Object types
box

Materials
wood

Place (findspot)
Found/Acquired Benin City
(Africa,Nigeria,Edo State,Benin City)

Ethnic group
Made by Edo

Description
Wooden box.

Dimensions
Length: 25.75 inches
Width: 3 inches


Curator's comments
Regsiter 1954
Another [carved wood box], similar [to Af1954,23.306a] ringed decoration carved on the lid, zig zag motif round the side.

Acquisition date
1954

Acquisition name
Donated by Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine

Exhibition History
Exhibited:

1970-1973, London, Museum of Mankind, Divine Kingship in Africa

Object types
sculpture
panel

Materials
wood

Techniques
carved

Place (findspot)
Found/Acquired Benin City
(Africa,Nigeria,Edo State,Benin City)

Ethnic group
Made by Edo

Description
Carved wooden panel depicting human figures.

Dimensions
Length: 30 inches
Width: 18 inches


Curator's comments
Register 1954
Carved wood panel showing central figure with legs ending in fish heads supported by two standing figures, all have beaded caps and collars, on one side is a naked man holding a sword on the other, a hand holding an umbrella. The carving is in low relief, in places the background is completely cut away.
Bought at Wembley, 1924. £4. An inscription (carved) below the central figure reads:- "Ohen the Liie (lame?) Oba who bor (soc) Ewuare."

Acquisition date
1954

Object types
artefact

Title (series)
Benin Ivory

Materials
elephant ivory

Techniques
carved

Place (findspot)
Found/Acquired Benin City
(Africa,Nigeria,Edo State,Benin City)

Ethnic group
Made by Edo

Description
Spatulate artefact (with relief carving) made of ivory.

Acquisition date
1949

Object types
plaque

Title (series)
Benin Plaques

Materials
brass

Techniques
lost-wax cast

Production place
Made in Benin City
(Africa,Nigeria,Edo State,Benin City)

Place (findspot)
Found/Acquired Benin City
(Africa,Nigeria,Edo State,Benin City)

Date
16thC-17thC

Ethnic group
Made by Edo

Description
Relief plaque made of brass cast using the 'cire perdue' (lost wax) technique. Rectangular in form with side flanges (largely missing). Holes for attachment at top and bottom right. Background surface is decorated with stylised quatrefoil (river leaf) patterns and stippling.

PhysicsQED:

did they clear out the Forrest or was there no forest in the area the city was built to begin with?

PAPA AFRICA:
did they clear out the Forrest or was there no forest in the area the city was built to begin with?

The Edo cleared out much of the forest in the areas that were settled in and lived in. But of course the areas that were not lived in and were not forested were not cleared out.

Patrick Darling (an archaeologist) suggests in his article "A Legacy in Earth - Ancient Benin and Ishan, Southern Nigeria" that the ancestors of the "Edoid" (Bini, Ishan, Owan, etc.) groups moved into the present areas they occupy thousands of years ago from a northeastern direction, coming from a more savannah-like area near the Niger-Benue confluence, down to the more forested areas, which they cleared out when settling. He specifically suggests a savannah area somewhat north of the Akoko-Edo part of Edo state as where the Edoid groups migrated south from (although where they were at even before being in that northern savannah area, he doesn't comment on). The article suggests that after moving into the forested areas from the north, they cleared out some of the forest areas for farmland, and built earthworks first to demarcate the territory of communities, and then built larger earthworks later on for defensive purposes.

PhysicsQED:

do you have any info/pictures of boats and things relating to them in the kingdom of benin?

PAPA AFRICA: do you have any info/pictures of boats and things relating to them in the kingdom of benin?

The Edo were not a seafaring people. There were some West African groups that were seafarers and made real sailing voyages along the African coast - some groups from the Gold Coast (now Ghana) sailed to Angola centuries ago, for example - but the Edo are not one of them. The identification of the sea as a passage that led to the spirit world in Edo religious belief may have played a part in that. The Edo believed in the past that people journeyed over the sea when going from the spiritual world to the physical world (or vice versa). I don't think many of us still believe in that nowadays though.

Rivers, lagoons, and other inland waterways were used for transportation for trade or to transport soldiers but that was it. There is an 1857 report from a British writer which states that before that time (1857) Benin previously possessed "fleets of large canoes capable of carrying from fifty to one hundred armed men" but there are no images of these boats. The same archaeologist mentioned earlier (P. J. Darling) also published an article in 1980 about the remains of a port that Benin used (to send boats out for trade or to ferry soldiers along the inland waterways) in the past.

I'm going to post a lot of images on here this week and next week and then I'll end my posting on this thread permanently. If I don't post all that I wanted to post now, I'll keep delaying it until I completely forget to update the thread, and it would be better to get as many images as I intend to post up now rather than stretch it out slowly or completely forget about updating the thread. This thread has been up since January of 2011 and after the end of next week, I don't plan to return to this thread. Probably the only thing that would make me come back to post on this thread would be if I came across another image of Benin art or architecture that was so exemplary or rare that I felt that it had to be posted.

1st, I'll finish posting the images from the British museum that I had been posting before I took a break from the thread.

2nd, I'll post selected images from H. Ling Roth's 1903 book on Benin. Although I have this book, there are too many images in there to make uploading most of them practical (I have uploaded a few select images from this book in the past), so I will only post some of the images from this book that are readily available online.

3rd, selected images will be posted from Augustus Pitt Rivers' 1900 book on Benin's art and antiquities.

4th, some images will be posted from Charles H. Read's and Ormonde M. Dalton's 1899 book on Benin. This is a book I mentioned earlier in the thread alongside Louis Carré's 1935 book on Benin art as being hard to get except from some university libraries or by buying it (and it is expensive). However, I did find an online source that has many (but not all, unfortunately) of the images from Read and Dalton's book. The RAAI (Ross Archive of African Images) at Yale university has a website that has many of the images from the book on their website. The version of the book that I looked at a year ago was the original version and has 136 pages, 185 photographs and 27 drawings, while the RAAI website used the reprint version. But the reprint edition doesn't seem to be an identical version which just has smaller images and smaller text fit into fewer pages, but instead seems to omit a considerable number of images of the art - either that or the researchers on the RAAI website just omitted a lot of the images themselves when they put images from the book on their site. Either way, some of the most impressive art shown in the book is completely omitted from their website, unfortunately. If I owned a copy of the full version of the book, I would scan or photograph and then upload the particularly impressive images that I saw a year ago, but unfortunately I don't own a copy at this time. Maybe in the future if I come across another copy of the full version of the book, I'll scan those images and return to the thread to post them here. Also, if I come across another copy of Louis Carré's book on Benin art (which also has some very impressive art included there), I'll scan and upload the best images from that book and return to this thread to post them.

5th, images will posted from Felix von Luschan's 1919 book, Die Altertümer von Benin (The Antiquities of Benin), and from his other publications on Benin art. The Antiquities of Benin is another book that, like Read and Dalton's book, is not that easy to find (especially not an English translation) a full version of and has to be obtained from certain university libraries or bought from a bookseller online at an expensive price. Fortunately, the RAAI has a lot of images from his publications, including that book, on their website. From what I remember, a few of von Luschan's comments are interesting and I might include them below the images.

6th, selected images will be posted from all the the publications of William D. Webster from 1899, 1900, and 1901 which contain images of Benin art.

7th, a few miscellaneous photos of buildings or other historic photos that I came across from other websites will be posted with sources listed. I've only found three more photos of intact buildings/walls to post, unfortunately. If at some later time, I find any more photographs of (basically intact, not too damaged) buildings from Benin City in 1897 that were taken by R.K. Granville (a Niger Coast Protectorate official and Acting Resident of Benin following the conquest), or any of the few surviving pictures taken by the German traveler Erdmann, then I would come back and post them on this thread. Erdmann was the last name (his first name is not known apparently) of a German businessman and traveler who lived in Lagos before the 1897 invasion of Benin by the British. After the invasion of Benin, he went to Benin and took some photographs of some buildings, including part of the (burnt) palace, but it seems only a very small amount of his photographs (one or two) survived and they don't really show much about the buildings. Still, I will probably return to this thread to post these images if I find them.

8th, various images of Benin art from the RAAI that are from other books or articles than the ones listed immediately above will be posted.

Unfortunately, most of the images (except for the images from the British museum) that I will post to close out the thread will be in black and white, since they are old photographs from old books and articles. A few of the comments on the art in these old publications are interesting, and some of the comments will be posted if they do not contradict more up to date and accurate information from newer and better researched publications from people with access to more information.

After that, I'll be permanently done with posting on the thread.

Also, since many of the images I posted in this thread are from different websites that may or may not decide to keep the images up for a long period of time (and a few of the images are already gone, unfortunately - see pages 5, 6, and 7 of this thread for example), I would advise anyone who really likes a particular piece of Benin art posted here, but doesn't know how to track down the image outside of this thread, to save the image of it, since it might not be here a year or two from now if you come back to the thread to look at it again.

The images which I will be posting at the end of this thread, from the various books mentioned above, will all be from very official and permanent sites (university archive and museum websites) that should be hosting these images a long time from now, so theoretically, these images shouldn't really disappear (except in maybe a very long time from now) like a few of the images I've posted earlier in this thread did. Unfortunately, however, there's just no guarantee that the exact image URL for each image of Benin art hosted on these websites will stay the same. So if the museum or archive website does some reorganization of their site and decides to change the URL for a particular image that I've posted, the image simply won't show up in this thread and whoever wants to see that image would have to search for it.

I already have all of the images I posted under all the monikers/usernames that I used in this thread (PhysicsHD, PhysicsMHD, PhysiscQED, etc.) saved in multiple places and I own some of the books that contain the images that I've been posting, so I have no problem in this regard, but I just thought others should know that many of the images I've posted on previous pages of this thread probably won't be there a few years from now.

Obviously, since there are thousands of pieces of art from Benin, I cannot possibly post them all on this thread and of course I never intended to do that. Anyone who looks at the books and publications I referred to on earlier pages of this thread and the books I mentioned immediately above will find many more images of the art than I could possibly post here. But I think the selected images from the books and websites that I have posted and will post adequately convey a general (but not a complete) image of Benin's art and past. Also, the various books I referred to on previous pages (such as Benin: Kings and Rituals) are good sources for further inquiry for anyone that is interested in knowing more about Benin's past, seeing more of the art and learning about its meaning and significance.

PhysicsQED:

i hope you haven't forgotten

^
No. I didn't forget. I just got sufficiently busy that I couldn't keep to the time frame I said I would. But I definitely will post the images I came across and close out the thread.

PhysicsHD:

how accurate of a depiction would these images be?

Bump

PAPA AFRICA: how accurate of a depiction would these images be?

Some aspects of the engraving would be accurate, but the image isn't based on firsthand observation, but instead is the work of an artist employed by a person named Van Meurs, the publisher of Olfert Dapper's 1668 book, Description of Africa. The artist who did the engravings for Dapper's book didn't see Benin (or anywhere else in Africa) himself, but instead constructed an image based on the detailed descriptions given in Dapper's book.

However, despite this, we know that certain aspects of the depiction are more or less accurate from other sources. These are:

- The use of dwarfs in certain ceremonies

- The use of leopards in certain ceremonies

- The clothing the men near the soldiers and the king are wearing seems to similar to what Edo people in old photographs wore. People in Benin did wear clothing (wrappers) which looked close enough to what is depicted in that image. But for a more accurate depiction of their clothing, one should look at the Benin art and the surviving old photographs from the 19th century.

- The size of the capital. Although quite vague in the image, the artist is clearly implying that the city is large based on the numerous buildings in the background that eventually fade out as one goes further away from the buildings and the procession that are in the foreground. Written and archaeological evidence supports the idea of the capital being quite large so that would be an accurate aspect of the depiction.

- The cast brass bird figures on top of several important houses (this is confirmed by written evidence from other sources, and also by the fragments of those bird figures that survive)

- The height of the pyramidal shaped parts of the palace and other important houses where the birds are placed seem to be only a little smaller (if one takes the height of the pyramidal structures that is implied in the picture to be about 2 stories high) than the height suggested by an eyewitness description (about 3 or 4 stories high). A certain lieutenant John King, a British navy officer who visited Benin sometime between 1815 and 1821 made certain observations which confirm some aspects of the drawing:

"The houses of distinguished personages are very pretty and elegant; the inner walls are covered with mats, and round the court there is a divan raised about eighteen inches above the level of the ground. Mats and woollen [sic] stuffs of home make are spread on the divan and ground. The walls of the palace are well preserved, In one of the facades at which Lieut. King entered there were three doors, of which the chief was in the middle; on each side were rows of eight or ten elephant tusks curiously carved, the points turned towards the wall. During the last insurrection the king was killed and a large portion of the palace was burnt down, but enough remains to bear witness to its former splendour. Down the centre of the facade rises a pyramid about thirty to forty feet high, on the top of which there was fixed a copper serpent whose head reached to the ground and whose body was as thick as that of a man. The inhabitants of Benin have no idea of the lapse of time, but say that this serpent has been there for several centuries. Two apartments which Lieut. King saw, and of which one was the audience chamber of the king, had been spared by the fire; the ceilings were flat and the beams which crossed them were covered with various designs." It will be observed that King speaks of a pyramid, and in so far his description of these buildings agrees with that of Dapper, who, however, called them turrets." - H. Ling Roth, Great Benin (1903), pp. 164-165

So these "pyramids" (pyramidal shaped structures) were still seen on the palace as late as the early 19th century. The "insurrection" referred to there in Roth's book is almost certainly the conflict between prince Ogbebor and prince Erediauwa in the early 19th century. They were the two eldest sons of Oba Obanosa, but there was no real agreement on who was really older since they were born within a very short time of one another. Initially, prince Ogbebor won out, and prince Erediauwa, whose mother was from the Esan area, had to run to the Esan area for safety, but he eventually won over the support of the Esan rulers there, then built up an army, and eventually defeated his half brother's forces and took the capital city. He then established himself as king Osemwende. However, before this, prince Ogbebor would not allow himself to be captured and executed when he realized he had lost, so he had the palace destroyed and killed himself as well before his half brother's forces closed in on him.


Some things that probably are not accurate in the picture:

- The absence of the brass snakes running down the roofs of certain important buildings. Some of the heads of these snakes and parts of their bodies still survive and are kept in museums today, and also the snakes are attested to have been there in eyewitness accounts. However the possibility does exist that at the time that the people that Dapper got his information from visited, the snakes had not yet been put on the roofs, and only the birds were there.

- The exact appearance of the buildings was probably somewhat different than the ones in the foreground in the engraving. There may or may not have been certain buildings that looked much like those in the 17th century, but the few surviving images of buildings from the late 19th century have a somewhat different appearance, where the horizontal line fluting on the walls of certain buildings is clearly visible, unlike in this engraving.

- The form of the procession in that ceremony: the musicians, the men with the leopards, the dwarves, and the other men who seem to be singing the king's praises might not have been so close to the king in real life (in the engraving it looks almost like they are crowding him).

- The exact appearance of the soldiers or noblemen. The artist left the noblemen/soldiers more in the background, most likely because he wasn't that sure of exactly what they dressed like (even despite some of the details given in Dapper's description). For a better idea of what the soldiers actually dressed like, one can consult the numerous artworks from Benin that depict military figures. The king and the most important members of his court did ride horses during warfare and during ceremonial processions, but it's also not clear (at least to me, perhaps other people do know though) if they carried lances during ceremonies (like the picture suggests).

- The attire of the king. I'm not sure what the material the king is wearing in the image is supposed to be, and I'm not sure whether he is wearing any coral beads or not, but it would probably be better to just rely on the surviving artwork to figure out what the kings dressed like during processions, since the art depicts the kings in ceremonial attire quite often when the kings are depicted. There are different attires for the kings in the art, so obviously there was not one permanent attire for every single king over the centuries, but I haven't seen anything so far that exactly matches the style depicted in the engraving in Dapper's book.


A good book which has a bit of analysis of the accuracy of some of the drawings and descriptions of Benin (among other things) is the book A popular history of Benin (2003) by Peter M. Roese and Dmitri M. Bondarenko. I remember coming across some errors in that book when I read it a few years ago, but I think there are few serious errors, and on the whole, I think it's very informative and well researched.

PhysicsQED:

Some aspects of the engraving would be accurate, but the image isn't based on firsthand observation, but instead is the work of an artist employed by a person named Van Meurs, the publisher of Olfert Dapper's 1668 book, Description of Africa. The artist who did the engravings for Dapper's book didn't see Benin (or anywhere else in Africa) himself, but instead constructed an image based on the detailed descriptions given in Dapper's book.

However, despite this, we know that certain aspects of the depiction are more or less accurate from other sources. These are:

- The use of dwarfs in certain ceremonies

- The use of leopards in certain ceremonies

- The clothing the men near the soldiers and the king are wearing seems to similar to what Edo people in old photographs wore. People in Benin did wear clothing (wrappers) which looked close enough to what is depicted in that image. But for a more accurate depiction of their clothing, one should look at the Benin art and the surviving old photographs from the 19th century.

- The size of the capital. Although quite vague in the image, the artist is clearly implying that the city is large based on the numerous buildings in the background that eventually fade out as one goes further away from the buildings and the procession that are in the foreground. Written and archaeological evidence supports the idea of the capital being quite large so that would be an accurate aspect of the depiction.

- The cast brass bird figures on top of several important houses (this is confirmed by written evidence from other sources, and also by the fragments of those bird figures that survive)

- The height of the pyramidal shaped parts of the palace and other important houses where the birds are placed seem to be only a little smaller (if one takes the height of the pyramidal structures that is implied in the picture to be about 2 stories high) than the height suggested by an eyewitness description (about 3 or 4 stories high). A certain lieutenant John King, a British navy officer who visited Benin sometime between 1815 and 1821 made certain observations which confirm some aspects of the drawing:

"The houses of distinguished personages are very pretty and elegant; the inner walls are covered with mats, and round the court there is a divan raised about eighteen inches above the level of the ground. Mats and woollen [sic] stuffs of home make are spread on the divan and ground. The walls of the palace are well preserved, In one of the facades at which Lieut. King entered there were three doors, of which the chief was in the middle; on each side were rows of eight or ten elephant tusks curiously carved, the points turned towards the wall. During the last insurrection the king was killed and a large portion of the palace was burnt down, but enough remains to bear witness to its former splendour. Down the centre of the facade rises a pyramid about thirty to forty feet high, on the top of which there was fixed a copper serpent whose head reached to the ground and whose body was as thick as that of a man. The inhabitants of Benin have no idea of the lapse of time, but say that this serpent has been there for several centuries. Two apartments which Lieut. King saw, and of which one was the audience chamber of the king, had been spared by the fire; the ceilings were flat and the beams which crossed them were covered with various designs." It will be observed that King speaks of a pyramid, and in so far his description of these buildings agrees with that of Dapper, who, however, called them turrets." - H. Ling Roth, Great Benin (1903), pp. 164-165

So these "pyramids" (pyramidal shaped structures) were still seen on the palace as late as the early 19th century. The "insurrection" referred to there in Roth's book is almost certainly the conflict between prince Ogbebor and prince Erediauwa in the early 19th century. They were the two eldest sons of Oba Obanosa, but there was no real agreement on who was really older since they were born within a very short time of one another. Initially, prince Ogbebor won out, and prince Erediauwa, whose mother was from the Esan area, had to run to the Esan area for safety, but he eventually won over the support of the Esan rulers there, then built up an army, and eventually defeated his half brother's forces and took the capital city. He then established himself as king Osemwende. However, before this, prince Ogbebor would not allow himself to be captured and executed when he realized he had lost, so he had the palace destroyed and killed himself as well before his half brother's forces closed in on him.


Some things that probably are not accurate in the picture:

- The absence of the brass snakes running down the roofs of certain important buildings. Some of the heads of these snakes and parts of their bodies still survive and are kept in museums today, and also the snakes are attested to have been there in eyewitness accounts. However the possibility does exist that at the time that the people that Dapper got his information from visited, the snakes had not yet been put on the roofs, and only the birds were there.

- The exact appearance of the buildings was probably somewhat different than the ones in the foreground in the engraving. There may or may not have been certain buildings that looked much like those in the 17th century, but the few surviving images of buildings from the late 19th century have a somewhat different appearance, where the horizontal line fluting on the walls of certain buildings is clearly visible, unlike in this engraving.

- The form of the procession in that ceremony: the musicians, the men with the leopards, the dwarves, and the other men who seem to be singing the king's praises might not have been so close to the king in real life (in the engraving it looks almost like they are crowding him).

- The exact appearance of the soldiers or noblemen. The artist left the noblemen/soldiers more in the background, most likely because he wasn't that sure of exactly what they dressed like (even despite some of the details given in Dapper's description). For a better idea of what the soldiers actually dressed like, one can consult the numerous artworks from Benin that depict military figures. The king and the most important members of his court did ride horses during warfare and during ceremonial processions, but it's also not clear (at least to me, perhaps other people do know though) if they carried lances during ceremonies (like the picture suggests).

- The attire of the king. I'm not sure what the material the king is wearing in the image is supposed to be, and I'm not sure whether he is wearing any coral beads or not, but it would probably be better to just rely on the surviving artwork to figure out what the kings dressed like during processions, since the art depicts the kings in ceremonial attire quite often when the kings are depicted. There are different attires for the kings in the art, so obviously there was not one permanent attire for every single king over the centuries, but I haven't seen anything so far that exactly matches the style depicted in the engraving in Dapper's book.


A good book which has a bit of analysis of the accuracy of some of the drawings and descriptions of Benin (among other things) is the book A popular history of Benin (2003) by Peter M. Roese and Dmitri M. Bondarenko. I remember coming across some errors in that book when I read it a few years ago, but I think there are few serious errors, and on the whole, I think it's very informative and well researched.

thanks for the post and book references

I wonder if there are any accurate recreations of what the benin warriors would look like in real life.

PAPA AFRICA: I wonder if there are any accurate recreations of what the benin warriors would look like in real life.

I haven't seen anything like that, but the art definitely provides extremely detailed images of what the warriors looked like during more "medieval" times. I think the only real issues as far as reconstructions of their attire would be correctly identifying the materials used in all the different images and successfully identifying the colors. The written descriptions and a surviving red warrior's tunic from 18th century or 19th century Benin make me think there would have been a very significant use of the color red, but I don't have a good idea of all the other colors that may have been used.

PhysicsQED:

I haven't seen anything like that, but the art definitely provides extremely detailed images of what the warriors looked like during more "medieval" times. I think the only real issues as far as reconstructions of their attire would be correctly identifying the materials used in all the different images and successfully identifying the colors. The written descriptions and a surviving red warrior's tunic from 18th century or 19th century Benin make me think there would have been a very significant use of the color red, but I don't have a good idea of all the other colors that may have been used.

another thing, europeans always spoke of shining walls and floors in benin but aren't the homes in benin made of earth? How would you shine earth?

PAPA AFRICA: another thing, europeans always spoke of shining walls and floors in benin but aren't the homes in benin made of earth? How would you shine earth?

This claim is correct. You might not see it in the city any more but there was a time when mud surfaces were polished . The practice was done by dipping a rag into a clay pot that was already filled with water and red earth and using the now soiled rag to rub walls,floors and earthen cooking places.
Note that the surfaces being polished had the same reddish-brown colour as the mud that is being used to polish it.
Over time and constant rubbing (which the polishing actually is),the surfaces will harden and begin to shine. The rubbing/polishing is called DOLO (dorlor) in the native language.

bokohalal:

This claim is correct. You might not see it in the city any more but there was a time when mud surfaces were polished . The practice was done by dipping a rag into a clay pot that was already filled with water and red earth and using the now soiled rag to rub walls,floors and earthen cooking places.
Note that the surfaces being polished had the same reddish-brown colour as the mud that is being used to polish it.
Over time and constant rubbing (which the polishing actually is),the surfaces will harden and begin to shine. The rubbing/polishing is called DOLO (dorlor) in the native language.

wow thanks is there a picture of this anywhere?

PAPA AFRICA: wow thanks is there a picture of this anywhere?

The practice is still very well alive. In the villages people still polish the surfaces of their floors.

rabzy:

The practice is still very well alive. In the villages people still polish the surfaces of their floors.

I did not bother to reply him/her. I checked out his/her posts on this thread and subjectively concluded that PAPABROWNE is a Benin Empire History skeptic.

bokohalal:
I did not bother to reply him/her. I checked out his/her posts on this thread and subjectively concluded that PAPABROWNE is a Benin Empire History skeptic.

oh Phuck no, im sorry if it seemed that way, i really am. i just like thorough info. i post alot of these things in an african history thread on another forum.

PAPA AFRICA: oh Phuck no, im sorry if it seemed that way, i really am. i just like thorough info. i post alot of these things in an african history thread on another forum.

bokohalal:
I did not bother to reply him/her. I checked out his/her posts on this thread and subjectively concluded that PAPABROWNE is a Benin Empire History skeptic.

Well I don't mind skeptics so far they are objective and also not abusive. As to the polished and shining floors, the practice is so prevalent it would be utter foolishness to disbelive it. I used to scrub my grannies kitchen in d village.

I know the practice is widespread.Especially the earthen cooking places in those homes that have not elevated to stoves or cookers.

rabzy:



Well I don't mind skeptics so far they are objective and also not abusive. As to the polished and shining floors, the practice is so prevalent it would be utter foolishness to disbelive it. I used to scrub my grannies kitchen in d village.

im not a skeptic its just that i didnt know how someone would do it, im not from nigeria or africa.

currently reading Great Benin, good book. actually more so the sources from Europeans are valuable. the author is clearly a bigoted prick though.

PAPA AFRICA: thanks for the post and book references

HELLO FRIEND I HAVE ARTWORKS FOR SALE
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PhysicsQED:

Some aspects of the engraving would be accurate, but the image isn't based on firsthand observation, but instead is the work of an artist employed by a person named Van Meurs, the publisher of Olfert Dapper's 1668 book, Description of Africa. The artist who did the engravings for Dapper's book didn't see Benin (or anywhere else in Africa) himself, but instead constructed an image based on the detailed descriptions given in Dapper's book.

However, despite this, we know that certain aspects of the depiction are more or less accurate from other sources. These are:

- The use of dwarfs in certain ceremonies

- The use of leopards in certain ceremonies

- The clothing the men near the soldiers and the king are wearing seems to similar to what Edo people in old photographs wore. People in Benin did wear clothing (wrappers) which looked close enough to what is depicted in that image. But for a more accurate depiction of their clothing, one should look at the Benin art and the surviving old photographs from the 19th century.

- The size of the capital. Although quite vague in the image, the artist is clearly implying that the city is large based on the numerous buildings in the background that eventually fade out as one goes further away from the buildings and the procession that are in the foreground. Written and archaeological evidence supports the idea of the capital being quite large so that would be an accurate aspect of the depiction.

- The cast brass bird figures on top of several important houses (this is confirmed by written evidence from other sources, and also by the fragments of those bird figures that survive)

- The height of the pyramidal shaped parts of the palace and other important houses where the birds are placed seem to be only a little smaller (if one takes the height of the pyramidal structures that is implied in the picture to be about 2 stories high) than the height suggested by an eyewitness description (about 3 or 4 stories high). A certain lieutenant John King, a British navy officer who visited Benin sometime between 1815 and 1821 made certain observations which confirm some aspects of the drawing:

"The houses of distinguished personages are very pretty and elegant; the inner walls are covered with mats, and round the court there is a divan raised about eighteen inches above the level of the ground. Mats and woollen [sic] stuffs of home make are spread on the divan and ground. The walls of the palace are well preserved, In one of the facades at which Lieut. King entered there were three doors, of which the chief was in the middle; on each side were rows of eight or ten elephant tusks curiously carved, the points turned towards the wall. During the last insurrection the king was killed and a large portion of the palace was burnt down, but enough remains to bear witness to its former splendour. Down the centre of the facade rises a pyramid about thirty to forty feet high, on the top of which there was fixed a copper serpent whose head reached to the ground and whose body was as thick as that of a man. The inhabitants of Benin have no idea of the lapse of time, but say that this serpent has been there for several centuries. Two apartments which Lieut. King saw, and of which one was the audience chamber of the king, had been spared by the fire; the ceilings were flat and the beams which crossed them were covered with various designs." It will be observed that King speaks of a pyramid, and in so far his description of these buildings agrees with that of Dapper, who, however, called them turrets." - H. Ling Roth, Great Benin (1903), pp. 164-165

So these "pyramids" (pyramidal shaped structures) were still seen on the palace as late as the early 19th century. The "insurrection" referred to there in Roth's book is almost certainly the conflict between prince Ogbebor and prince Erediauwa in the early 19th century. They were the two eldest sons of Oba Obanosa, but there was no real agreement on who was really older since they were born within a very short time of one another. Initially, prince Ogbebor won out, and prince Erediauwa, whose mother was from the Esan area, had to run to the Esan area for safety, but he eventually won over the support of the Esan rulers there, then built up an army, and eventually defeated his half brother's forces and took the capital city. He then established himself as king Osemwende. However, before this, prince Ogbebor would not allow himself to be captured and executed when he realized he had lost, so he had the palace destroyed and killed himself as well before his half brother's forces closed in on him.


Some things that probably are not accurate in the picture:

- The absence of the brass snakes running down the roofs of certain important buildings. Some of the heads of these snakes and parts of their bodies still survive and are kept in museums today, and also the snakes are attested to have been there in eyewitness accounts. However the possibility does exist that at the time that the people that Dapper got his information from visited, the snakes had not yet been put on the roofs, and only the birds were there.

- The exact appearance of the buildings was probably somewhat different than the ones in the foreground in the engraving. There may or may not have been certain buildings that looked much like those in the 17th century, but the few surviving images of buildings from the late 19th century have a somewhat different appearance, where the horizontal line fluting on the walls of certain buildings is clearly visible, unlike in this engraving.

- The form of the procession in that ceremony: the musicians, the men with the leopards, the dwarves, and the other men who seem to be singing the king's praises might not have been so close to the king in real life (in the engraving it looks almost like they are crowding him).

- The exact appearance of the soldiers or noblemen. The artist left the noblemen/soldiers more in the background, most likely because he wasn't that sure of exactly what they dressed like (even despite some of the details given in Dapper's description). For a better idea of what the soldiers actually dressed like, one can consult the numerous artworks from Benin that depict military figures. The king and the most important members of his court did ride horses during warfare and during ceremonial processions, but it's also not clear (at least to me, perhaps other people do know though) if they carried lances during ceremonies (like the picture suggests).

- The attire of the king. I'm not sure what the material the king is wearing in the image is supposed to be, and I'm not sure whether he is wearing any coral beads or not, but it would probably be better to just rely on the surviving artwork to figure out what the kings dressed like during processions, since the art depicts the kings in ceremonial attire quite often when the kings are depicted. There are different attires for the kings in the art, so obviously there was not one permanent attire for every single king over the centuries, but I haven't seen anything so far that exactly matches the style depicted in the engraving in Dapper's book.


A good book which has a bit of analysis of the accuracy of some of the drawings and descriptions of Benin (among other things) is the book A popular history of Benin (2003) by Peter M. Roese and Dmitri M. Bondarenko. I remember coming across some errors in that book when I read it a few years ago, but I think there are few serious errors, and on the whole, I think it's very informative and well researched.

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it would have been nice if the british took pictures of the kings palace before they stripped the art.

PhysicsHD:




Pendant Mask: Iyoba, 16th century
Nigeria; Edo peoples, court of Benin
Ivory, iron, copper (?); H. 9 3/8 in.
(23.8 cm)
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial
Collection, Gift of Nelson A.
Rockefeller, 1972 (1978.412.323)

I was told that this iyoba was the mother of the oba and she was a warrior.I was also told that those things on her head represent d skulls of the white men she killed when they tried to invade d benin kingdom.is this true?

addicted268:

I was told that this iyoba was the mother of the oba and she was a warrior.

She is often held to have been a warrior, yes.

I was also told that those things on her head represent d skulls of the white men she killed when they tried to invade d benin kingdom.is this true?

No. Both the queen and her son, Oba Esigie, were closely involved with trade with the visiting Portuguese - some of whom were allies - and this association was memorialized in the art and in oral traditions.