The Archeology of Benin: Excavations and other researches in and around Benin city, Nigeria
Date
1975
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Publisher
London: Oxford University Press,
Abstract
Archeological research in Benin city before 1961; The excavations 1961- 1964; The Benin museum site; The clerks' quarters site; The Ogba Road site; The reservation road site; The Usama site; Fieldwork 1961-1964; The Benin city wall; casual discoveries and miscellaneous fieldwork; Ground stone axis in Benin city; The finds; pottery; Small finds; Specialist reports.
Description
On 4 January 1897 a party of nine Europeans and about 240 Africans were ambushed on a narrow forest path some thirteen miles from Benin City. Only two of the Europeans and fewer than a quarter of the Africans survived what became known as the ‘Benin Massacre’ (Boisragon, 1897). There followed a British punitive expedition which resulted in the annexation of the territories of Benin to the rapidly growing areas under British control in the zone of the lower Niger (Bacon, 1897). For Benin itself these events were to prove a turning point of major significance. They ended perhaps as much as 900 years of distinctive cultural development and by main force brought Benin within the confines of literate history. Yet if 1897 brought to Benin a knowledge of the wider world it was an astounded world that turned its attention on Benin. Thousands of examples of Benin art were plundered from the conquered city, as the official spoils of war, and were sold off in London by the British Government (Roth, 1903, Appendix IV). In this manner they became widely dispersed throughout the public and private collections of the world. European anthropologists, ethnographers, and artists were deeply and lastingly impressed by the sophistication of both conception and execution evinced by the items of iron, wood, ivory, and above all ‘bronze’, which made up Benin art.