Benin City National Museum

In the city of the bronzes

The Benin Bronzes were made in Benin City by the royal guild of brass casters for the court of the Oba, and many were taken from the palace by British troops in 1897. The national museum stands on King's Square — the Ring Road roundabout at the centre of the city.

History

The collection is older than the building. Accounts of the museum describe a small store of antiquities kept in the palace in the time of Oba Akenzua II, later moved to a single room in the old tax office on the Ring Road. The museum opened to the public in August 1973 with its ground- and first-floor galleries, under the federal body that is now the National Commission for Museums and Monuments; a further gallery opened in August 1996.

What to see

The museum's galleries show the art of the Kingdom of Benin: cast brass and bronze heads and figures, terracotta, and cast-iron work. Most of the famous court works — the great plaques that once covered the palace pillars, the ivory pendant masks of Queen Mother Idia — are still abroad, and what can be seen here is a smaller group; reports in the 2020s described work to upgrade the building and its displays.

The casters' guild, Igun Eronmwon, still works in Igun Street, where most of its families have their workshops and cast by the lost-wax method: the museum is best seen together with the street.

The return of the bronzes

Since 2021 museums in Europe and the United States have begun to return Benin works. In 2022 Germany agreed to transfer ownership of more than a thousand objects in its public museums to Nigeria, and the Smithsonian and other museums returned pieces; in February 2026 the University of Cambridge transferred legal ownership of 116 objects to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments.

In March 2023 a presidential notice recognised the Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, as the owner and custodian of works looted from the kingdom, and some institutions paused their plans while the arrangement was worked out. The commission and the palace later agreed that the commission would manage the storage and display of returned works on the Oba's behalf. In November 2025 the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), a separate institution, opened the first building of its campus in Benin City; plans to show returned bronzes there had been set aside after disagreements with the palace. Where the returned works will finally be shown is still being decided — the Benin Bronzes page follows the story.

Visiting

Benin City is the capital of Edo State, east of Lagos. Check opening hours locally, as work on the building may close galleries. The Nigerian National Museum in Lagos holds the other great public collection of Benin works in Nigeria. For the wider tradition of casting, see African sculpture; for the region, West Africa.