Figs. 331 and 332.—Carved wooden board, 10½ feet in length and 1 foot 11 inches broad; from a house in Benin city. It is ornamented with five panels in relief. Each panel has a circle with radiating lines, bounded by lines of guilloche pattern. The several panels are separated by broad bands of interlaced strap-work, deeply carved. The interlaced strap-work varies in design, some being simply plaited, and in others it is further complicated with twists and returns. Some have two interlaced bands, others four. The carving is irregular and traced by the eye without measure or T-square. Long sinuous snakes with heads are represented in the smaller lines dividing the panels and give the effect of a meander. The whole of the carving has originally been covered with thin plates of brass or bronze beaten on, traces of which are seen here and there fastened on with oblong rivets of metal.
Figs. 333 to 335.—Round execution block and stand of wood, elaborately carved with figures of men and animals. On the top is a pointed spike of wood, 5 inches in height, on which the head of the victim appears to have rested, and below this on the surface at the top of the block are two receptacles for the thumbs of the victim, in the form of coiled mud-fish. The ornamentation on the top consists of squares and triangles filled with parallel straight lines alternating in direction, and edged with a circle of broken guilloche pattern. On the sides are three human figures, two of which are holding hands upwards, weapons and shields, and one a curved sword of European form, point downwards. Between these figures are two boxes or stools; there are also two human hands and other objects on the other side. The bottom of the block is surrounded by a broad guilloche pattern of four or five strands. The stand on which the block stands is of semicircular form. The top is ornamented with two animals, resembling crocodiles, conforming to the outline of the curve, and other animals and objects. On the front of this stand is a row of objects, consisting, in the centre, of a human figure holding something on the abdomen, human hands, animals’ heads, and other objects. A very similar execution block, but without stand, is shown in Figs. [258 to 260], Plate XXXIV. The barbarous carving and ornamentation of such gruesome objects is quite characteristic of Benin art.
[DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLIV.]
Fig. 336.—Wooden casket in the form of an ox’s head, coated with thin brass riveted on. From the forehead two human hands rise up holding the horns. Along the forehead and along the sides are three lines of single guilloche pattern in repoussé work. The pupils of the eyes are inlaid with a dark substance. It appears to be a box or casket of some kind. A similar box is shown in the hands of the small figure in plaque No. [18], Plate IV. A precisely similar object from Benin is figured by Mr. Ling Roth in “The Studio,” December, 1898, Fig. 18; and there is also another similar in the British Museum, figured in “Antiquities from Benin in the British Museum,” Plate XI, Fig. 9.
