After 128 years in exile, the artifacts were finally home.
On display at the Benin City National Museum in Nigeria last month were about 100 Benin Bronzes — priceless items that British forces looted from a nearby royal palace in 1897. There were bronze animal statues, carved elephants tusks and imposing sculptures of the kings, called obas, who once ruled the ancient Kingdom of Benin.
But their new home in Benin City was a far cry from the state-of-the-art museum that many had hoped would house them after their return.
There were no high-tech climate or security systems. No expensive lighting showcasing the artifacts’ fine details. The accompanying labels were sheets of paper, stuck to the wall and display cases.
Courtesy New York Times
One person who will likely prove pivotal to what happens next is Olugbile Holloway, the director of the government agency that runs Nigeria’s museums.
In February 2025, Holloway signed a five-year agreement with Ewuare II, allowing his agency to manage the returned bronzes on the oba’s behalf and committing his agency to staff any royal museum.
Holloway said fund-raising would be his biggest challenge. The planned royal museum would cost at least four billion naira, about $2.7 million, he said, and he wanted to raise that locally.
“That in itself would tell a story of us doing it for ourselves, rather than playing into the cliché of Africans going cap in hand to the West,” he said, but added that Nigerian philanthropists preferred to give money to education or health projects rather than to the arts.
Until a royal museum is built, Holloway said, the bronzes would go on display at other museums in Nigeria, such as the Benin City National Museum.
This December, over 100 of the returned items will go on show in a revamped wing of the National Museum in Lagos alongside other historic Nigerian works of art. Holloway said he would send other returned bronzes across Nigeria to regional branches of the National Museum.
