Benin Plaques
- Gallery: Room 25
- Made in: Benin City
- Date: 16thC-17thC
- Object type: plaque
- Materials: brass
- Museum number: Af1898,0115.179
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
This is a brass plaque from Benin City, West Africa, dating to the 16th to 17th centuries. It was cast using the lost-wax method, a highly sophisticated technique still used today. The plaque shows a horse tail ornament decorated with a collar above it.
Look closely — the collar is carved with leopard teeth, beads, cowrie shells, and a small bell at its top. The horse tail has a central groove with fine lines flanking it. Along the plaque's sides are ten raised rosettes arranged in pairs and a background pattern of river leaves and small dots.
Once displayed in the palace of the Oba, or king, these brass plaques were mounted on wooden pillars inside the royal compound. They capture aspects of court life and show remarkable artistry. The patterns and designs reflect a unique artistic tradition from the Benin Kingdom, a place where sculpture and history come alive in bronze.
See it in person
Benin Plaques is on display in Room 25 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
New, in beta. British Museum support has just launched and is still improving: over 1,000 objects so far, with more added all the time.
