What may be hereafter the advantages to trade resulting from this expedition it is difficult to say, but the point of chief interest in connection with the subject of this paper was the discovery, mostly in the king’s compound and the Juju houses, of numerous works of art in brass, bronze, and ivory, which, as before stated, were mentioned by the Dutchman, Van Nyendaeel, as having been constructed by the people of Benin in 1700.
These antiquities were brought away by the members of the punitive expedition and sold in London and elsewhere. Little or no account of them could be given by the natives, and as the expedition was as usual unaccompanied by any scientific explorer charged with the duty of making inquiries upon matters of historic and antiquarian interest, no reliable information about them could be obtained. They were found buried and covered with blood, some of them having been used amongst the apparatus of their Juju sacrifices.
A good collection of these antiquities, through the agency of Mr. Charles Read, F.S.A., has found its way into the British Museum; others no doubt have fallen into the hands of persons whose chief interest in them has been as relics of a sensational and bloody episode, but their real value consists in their representing a phase of art—and rather an advanced stage—of which there is no actual record, although no doubt we cannot be far wrong in attributing it to European influence, probably that of the Portuguese some time in the sixteenth century.
A. P. R.
Rushmore, Salisbury,
April, 1900.
[DESCRIPTION OF PLATE I.]
Fig. 1.—Bronze plaque, representing two warriors with broad leaf-shaped swords in their right hands. Coral or agate head-dress. Coral chokers, badge of rank. Leopards’ teeth necklace. Coral scarf across shoulder. Leopards’ heads hanging on left sides. Skirts each ornamented with a human head. Armlets, anklets, etc. Ground ornamented with the usual foil ornament incised.
