Benin bronzes on display at the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin
Image: Bin im garten/wikipedia Commons
The Prussian Heritage Foundation (SPK), the federal agency responsible for supervising the Humboldt forum in Berlin, announced that it would return cultural relics looted by Germany during the colonial period to Cameroon, Namibia and Nigeria. This decision is the result of months of consultation between officials of German museums and officials of the countries where the cultural relics belong.
The cultural relics returned this time include 23 tools, jewelry and other cultural relics that were collected by the Berlin ethical Museum and sent to Namibia last month for research. They will remain in Namibia. Hermann parzinger, chairman of SPK, said, "if these items are returned permanently now, we are supporting our Namibian partners in rebuilding their country's history".
Cameroon will welcome the return of the statue of ngonso Mother God, which is of great spiritual significance to the people of NSO. This cultural relic was stolen from Cameroon by a German officer and later donated to the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin, which has been in its collection since 1903.
Nigeria finally waited for the return of more than 400 bronzes, which were part of a large number of cultural relics looted from the kingdom of Benin in 1897 and later scattered in western countries. The SPK board of directors approved the return of these cultural relics last year. On July 1, German Culture Minister Claudia Roth and foreign minister Annalena baerbock will sign a memorandum of understanding with Nigerian foreign minister zubairu dada and Minister of information and culture Lai Mohammad to start the process of cultural relics transfer.