Oxbridge to hand 213 Benin Bronzes back to Nigeria

OXBRIDGE dons have agreed to return hundreds of Benin Bronzes, paving the way for the largest ever repatriation of cultural treasures from Britain.

Nigerian officials this year asked that Oxford’s Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean museums, and Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), return sculptures that were seized by British troops in an 1897 raid.

Leadership councils of both universities have agreed to return 213 Benin Bronzes, it has emerged, in a decision likely to trigger the UK’S largest restitution of imperial plunder.

The fate of the works will be decided by the Charity Commission, which will rule on whether Oxford can hand over its cultural assets to Nigeria, and the “moral” case for this repatriation. The University of Oxford told The

“The council of the University of Oxford considered and supported a claim for the return to Nigeria of 97 objects in the Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean Museum collections that were taken from Benin City by British armed forces in 1897.”

Prof Nicholas Thomas, Director of Cambridge’s MAA, said that “there is growing recognition that illegitimately acquired artefacts should be returned to their countries of origin.”

The Benin Bronzes were a cache of ornamental sculptures looted from the royal palace of Benin City – modern-day Nigeria – which ended up in museums around the world. There are 94 in the Pitt Rivers, three in the Ashmolean and 116 in Cambridges’ MAA.

The Charity Commission, which will likely make a decision by the end of the year, said it is bound to weigh in on matters “when a charity wishes to transfer property or assets due to a feeling of moral obligation”.