The Netherlands return to Nigeria 119 bronzes of the Benin subtracted during the colonial period

After years of international pressures and negotiations, The Netherlands have finally returned to Nigeria 119 Benin Bronzesworks of art stolen during the colonial period. This return represents one of the most significant actions of cultural return never occurred between Europe and Africa, not only for the number of objects involved but also for their profound symbolic value.

THE Benin bronzes They are a collection of Bronze, brass and ivory artifacts – including statues, plates, human and animal figures, bells and real signs – made between the Fourteenth and nineteenth centuries in the kingdom of Benin, an ancient state that was in the present Southern Nigeria. These works were Sacked in 1897 From a British military expedition, which devastated the capital of the kingdom and deported thousands of treasures to museums and private collections in Europe.

The Dutch government made official the return last June 21 during a ceremony a Lagosin the presence of Nigerian representatives and the traditional monarch, Oba Ewuare IIwhich defined the gesture a real “divine intervention“.

The delivery took place thanks to the collaboration between the Ministry of Education of the Netherlands and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, which for years has been working for the repatriation of the cultural heritage dispersed during colonialism.

The Netherlands are determined to return all subtracted objects

This return is part of a wider movement of museum decolonization Which in recent years has brought several European countries – including Germany, the United Kingdom and France – to recognize the historical responsibilities related to the looting of cultural heritage during the imperial era. According to the director of the Wereld Museum, Marieke Van Bommel, the Netherlands are determined to return all objects that do not belong to them legitimately.

The director of the Nigerian Commission, Olugible Holloway, said that it is larger single return ever recordedand that the work to recover other objects continues, with the aim of reconstruct the country’s cultural memory.

The return of the Benin Bronzes is not only an act of historical justice, but also a fundamental step for strengthen cultural identity of African communities and restore the link between past and present, after more than a century of silence imposed by colonization.