The Benin Bronzes Aren’t Just Ancient History. Meet the Contemporary Casters Who Are Still Making Them Today
In an excerpt from his new book, Barnaby Phillips visits contemporary casters who are still making bronzes using ancient techniques.
May 13, 2021
Craftsman finishing polishing the last details of a bronze statuette made using the technique of lost wax casting, used in the kingdom of Benin before the European colonizers arrived. Photo by Jorge Fernández/LightRocket via Getty Images.
, Barnaby Phillips, a journalist specializing in African affairs, looks at the past and future of the contested sculptures, thousands of which were stolen during a 19th-century punitive British raid of the Benin Royal Palace in modern-day Nigeria. In this excerpt, Phillips visits contemporary casters who are still making bronzes using ancient techniques, but largely working from images, given that their heritage is held in museums abroad.
Published:
December 18, 2020 at 12:05 pm
It is a common scene in film and television: as a Viking warrior dies, they desperately clutch for their sword or axe so that they perish ‘in battle’ and make it to Valhalla – the Norse god Odin’s magnificent hall in Asgard.
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In Valhalla, these slain warriors would continue fighting, spending their days honing their combat skills. In the evening their wounds would heal – and those who had been ‘killed’ during the day would come back to life.
The nights were spent drinking the finest mead and feasting on the meat of Sæhrímnir the boar – who also came back to life, every morning, to be slaughtered anew. They would be served by the Valkyries, the same female figures who were believed to bring fallen Vikings to Odin’s hall.
This engraving shows Aztec King Montezuma II meeting conquistador Hernán Cortés. Montezuma II ruled from 1502 to 1520. Prisma/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A little more than 500 years ago, a meeting occurred between two men that forever altered the course of history. The encounter took place in the magnificent Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, the seat of a wealthy and powerful Aztec empire that ruled over vast regions of central and southern Mexico. On Nov. 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, after months of battling neighboring cities, entered Tenochtitlán and won an audience with the emperor we know as Montezuma II, the last fully independent ruler of the Aztec empire.