Benin Plaques
- Gallery: Room 25
- Made in: Benin City
- Date: 16thC-17thC
- Object type: plaque
- Materials: brass
- Museum number: Af1898,0115.9
- 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
Before you is a brass relief plaque from Benin City. Cast using the intricate lost-wax method, it shows detailed patterns on the background—river leaf designs and small, dotted marks. At the top and bottom, there are nail holes, which may once have helped attach it to a surface.
Center stage are two heads of Europeans, likely Portuguese traders or officials, shown wearing high-brimmed helmets and with long hair, moustaches, and beards. These figures are among many in a collection of royal plaques once used to decorate the palace of the Oba, the Benin king.
Cast during the 16th to 17th century by the Edo people, these plaques mark a high point in African artistic achievement. Though small, each tells a story of a time when Benin was a powerful and sophisticated kingdom.
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.
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