Why are Western museums giving back their artefacts?

NIGERIA IS MOVING closer to securing the return of some of its most treasured cultural artefacts. The Benin bronzes, sculptures that once decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, now in south-eastern Nigeria, were looted by British forces in 1897, along with thousands of other precious items. They are now scattered across more than 160 museums and countless private collections, mostly in the West. In March a German official travelled to Nigeria to discuss the return of some of the bronzes held in Berlin. The University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, has promised to return one of the bronzes within weeks. And this month the Horniman Museum in London announced it will consider returning its pieces. Why are they giving back the artefacts, and how far will the process of restitution go?

Some of the Benin bronzes lie in London, behind thick vitrine glass in room 25 of the British Museum’s Africa Galleries. An inscription describes how the items came to be in the museum’s collection. It has changed over the years. It used to tell of imperial bravery against bush savages; now it tells a story of colonial violence and expansion. At the end of the 19th century British forces razed the city of Benin to the ground, demolishing the mud-walled compounds, as well as hundreds of houses and ceremonial buildings. On the former palace grounds, officers built a golf course. Then they seized thousands of royal and sacred objects to take home with them. The bronzes were initially exhibited to show the vast reach of the empire. Today institutions such as the British Museum find themselves at an impasse, struggling to come to terms with their colonial legacy, taking some steps to return artefacts but not wanting to lose their prized collections.