London’s Horniman Museum said yesterday it would return 72 artefacts, including 12 brass plaques known as Benin Bronzes, looted from Benin City by British soldiers in 1897 to the Nigerian government.
Created from brass and bronze in the once mighty Kingdom of Benin in what is now southwestern Nigeria from at least the 16th century onwards, the Benin Bronzes are among Africa’s most culturally significant artefacts.
They were seized, along with thousands of other items, in a British military incursion, and ended up in museums in Europe and the United States.
African countries have battled for years to recover works pillaged by explorers and colonisers, while Western institutions are grappling with the cultural legacies of colonialism.
German authorities last month returned the first of more than 1,100 priceless sculptures to Nigeria, following examples set by Jesus College at Cambridge University and the Quai Branly museum in Paris last year.