Has the UK reached a watershed moment for returning looted artefacts?
As some of Britain’s museums and institutions finally begin to return stolen objects such as the Benin Bronzes, Rory Sullivan explores why it’s taken so long
The repatriation process began with the return of a bronze cockerel and a bronze Oba head.
While Nigeria had long sought redress for the stolen Benin Bronzes housed in British institutions, Lagos still had nothing to show for its efforts by late last year. That was until the University of Aberdeen and Cambridge University’s Jesus College transferred ownership of an item apiece to the Nigerian authorities last October.
The artefacts had both been looted during Britain’s punitive military expedition against the Kingdom of Benin in 1897, which destroyed many lives and pillaged many cultural treasures.
Some 125 years later, the UK lags behind other European countries in its commitment to restitution. French president, Emmanuel Macron, for example, said in November 2017 that he wanted to see African heritage, sent back from Paris, “in Dakar, in Lagos, in Cotonou”, but British leaders have not been as forthcoming.
Nevertheless, support for repatriation appears to be gaining momentum in Britain too. Less than a year after the Aberdeen and Cambridge handovers, the Horniman Museum became the first government-funded museum in the UK to announce it would be restoring dozens of objects to Nigeria.
In early August, Eve Salomon, the chair of the museum’s trustees, explained why the board’s decision was unanimous. “The evidence is very clear that these objects were acquired through force, and external consultation supported our view that it is both moral and appropriate to return their ownership to Nigeria,” she said in a statement.
“We hope the decision will give charity boards the confidence to discuss repatriation requests and to understand that there is a route to take these decisions in compliance with charity law duties,” says Erica Crump, a partner at Bates Wells, the law firm that advised the Horniman on the issue.
As well as seeking permission from the Charity Commission, museums like the Horniman are also expected to approach the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for guidance.
“That DCMS was consulted and supportive of the Horniman’s decision may represent something of a mood change,” says Crump.
Bankole Sodipo, a Nigerian professor and intellectual property lawyer who had a hand in the Aberdeen and Cambridge returns, thinks a watershed moment has been reached in Britain, which will put more pressure on holdouts like the British Museum. “I’m happy about what’s happening now. People are saying, ‘it’s time, it’s time’,” he tells me.
The academic was approached by Aberdeen to offer pro-bono support in returning its Benin Bronze. He succeeded in bringing together the relevant Nigerian stakeholders and in streamlining the process. The Oba’s Palace (the Oba is the traditional ruler of the Edo people in the kingdom of Benin, and is the original owner of the bronzes), the local state of Edo and the federal government were all involved in the talks.
Sodipo was later asked by Jesus College, Cambridge, to perform the same task for the bronze cockerel that had perched for decades in its dining hall.
Curtis was at pains to stress that museums have a moral duty to repatriate looted objects like Benin Bronzes. He also encouraged other institutions to be proactive
His role in both cases was in keeping with his first name, which means “helping to build a house”, Sodipo explains. Extending the metaphor, he acknowledges that the Aberdeen and Cambridge victories were just the start of the job.
“It makes me feel good, but I know it’s just the beginning,” he says. “There’s more work to be done. Those properties are worth much more than anyone could imagine.” The Benin Bronzes were central to the ritual and religious practices of the kingdom’s royal family.
In February, Neil Curtis, head of museums at the University of Aberdeen, watched a video showing the bronze head of an Oba lifted out of a box in Edo state. It had taken four months for the shipment to receive the necessary export permissions and to reach Nigeria.
“It was wonderful,” says Curtis. “It was really moving just to see it back home. Seeing it being placed face-to-face with the Oba in the Royal Palace was tremendous.”
His university had previous experience of repatriating objects in its collection, including giving a ceremonial headdress back to the Kainai, a First Nations tribe in Canada, in 2003.
However, the difference this time around was that the university initiated the return, rather than being contacted by a claimant.
Curtis was at pains to stress that museums have a moral duty to repatriate looted objects like Benin Bronzes. He also encouraged other institutions to be proactive and to start a dialogue with affected communities overseas.
But the museum curator believes Aberdeen should not take credit for its actions. “People say, ‘oh, you were first [to return a Benin Bronze]’. Well, we’re 125 years late,”he says. “It’s a very strange race, so I don’t think we should be boasting about that.”
However, Curtis hopes other collections can learn from the steps his university took. “I’d like to think we acted as sort of a catalyst by helping to establish a consensual pathway which could be used by other museums.”
Although he does not give an exact timeframe, Curtis says repatriation will become normalised in the near future. “Partly it’s going to become business as usual,” he tells me. “That this is something that museums do: returning things they shouldn’t have, working with people to figure out what best to do with collections.”
Over in Cambridge, Véronique Mottier, a human, social and political sciences lecturer at Jesus College, is of the same opinion. “The tide is turning,” she says. “The world is changing. We’re thinking differently about our relationship to the past.”
Mottier chaired the Legacy of Slavery Working Party (LSWP), an inquiry set up by her college in 2019 into its links to colonial history. This came several years after its student body had passed a motion to return the bronze cockerel in its possession to Nigeria.
One of the LSWP’s first tasks was to examine what should be done with the artefact. “Once we had the historical information, the case was crystal clear. Within the fellowship too, it was a widely supported decision,” Mottier says.
Although the object was definitely looted, its seizure was not illegal under the racist laws governing the British military in 1897, which consisted of one set of rules for wars against other western powers and another for the rest of the world, according to Mottier.
This obstacle was easily overcome. “Our argument was that what’s legal is not always what’s moral,” says Mottier. “And that in this day and age, it would be morally indefensible to defend this kind of argument.”
At a speech at the returning ceremony on 27 October last year, Mottier apologised to the Nigerian delegation for depriving their country of the object for so long.
“Our feeling was that restitution itself was not enough. There also needs to be an acknowledgement and there needs to be an apology,” she says, adding that she found the occasion very moving but also felt mixed emotions. “On the one hand, we were all thrilled that the Benin Bronze was finally returning home. We were very proud that Jesus College was the first institution in the world to return a Benin Bronze. There was a feeling we were starting something, hopefully.
“But we were also painfully aware that we had deprived its rightful owners of this object for so long. Listening to our guests speak of how they were deprived of their ancestral heritage was very painful. It brought home how important this moment was.”
Abba Tijani, the head of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), was at both the Aberdeen and Cambridge ceremonies, along with delegates from Edo State and the Oba’s Palace.
He says the occasions were full of “great joy and excitement and emotional feelings.”
“These are objects that were stolen in 1897,” he tells me. “And Nigeria was taking possession of these artefacts for the first time after 125 years.”
Tijani says many countries have come to realise that holding onto stolen objects – something he termed “continuous colonisation” – is no longer viable.
Referring to the decisions taken by Aberdeen, Cambridge and the Horniman, he adds: “I believe this will set the pace – that other museums in the UK will follow suit.”
The NCMM boss says museums which are in possession of Benin Bronzes will not be emptied out if they agree to withdraw ownership over them. “We will give some of these items on loan,” he says. “Some of the objects will remain on display, which means they are not going to miss anything.”
As an example, he cites Germany’s Humboldt Forum in Berlin, which has agreed to return hundreds of artefacts to Nigeria. In a sign of collaboration, Lagos will allow the institution to keep some of the bronzes on loan.
Tijani says further agreements will soon be reached with museums in cities including Cologne, Leibnitz and Stuttgart. When this happens, Benin Bronzes from a range of German collections will be sent back en masse to West Africa, he says.
The question of where they will be housed in Nigeria has not been fully settled. Sodipo, the Nigerian lawyer who was instrumental to the Aberdeen and Cambridge returns, says the Oba’s Palace, Edo State and Lagos should resolve this matter quickly.
“We need to build modern museums to house the Benin Bronzes and other cultural properties wrongfully taken from Nigeria,” he says.
Tijani tells me that such matters are heading in the correct direction. He notes that some objects would be displayed at the existing Benin City National Museum, while others would end up in a new museum on land owned by the Oba’s Palace.
An agreement has yet to be reached on the latter institution, but one idea is to repurpose an existing building, the NCMM leader says. If this goes ahead, it could be operational by as early as next year.
Regardless of their final destination, the quest to repatriate the Benin Bronzes has made remarkable progress over the last few years. This poses the question of why conditions are right for their return now but weren’t earlier.
Alexander Herman, an expert in repatriation matters who works as the director of the Institute of Art and Law (IAL), says the answer is multi-faceted.
The author of Restitution: The Return of Cultural Artefacts thinks that the “sea change” in museum attitudes to Nazi loot over the past 25 years has contributed. Institutions are now generally much more concerned with the provenance of their items as a result, according to Herman.
The successful campaigns of Indigenous groups to reclaim their heritage have also been vital, as has the tougher attitude taken by law enforcement to stolen artefacts, he says. Only last week, the New York district attorney ordered that £16m of looted objects must be returned to Italy.
Herman adds that the pandemic also performed a role. Given growing digitalisation, people’s perceptions about museums have changed, leading them to see that they serve “purposes other than retaining objects.”
The death of George Floyd and the rise in prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement were also pivotal, as they have put a spotlight on Africa and racial injustice, Herman says.
Asked whether we should expect a flood of new restitution cases, the IAL director tells me: “I can’t predict whether there will be lots of claims in the next few years. It will be interesting to see the impact of the Horniman, Aberdeen and Cambridge’s decisions, and whether it expands beyond the Benin Bronzes. Because right now it is just focused on them.”
The argument for the restoration of the Benin Bronzes is perhaps more clear-cut than that of some other objects in western collections. As Herman explains, violent episodes lend themselves more easily to restitution.
“It’s a lot more complicated when you’re dealing with transactions that occurred in the past,” he says. “When something was at least ostensibly purchased, exchanged or negotiated among relative equals. That’s where you have more difficult cases.”
For now, at least, it’s Nigeria and the Benin Bronzes in the spotlight. But Tijani, the director of the NCMM, thinks the movement will soon grow. “I think Nigeria is taking the lead at the moment,” he says. “We have made headway. I believe many other countries will also come onboard.”
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