The Digital Benin platform, launched on Wednesday, is the most complete digital database of traditional West African art objects, known as the Benin Bronzes of the Edo culture. The creation of the database is the result of an international research effort that lasted for two years and cost €1.5 million, provided by the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation.
“I have always had this longing to learn the culture of my people,” said Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie, historian and project research lead, at the platform's launch event in Berlin. “Every bronze plaque that you see here was a page in the history of Benin.”
Barbara Plankensteiner, the director of Hamburg’s Museum am Rothenbaum and Digital Benin's principal investigator, said that while some bronzes that are in private collections might not be included in the database, it is nevertheless "99%" complete and open to further updates using archival records, photographs, and ownership changes. After its completion, the database is planned to be handed over to a suitable institution in Nigeria.
“This platform is a knowledge-producing forum and not an instrument for restitution,” Plankensteiner said. “But it shows the objects’ local significance, how important these objects used to be, and what role they still play in ceremonial culture,” Plankensteiner explained.
By providing the history of the objects in the context of the Edo culture, the project once again raises questions over the need for repatriation of African cultural heritage. According to researchers, around 5,000 of the objects listed in the database were possibly looted. The origin of some 400 items remains unclear.
The sources of the project are data provided by 131 museums in 20 countries. Some of the institutions that participated (including Berlin’s Ethnological Museum, Washington’s Smithsonian Institution, and Oxford and Cambridge Universities) have returned Benin Bronzes in their possession to Nigeria, or at least pledged to do so.
However, there are other organizations that have refused to do so. Among them is the British Museum, which holds the greatest number of Benin items. The museum dismissed calls made by Nigerian officials, stating that a restitution would be against a 1963 UK law. The act prohibits the permanent removal of items from the British Museum collection.
Recently, African leaders have intensified their calls for Europeans to return cultural items taken during the era of colonialism. While some initiatives have been successful (for example, the restitution agreement between Zimbabwe and two British organizations), most stolen African artifacts are still subject of dispute between their current owners and African countries. These objects include the Great Star of Africa and the Smaller Star of Africa diamonds, the Ife Head, as well as the 1000-year-old Luzira terracotta head.