Tracking down Nigeria’s stolen artefacts

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, we talk about the Benin Bronzes, a group of sacred artefacts stolen by British colonisers from the west African Kingdom of Benin. Guest host Lulu Smyth speaks to Aanu Adeoye and Josh Spero, who have been reporting on the efforts to trace thousands of them. For years western museums, which hold the bulk of the Benin Bronzes, refused to collect and share inventory, meaning they could not be returned to Nigeria. Now, a new digital project is doing just that. Then, it’s the first of our ‘boring topic’ challenges. We talk to author Benjamin Lorr about supermarkets and their secret – and not-so-secret – ways to lure us in.

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Tell us your cultural prediction for 2022! You can record a voice message here: https://sayhi.chat/jzdg3

If you prefer, you can email us at [email protected]. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.

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Links and mentions from the episode:

– Aanu and Josh’s story, ‘The Benin Bronzes and the road to restitution’: https://www.ft.com/content/1b32105e-428a-49e8-b2f2-d3ba381c4c65

– Digital Benin can be explored here: https://digitalbenin.org/

– The song we played is Egbo: The Song of Praise for Oba Eware, by Roseline Obogdu. You can listen to it here: https://digitalbenin.org/oral-history#filter_none&interview_7

– Aanu is on Twitter @aanuadeoye. Josh is at @joshspero.

– Benjamin Lorr’s book is The Secret Lives of Groceries.

– You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenjaminLorr.

‘Egbo: Song of Praise for Oba Eware’ by Roseline Ogbodu, is courtesy of Digital Benin.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, FT Weekend listeners, I'm Lulu Smith, filling in for Lila this week.
0:05.0	Usually I'm a producer on this show and I'm based in London.
0:09.0	That's where this episode begins.
0:12.0	London is home to one of the biggest collections of the Benin bronzes, which are these sculptures
0:17.0	and other ceremonial objects from West Africa.
0:20.0	Most of them are housed at the British Museum,
0:22.0	and the other day I went down to see them.
0:24.8	So I'm in the Sainsbury Gallery in the British Museum
0:27.9	and looking at it.
0:30.3	I've been in bronzes, which are amazing.
0:34.7	They're just so intricate and detailed.
0:38.3	The British Museum is full of artefacts from different historical civilizations.
0:43.3	It's enormous and kind of overwhelming,
0:46.3	but the rooms are curated to be pretty specific.
0:49.3	Like, there's a room called Greeks and Lysians 400 to 325 BC.
0:58.4	Or there's one just focused on medieval astronomy in the Islamic world.
1:03.4	But that just isn't the case with the room that features the Benin bronzes.
1:06.8	These are housed in a large basement space just labelled Africa.
1:11.0	No specific time period, no specific country.
1:17.3	Which is strange because Benin's culture still exists and the bronzes are still part of it.
1:21.8	These are still part of everyday culture and they are still used.
1:29.9	When the new king before it gets on his throne, there's like huge ceremonies that go on for like days to celebrate like the imagines of a new other. And these like artifacts like play a huge role during like those
	...

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