by Tatsiana Zhurauliova
Interior of Oba's Compound Burnt During Seige of Benin City (present day Nigeria), with Bronze Plaques in the Foreground and Three British Soldiers of the Benin Punative Expedition 9-18 February 1897. Photographer Reginald Granville
Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford and curator of world archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum in the U.K. His book The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution focuses on the Benin Bronzes that were looted by the British during an 1897 punitive expedition to Benin City, in present-day Nigeria. As a result of the sacking of the city, thousands of objects from the Royal Palace and other ceremonial sites are now dispersed worldwide, with the location of many of these artifacts still unknown. Hicks uses the Benin Bronzes as a case study for a broader discussion of the role of museums in the ongoing history of colonial violence. Read more...