In 1486, after several voyages made by the Portuguese on the coast of West Africa, the explorer Joao de Paiva anchored in Benin, not far from the fortress of S. In 1481 by the Portuguese king D. Joao II. Access to Benin opened up new opportunities for the Portuguese, who hastened to establish contact with the local king. The Portuguese ethnographer and archaeologist Luis Chaves, wrote in 1946: “So successful was the capture of the King of Benin that a royal embassy soon reached D. João II”. It marked the beginning of a prolific diplomatic and commercial relationship, which continued until the African continent became a particularly attractive place for the great Western powers of the nineteenth century.
The long contact between the Portuguese and the Beninese Distinguished in the artistic production of the Kingdom And in the so-called Benin bronzes, it was the objects of remarkable artistic quality that made headlines for less fortunate reasons: in 1897, after the so-called British “punitive expedition”, a large group of real sculptures in bronze and other materials were stolen from the royal residence and priests’ homes in The capital is Benin, and has spread throughout the museum institutions of Europe and North America. After years of campaigning for the return of the Benin bronze, several museums, such as the Smithsonian and Rautenstrauch Joest, took the initiative this year to return the pieces in their collections to Nigeria, whose territory includes ancient Benin. Recently, the German government is back 21 bronze objects, which have been in various museums in Germany.
At the same time, a digital platform was launched in November that aims to gather information on stolen objects and other historical items of interest, in an effort to make stolen property available to researchers and other interested parties anywhere in the world. a Digital Boys It currently collects data referring to 5,246 works of art, in 131 institutions in 20 countries, 14 of which are European. The British Museum in London is the institution that, for historical reasons, has the largest collection of Benin bronzes (944), followed by the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin (518). During the stage of contact with different institutions and information gathering, researchers from Digital Benin Set bronze in Portugalbronze ceremonial saber (Ada), which was taken to Europe after the British sack in 1897. The piece is part of the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology, which has been approached to incorporate the digital collection on September 20, 2021.
In August of the same year, researchers of the digital archive attempted to contact the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa (SGL), what’s wrong with you location Information about bronze boysmemorial head of an ancient king (Yay) in brass, which was presented to the institution at the end of the 19th century by a German ethnologist and explorer. The official digital archive source told The Observer that in addition to being contacted by email, searches for SGL were also made by phone, to no avail. In turn, the SGL, in its capacity as director and curator of its museum, confirmed to the Observer that the organization had not been contacted by Digita Benin, which only provides data officially provided by the contacted institutions and, therefore, does not have any information about the bronzes from the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, Which will have a large selection of important things.
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