised to avenge the deaths of nine officers killed during a trade dispute between the king of Benin and Britain. 

Britain sent a force of 500 men to destroy what was then the Kingdom of Benin, which is in modern-day Nigeria.

After ten days of fierce fighting, the British burnt down the palace and looted the royal treasures: delicate ivory carvings and magnificent copper alloy sculptures and plaques – now known as the Benin Bronzes.

After the sacking of Benin, the bronzes were taken by the British to pay for the expedition.

One of them, a bronze cockerel, ended up being a permanent fixture in the dining hall at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Many people have campaigned for the cockerel to be returned over the years and in November last year, Cambridge University agreed to return it to Nigeria.

One campaigner was BBC historian David Olusoga who said The British Museum, which holds hundreds of the sculptures, should have a ‘Supermarket Sweep’ where countries have two minutes to take back their artefacts.

Last month, the University of Aberdeen said a sculpture of an Oba, or ruler, of the Kingdom of Benin, had left Nigeria in an ‘extremely immoral’ fashion, leading it to reach out to authorities in 2019 to negotiate its return. 

Neil Curtis, Aberdeen’s head of museums and special collections, said the Bronze, purchased in 1957, had been ‘blatantly looted.’

‘It became clear we had to do something,’ Mr Curtis said.

Professor Abba Isa Tijani, director general of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, said the importance of displaying the Bronze inside Nigeria for the first time in more than 120 years was inexpressible.

‘It’s part of our identity, part of our heritage… which has been taken away from us for many years,’ Prof Tijani said.

Plaques that form part of the Benin Bronzes are displayed at The British Museum in 2018

Plaques that form part of the Benin Bronzes are displayed at The British Museum in 2018

Lambeth Palace pledged to return two statues to given to former Archbishop Robert Runcie (pictured) and the Church of England by the University of Nigeria in a visit nearly 40 years ago

Lambeth Palace pledged to return two statues to given to former Archbishop Robert Runcie (pictured) and the Church of England by the University of Nigeria in a visit nearly 40 years ago

The British Museum has, alongside several other museums, formed a Benin Dialogue Group to discuss displaying them in Benin City, some officially on loan. It has said discussions are ongoing.

Germany is in talks to send back 440 Benin Bronzes as early as the autumn, according to newspaper reports, while the University of Cambridge’s Jesus College said it had finalised approvals in December to return another Bronze. Prof Tijani said U.S. museums had also agreed to return two more Bronzes.

The governor of Edo state, of which Benin City is the capital, plans to build a centre to store and study the returned artefacts by the end of 2021, and a permanent museum by 2025.

Artist and Edo state native Victor Ehikhamenor said he hoped the decision would prompt others to follow suit.

‘Because some of these things are missing from our environment, people are not able to contextualize where we are coming from,’ Mr Ehikhamenor said.

The British Museum’s most controversial artefacts  

The Parthenon Marbles: The Parthenon Marbles – popularly named the Elgin Marbles after the7th  Earl of Elgin, the man who took them from Greece – are a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures, inscriptions and architectural members that were mostly created by Phidias and his assistants.

The Earl of Elgin, Thomas Bruce, removed the Parthenon Marble pieces from the Acropolis in Athens while serving as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803.

In 1801, the Earl claimed to have obtained a permit from the Ottoman authorities to remove pieces from the Parthenon.  

As the Acropolis was still an Ottoman military fort, Elgin required permission to enter the site.

His agents subsequently removed half of the surviving sculptures, as well as architectural members and sculpture from the Propylaea and Erechtheum.

The Parthenon Marbles – popularly named the Elgin Marbles after the7th Earl of Elgin, the man who took them from Greece – are a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures, inscriptions and architectural members that were mostly created by Phidias and his assistants

The excavation and removal was completed in 1812 at a personal cost of around £70,000.

The sculptures were shipped to Britain, but in Greece, the Scots aristocrat was accused of looting and vandalism.

They were bought by the British Government in 1816 and placed in the British Museum. They still stand on view in the purpose-built Duveen Gallery.

Greece has sought their return from the British Museum through the years, to no avail.

The authenticity of Elgin’s permit to remove the sculptures from the Parthenon has been widely disputed, especially as the original document has been lost. Many claim it was not legal.

However, others argue that since the Ottomans had controlled Athens since 1460, their claims to the artefacts were legal and recognisable.

The Benin Bronzes: In 1897, a British naval expedition was raised to avenge the deaths of nine officers killed during a trade dispute between the king of Benin and Britain. Britain sent a force of 500 men to destroy what was then the Kingdom of Benin, which is in modern-day Nigeria. 

After ten days of fierce fighting, the British burnt down the palace and looted the royal treasures: delicate ivory carvings and magnificent copper alloy sculptures and plaques – now known as the Benin Bronzes.

After the sacking of Benin, the bronzes were taken by the British to pay for the expedition. 

n 1897, a British naval expedition was raised to avenge the deaths of nine officers killed during a trade dispute between the king of Benin and Britain. Britain sent a force of 500 men to destroy what was then the Kingdom of Benin, which is in modern-day Nigeria. After the sacking of Benin, the bronzes were taken by the British to pay for the expedition

n 1897, a British naval expedition was raised to avenge the deaths of nine officers killed during a trade dispute between the king of Benin and Britain. Britain sent a force of 500 men to destroy what was then the Kingdom of Benin, which is in modern-day Nigeria. After the sacking of Benin, the bronzes were taken by the British to pay for the expedition

One of them, a bronze cockerel, ended up being a permanent fixture in the dining hall at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Many people have campaigned for the cockerel to be returned over the years and in November last year, Cambridge University agreed to return it to Nigeria.

One campaigner was BBC historian David Olusoga who said The British Museum should have a ‘Supermarket Sweep’ where countries have two minutes to take back their artefacts.

Rosetta Stone: One of the most famous objects in the British Museum, the Rosetta Stone is a broken part of a bigger stone slab. 

Dating from 196 BC, there is a decree written on it which was issued in Memphis, Egypt, by the King Ptolemy V Epiphanes during the Ptolemaic dynasty. The decree is written three times, in hieroglyphics, Demotic and Ancient Greek. 

It is thought to have been found by accident in Egypt in 1799 by Napoleon’s army while digging the foundations of an addition to a fort near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. 

When Napoleon was defeated, the Treaty of Alexandria in 1801 meant the stone became British property, along with other things the French had found. It was shipped to England, arriving in Portsmouth in February 1802. 

One of the most famous objects in the British Museum, the Rosetta Stone is a broken part of a bigger stone slab from Ancient Egypt

One of the most famous objects in the British Museum, the Rosetta Stone is a broken part of a bigger stone slab from Ancient Egypt

Hoa Hakananai’a: The four-ton, 7ft 10in Easter Island statue is regarded as one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island’s 900 famous stone monoliths, or moai.

Each of the figures is said to embody tribal leaders or deified ancestors.

It was taken from the island, which lies in the Pacific more than 2,100 miles off the coast of Chile, in 1868 by Commodore Richard Powell, captain of HMS Topaze, who gave it to Queen Victoria.

She donated it in 1869 to the British Museum, where it now stands at the entrance to Wellcome Trust Gallery.

But Easter Island’s indigenous community, the Rapa Nui, want Britain to give back the spiritually ‘unique’ effigy.

Governor Tarita Alarcon Rapu found the sight of the artefact so emotional that she burst into tears as she begged the museum to return it. 

The four-ton, 7ft 10in Easter Island statue is regarded as one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island's 900 famous stone monoliths, or moai

The four-ton, 7ft 10in Easter Island statue is regarded as one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island’s 900 famous stone monoliths, or moai