Looted Benin Bronzes returned to Nigeria

Three Swiss museums have returned 18 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, a new step in the African's country decades-long struggle to repatriate its looted cultural heritage, reports Euro News. This week, Swiss authorities returned 18 artefacts looted during the colonial era to Nigeria in a ceremony at the National Museum in Lagos. The restitution is the result of a collaborative process between Swiss museums and their Nigerian partners under the Benin Initiative Switzerland. The programme was launched in 2021 to investigate the provenance of Benin objects in Swiss collections. ‘The return of our cultural heritage marks more than the recovery of artefacts. It reflects the power of dialogue, trust and international co-operation,’ Nigeria’s Culture Minister Hannatu Musa Musawa said on X. Fourteen of the pieces came from the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich, two from the Museum Rietberg Zurich, and two from the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève. The 18 artefacts are part of the country’s famous Benin Bronzes, a group of hundreds of sculptures and plaques mostly made of metal and ivory that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, now the Southern Nigerian Edo state. They performed political and religious functions and were essential to the kingdom's power. British colonial forces stole most of these objects during a brutal punitive expedition that killed thousands of people in 1897. After the violent raid, the Kingdom of Benin was absorbed into colonial Nigeria. The stolen pieces were eventually sold to over 130 museums in 20 countries, mostly in the UK and Germany.