Loudly though it demands restitution of ancient artefacts from Western museums, the Nigerian Government seems less concerned about the Benin Bronzes which it already owns. Where exactly are they? The questions just keep coming.
Germany signed over 1,130 bronze artworks from five of its state museums on July 1st 2022. Two were presented to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) that day, 20 more at Abuja five days before Christmas.
All the rest now belong to the NCMM, with a few allowed to remain on display in German museums for up to 10 years (but no more than 40 at a time) and the rest in storage. Despite Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s claim in Nigeria that she was returning the bronzes to “you, the people”, they’ve not been seen by the Nigerian people since. The NCMM’s director, the modestly-qualified Professor Abba Tijani, has been quietly handing them over to the Oba (King) of Benin.
In 2018 the enormous ‘Benin Red Book’ was published, propaganda for the present Oba and his forebears covering 592 lavishly printed pages. It weighs 4.8kg without slipcase and Blackwell’s have some new copies online at £55.99 post free – a snip at £11.65 a kilo (you even get ten free teabags). Official title: The Benin Monarchy, an Anthology of Benin History.
Full-page colour plates show Benin ivory and bronze artworks, many credited to German, British, American and Austrian museums (the German pieces now belong to Nigeria of course). Many other pictures are unsourced, but bronzes on pages 73 and 82 are credited to “National Museum, Benin” – the NCMM’s own museum in Benin City.
In November 2022, the German-financed Digital Benin database went online. This splendid resource shows 5,246 artefacts in 131 institutions around the world; the fifth-biggest collection is the 285 pieces at the National Museum, Benin, illustrated with either modern colour snaps or old sepia photos stapled to file cards. Neither of the NCMM’s own bronzes which are shown in the Oba’s propaganda volume is listed. So where did they go between 2018 and the end of 2022?
Since independence in 1960 there have been repeated, well-reported thefts from Nigeria’s state museums, some of which artworks have been returned but many not – the best known being the Windsor Castle Oba which General Gowon stole from Lagos museum to give to Queen Elizabeth II on his state visit in 1973. Why are curators and trustees in the U.K. and America persisting in efforts to restitute bronzes to Nigeria, which seems unable to keep them safe?
The Oba’s book is interesting for a number of reasons. A 1970 colour photo across pages 70 and 71 shows blood-soaked ancestral altars with massive carved ivory tusks and bronze heads, bells and plaques. Bronzes which the 1897 Punitive Expedition found on display in Benin – the ones now shown, cleaned up, in Western museums – were crusted with the blood of human sacrifices then. Presumably by 1970 it was only chicken gore which was being splashed on the altars, to honour the ancestors and in memory of the mass sacrifice of prisoners and slaves in former times.
A modern colour painting on pages 302-3 imagines street fighting in Benin as the expedition deposed Oba Ovonramwen. Most of the advanced column which entered Benin were in fact black soldiers, not the blood-crazed whites shown here, and nor was there any fighting inside the city. A couple of the notoriously inaccurate rockets which the expedition had aimed in the general direction of Benin as it fought through the jungle had landed, by a fluke, in the Oba’s palace compound, so he and his supporters ran away into the bush. Those two rockets prevented an awful lot of bloodshed.
Nor was the city burnt on February 18th: thatched roofs on the far side of town caught fire by accident three days later, and strong wind blew the flames across to the Oba’s palace. The blaze was so sudden and unexpected that only the wounded in the temporary ‘hospital’ and the expedition’s ammunition could be saved from the flames. Officers lost everything but the clothes they stood up in, provisions too, so they were delighted when the Illustrated London News correspondent arrived that evening and shared out his three months’ personal provisions before they set off back to the coast next morning.
The Red Book’s text is as contentious as one might imagine, but fair enough, he who pays the printer may always call the tune. It’ll make a splendid doorstop.
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To have any chance of hitting net zero targets, we need those bronzes – they are 88% copper and we need 9.7 Mt of the stuff over the next ten years.
‘Copper supply shortfalls begin in 2025 and last through most of the following decade. Substitution and recycling will not be enough to meet the demands of EVs, power infrastructure, and renewable generation. The goal of Net-Zero Emissions by 2050 will be short-circuited and remain out of reach unless massive new supply comes online in a timely way.’
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/mi/research-analysis/growing-appetite-copper-threatens-energy-transition-climate.html#:~:text=Surpluses%20will%20likely%20emerge%20in,Net%2DZero%20Emissions%20by%202050.
Why is copper difficult to get hold of? Oh….China controls the copper market…..
That would be the same China that is increasing emissions……
In the current scheme of things what on earth has this got to do with DS? Surely there are enough nefarious activities underway to keep the editorial team occupied?
Perplexed.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-03-26-california-farmers-lose-billions-rain-crops-collapse.html
And this story highlights the problems of food security – or lack of.
https://www.technocracy.news/oh-oh-chatgpt-can-access-the-internet-and-run-the-code-it-writes/
This looks like disturbing news.
Or as the author puts it:
“It’s bonkers stuff.”
My understanding of IT is extremely limited but the techies might appreciate this.
Perhaps we can turn this into the ‘Miscellaneous/free-for-all’ thread..?
An excellent idea Mogs. A bit like the “old days” BTL
Spot on as usual.
I’m still in favour of dumping whatever of these ‘Bronzes‘ remains in European museums into the streets at some preannounced time. The Nigerians or whoever else might want them are then free to collect them and take them away. They can then keep them as cherished national treasures at home, telling their children how great the times were when warriors of a stone age culture (the metal for the ‘Bronzes’ was given to local chief as payment for slaves) ran around with blunt clubs and knocked people on the head to sell them or ritually kill them, before this ghastly European civilization arrived.
Someone who believes this to be art should really get a (new) pair of glasses.
And speaking of ”dumping” ( thanks for the segue ) here’s an interesting off-territory jobby ( blame the huxter. He started it!
)
”The world first started to hear about a novel coronavirus in early January 2020, with reports of an alleged new pneumonia like illness spreading across Wuhan, China. However, the world did not actually know of Covid-19 until February 2020, because it was not until the 11th of that month that the World Health Organisation officially named the novel coronavirus disease as Covid-19.
So with this being the official truth, why does United States Government data show that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) awarded a contract on the 12th November 2019 to Labyrinth Global Health INC. for ‘COVID-19 Research’, at least one month before the alleged emergence of the novel coronavirus, and three months before it was officially dubbed Covid-19?
The shocking findings however, do not end there. The contract awarded in November 2019 for ‘COVID-19 Research’ was not only instructed to take place in Ukraine, it was in fact part of a much larger contract for a ‘Biological threat reduction program in Ukraine’.
Perhaps explaining why Labyrinth Global Health has been collaborating with Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, and Ernest Wolfe’s Metabiota since its formation in 2017.”
https://expose-news.com/2023/03/27/us-dod-created-covid-evidence-suggests/
Well ? Benin bronzes? What on earth?
Yeah I totally couldn’t come up with a tenuous link to that specifically so I’m glad RW came to my rescue.
Well if you need a tone lowered or a thread highjacked, just holler!
I’m with you Mogs
And that’s not all Mogs. I remember at the very beginning of this Scamdemic when I was deep diving all sorts of rabbit holes finding links to contracts for covid 19 for all sorts : medicines, PPE, etc and there were plenty from years before C1984 was official ie 2019. I could not find those links now but they were sufficient to convince me that this was all a big, mighty Scam.
Not watched the vid yet but David Martin seems pretty much on top of all the patent-related stuff.
”David makes a tight case, backed by mountainous evidence that COVID-19 wasn’t a lab leak. It is a US bioweapon, as is the so-called vaccine. The primary motive is money.
Furthermore, he says “SARS-CoV-2” is not novel. It’s the same old SARS (SARS-CoV-1) bioweapon targeted for human lung epithelium that Anthony Fauci commissioned the University of North Carolina to create and which was patented on April 19th 2002, months before what he calls the “alleged” outbreak in Asia.
The goal of all of this has been to institute an aggressive “pan-coronavirus” vaccine schedule for adults, that seeks to replace our natural immune system with synthetic mRNA biology. This goal and the means to achieve it is encapsulated in a statement made by Wuhan Institute Gain-of-Function contractor, Peter Daszak in 2015: “We need to increase public understanding of the need for medical countermeasures, such as a pan-coronavirus vaccine. A key driver is the media and the economics will follow that hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of the process.”
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/there-is-no-variant-not-novel-no-pandemic-dr-david-martin-with-reiner-fuellmich/
In over 2000 years, the indigenous black people on the continent of Africa never built or launched a single seaworthy boat to allow them to escape Africa. There was not a single two storey building built, just basic huts made with wood straw or stones. Not a single statue was erected to an influential black person. It was only when the dreaded white man arrived did that change. They don’t act or think or create as white people do. That statement was made by a black priest.
Africa 200 years ago. Predominantly neolithic, 3500 waring tribes. Africa 200 days ago various states of chaos 3500 waring tribes. Europe 200 days ago something similar to Africa 200 days ago. Ah the effects of cultural contact.