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Showing posts with the label The British Museum

News | Western Museums Working To Return The Benin Bronzes To Africa

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Benin bronzes on display at the British Museum. Photograph: Alamy British Museum and other European institutions seek way to create a permanent exhibition of looted artefacts in Nigeria reports  The Guardian .     A bronze sculpture of a cockerel that adorned a Cambridge University dining room is among a huge haul of looted antiquities that may now be returned to west Africa . The British Museum will take part in a European summit to discuss the return of art seized from the Benin kingdom, now part of southern Nigeria , by a British punitive expedition in 1897 as “reparations” after it defied the British empire by imposing customs duties. The museums taking part in the Benin dialogue group hope to establish a permanent display in Benin City, Nigeria, using items rotated from a consortium of reputable institutions. The negotiations involve authorities from Nigeria and the neighbouring country of Benin . Among the looted sculptures is the bronze cockerel kno