‘We are Not Owners’: Smithsonian Makes ‘Ethical’ Decision to Give Back 29 Historic Pieces to Nigeria 

Atlanta Black Star

By Nyamekye Daniel | October 17, 2022

More than two dozen artifacts held in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art have been returned to the region where they were seized.

The D.C. museum will repatriate 20 Benin bronzes to Nigeria and transfer ownership of an additional nine that it will borrow for its exhibit. The 29 historic brass plates from the Benin Kingdom are a fraction of the 10,000 items looted as British troops burned the royal place in modern-day Edo State, Nigeria, in 1897.

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