Sweden returns 39 Benin objects to Nigeria

Six of the 39 Benin objects will stay in Sweden, yet Sweden no longer owns them. Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the national heritage body, now owns them. The six are lent to the Swedish museums for ten years. Världskulturmuseerna, the Swedish museums group, announced the move on 5 November.

In Lagos, Olugbile Holloway, the commission's head, signed the transfer with Britta Söderqvist, the museums' head. A separate deal covers the loan. The commission has a deal with the royal court of Benin City to receive returned objects.

British forces looted thousands of objects from the Edo people in 1897. The 39 later reached the then ethnographic department of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. They are cast copper alloy, carved ivory and carved wood.

The context

The Swedish Government cleared the way on 16 November 2023. It let the museums transfer objects to Bolivia and Nigeria, after requests in December 2022 and February 2023. Its notice adds that the museums handle the handover itself.

The 39 come from the Kingdom of Benin (an Edo state, now in Nigeria, not the nearby Republic of Benin). Between 5,000 and 10,000 objects from the 1897 looting are now spread around the world, the museums say.

What is moving to Bolivia

A second return runs in parallel. Sveriges Television, or SVT, reports that 77 Kallawaya objects have moved from storage in Gothenburg to a museum in La Paz. They include human remains. A museum head in Gothenburg bought the collection in 1970, and the museum says it left Bolivia by illegal means.

The Art Newspaper dates the objects to roughly the years 600 to 1000, the Tiwanaku period. Grave robbers looted them in the 1970s, and they were later sold to the museum, it says. One object, a wiphala (a flag of many colours) from Niño Korin, is among those going back. The 2023 decision allowed transfer to the village of Ayllu Niño Corin and the Kallawaya people.

Our view

We think the loan is the detail to watch. It shows that title can change while museums keep working together. Michael Barrett, the Swedish museums' curator for Africa, said returning violently looted belongings to their communities of origin is "a necessary first step".

I needed a second cup of tea to keep the names straight.

This return follows two others. The Netherlands gave back 119 objects last year, and Cambridge University gave back 116 in February.