Benin Empire

The Benin Empire, centred on the Edo people of present-day southern Nigeria, was one of the oldest and most highly developed states of West Africa, celebrated above all for its extraordinary artistic achievements and the splendour of its capital.

Its origins trace to around 1180, when, according to Edo tradition, the older Ogiso line of rulers gave way to a new dynasty whose first king, or Oba, was Eweka I, said to be connected to the Yoruba sacred city of Ile-Ife. The kingdom was transformed into a powerful empire from the fifteenth century under a series of warrior-kings, above all Oba Ewuare the Great (Ewuare I), who is credited with expanding the realm through extensive conquests, rebuilding and fortifying the capital, Benin City, with its famous walls and moats, and reorganising the state's political structure around the office of the Oba. At its height in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries the empire dominated a broad territory across southern Nigeria and exerted influence from the Niger Delta toward Lagos and the edge of Yorubaland. Benin City was a large, well-planned settlement that impressed early European visitors with its scale, order, and grand royal palace. The empire is internationally renowned for the Benin Bronzes, magnificent cast brass and bronze plaques and sculptures produced by guilds of royal artisans, along with works in ivory and wood, which rank among the finest artistic traditions of the pre-colonial world and adorned the palace as records of dynastic history. Benin engaged in extensive trade with European powers, exchanging ivory, pepper, and other goods. From the eighteenth century the empire experienced periods of internal conflict and gradual decline, and in the late nineteenth century it came under intense pressure from British imperial expansion. In 1897 a British punitive expedition invaded, burned Benin City, exiled the reigning Oba Ovonramwen, and looted thousands of the celebrated bronzes, ending the empire's independence and incorporating its territory into colonial Nigeria.

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