Benin plaque - the Oba with Europeans

A History of the World in 100 Objects

BBC

History

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2010

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

This week Neil MacGregor's history of the world is exploring the impact of the great European age of expansion and discovery during the 15th and 16th Centuries. In the last programme he described the technology that allowed Europeans to sail around the world in great galleons, the "space ships of their age". Today he looks at what happens when Europeans started trading in West Africa and first came upon the ancient culture of Benin in present day Nigeria. Neil describes the world of this hugely successful warrior kingdom and the culture that produced such exquisite artwork. He also describes what happened when the British raided Benin at the end of the 19th Century and the effect that these brass portraits first had when they arrived in London. The artist Sokari Douglas Camp reflects on the sculptures as art while the Nigerian poet and playwright Wole Soyinka reacts to the violent history of Benin and the loss of part of their great heritage. Producer: Anthony Denselow

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of a history of the world in a hundred objects
0:07.8	from BBC Radio 4. In 2001, the UK National Census recorded that one in 20
0:17.3	Londoners were of black African descent and it's a figure that's continued to
0:21.2	rise in the years since. Modern British life and culture
0:24.8	now have a strong African component.
0:27.3	It's a development that's made in the latest chapter in the history of relations between Africa and Western Europe.
0:34.1	And in that long and turbulent history, the Benin bronzes, as they used to be known,
0:39.7	hold a unique place.
0:41.6	Made in what is now modern Nigeria in the 16th century. The
0:46.3	Benion plaques are actually made of brass, not bronze. They reach about the
0:50.3	size of an A3 sheet of paper and they show figures in high relief that celebrate
0:54.7	the battles won by the army of the Benin ruler, the Oba and the rituals of the Oba's
1:00.0	court.
1:01.7	Though not only great works of art and triumphs of metal casting, there are also documents
1:06.4	of two quite distinct moments of Euro-African contact, the first, peaceful and commercial,
1:12.4	the second bloody.
1:14.0	This was really our first notable encounter with the European world.
1:18.0	People who came in, looking for trading partners, looking for expansion of their own knowledge of the world and being astonished
1:25.3	to encounter this society.
1:27.7	A history of the world in a hundred objects.
1:33.0	The Oba of Benin with Europeans.
1:49.0	A brass plaque cast in Nigeria during the 16th century.
	...

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