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Jilly_in_VA

(10,942 posts)
Sun Feb 20, 2022, 11:41 AM Feb 2022

The Nigerian artwork challenging British history in St Paul's

Spotlights pick out the rhinestones in Victor Ehikhamenor's giant rosary-bead tapestry so that it sparkles, brightening up part of the crypt in the 17th Century cathedral.

This image of the oba, or king, of Benin dominates the space, through which thousands of visitors pass every week, and draws the eye.

Next to it - barely readable and tarnished through time - is a much smaller brass memorial plaque in honour of Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson, who led a punitive expedition in 1897 to the West African kingdom of Benin.

He oversaw the British soldiers and sailors who destroyed a centuries-old civilisation, looting and burning down the oba's palace in what is now Benin City in the Nigerian state of Edo.

Their looted treasures - thousands of metal sculptures and ivory carvings made between the 15th and 19th Centuries and collectively known as the Benin Bronzes - are now at the centre of a debate about the return of artefacts taken during the colonial era.

But as his plaque recalls, Rawson was revered at the time for his exploits right across the British Empire.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60429725
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This is a beautiful thing and I would love to see it!

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