Historic Handover: Looted Benin Bronzes Returned By Germany thewestsidegazette.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thewestsidegazette.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A German museum has agreed to loan back ancient artifacts looted from the African country of Namibia by the former European colonizer instead of returning them to their real owners.
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For years, the head of a queen sat in storage in a building in Berlin. Her face is smooth, but her head is intricately engraved and topped with a crown befitting a
lyoba a matriarch figure from the Kingdom of Benin, in present day Nigeria.
Carved in the early 16
th century, it is one of more than a thousand metal sculptures looted by British soldiers as they plundered Benin City in 1897. In the century since, the so-called Benin Bronzes have been bought and sold by museums and private collectors across Europe and North America, and today they are among the most coveted African artifacts in the world.