They once stood in the palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in present-day Nigeria, the famous Benin bronzes. At the end of the 19th century, the British stole thousands of valuable works and sold them to collectors and museums, including in Germany. Two of the bronzes have now returned to their ancestral palace on Saturday, more than a century after they were stolen. A rooster sculpture and the head of an Oba – the highest political and ritual head in the Kingdom of Benin. Peju Layiwola, Professor at the University of Lagos. “This is a turning point. Those works were removed in 1897. Their return after 125 years, after so much negotiation, just makes everyone happy here. Look at the people. They are so excited about the return of these two treasures – they aren’t Objects, they have a very strong philosophical and cultural meaning for the people of Benin, so it’s really a wonderful event.” The two sculptures had been returned by the University of Aberdeen and the University of Cambridge. Germany had also announced that it would start returning Benin bronzes this year. More than a thousand can still be found in numerous German museums. The return has raised hopes that more artifacts could finally return to their ancestral homes. The artifacts, now mostly in Europe, were taken by explorers and colonizers from the once powerful Kingdom of Benin in what is now south-western Nigeria and are among the most important objects in African cultural heritage. According to the British Museum, they were created as early as the 16th century. “It’s not just art, it’s also things that underscore the importance of our spirituality,” Edosonmwan said in an interview on the sidelines of a ceremony also attended by traditional leaders, including the King of Benin, Ewuare II another milestone in a year-long struggle by African nations to return looted artworks, while numerous European institutions grapple with the cultural legacies of colonialism. According to estimates by French art historians, around 90% of Africa’s cultural heritage is in Europe. The Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris alone has around 70,000 African objects, the British Museum in London tens of thousands more. Germany now wants to return the art treasures. Germany wants to start returning Benin bronzes to Nigeria next year, according to the foreign and culture ministries. This is part of a growing trend to return cultural assets confiscated during the colonial era to their places of origin. British soldiers seized thousands of metal castings and sculptures in an 1897 raid on the Kingdom of Benin, then separate from British-ruled Nigeria. The “bronzes” – actually copper alloy relief sculptures, many depicting figures of the court – were auctioned off and then distributed to institutions from New Zealand to Germany to the United States, with the largest collection being found in London. The Ethnological Museum in Berlin has more than 500 historical artefacts from the Kingdom of Benin in its collections, mostly bronzes. The University of Aberdeen in Scotland announced last month that it would be one of the first public institutions to return a bronze from Benin to Nigeria within weeks. The British Museum, which owns hundreds of sculptures, along with several other museums, formed a Benin Dialogue Group to discuss Benin City’s exhibition of the sculptures, some of which are on official loan. In the Nigerian state of Edo, whose capital is Benin City, there are plans to build a center to store and study the returned artifacts by the end of 2021 and a permanent museum by 2025. The German ministries made their statement in cooperation with the German museums, which are part of the Benin Dialogue Group.