Oranmiyan chose his son Eweka to be the first Oba of Benin. An Oba was a ruler. By the 1400s Benin was a wealthy kingdom. The Obas lived in beautiful palaces decorated with shining brass.

Barnaby Phillips, the author of Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes (2021), tells The Art Newspaper: “For many Edo people, it is right and proper that such objects go back to the Oba as they ...

T HE SACKING of Benin City by a heavily armed expeditionary force in February 1897 was said to be an act of revenge in a bitter trade dispute between Britain and the Kingdom of Benin, east of Lagos.