Abstract
AMONG the spoils, interesting to ethnologists, brought back from Benin by the punitive expedition under Admiral Rawson, was a large number of elaborately carved elephant's tusks, some of them of remarkable length; various smaller objects in ivory; profusely ornamented wooden panels forming doors and looking-glass frames, and hundreds of objects of great multiplicity of design cast in metal, both in the round and in high relief. The wonderful technical skill displayed in the construction of the metal objects, their lavish ornamentation, much of which is deeply undercut, and in nearly every case the high artistic excellence of the completed subject, have been a surprise and a puzzle to all students of West African ethnology. If they have now begun to recover from their surprise that work of such excellence, indicating skill born of long experience, should have come to light from among so barbarous a race, and that no whisper of its existence should have reached Europe, notwithstanding its great abundance (as attested by the numerous pieces exposed in London and provincial auction rooms, in addition to the hundreds of plaques and figures sent to the British Museum); there has, at all events, been as yet no elucidation of the mysteries—who were its manufacturers, where and: when was it executed, and whence did they derive the knowledge of this art?
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Cast Metal Work from Benin. Nature 58, 224–226 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/058224d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/058224d0