THE DATING OF THE DWARF

It is often the practice of extant texts on the looted arts of the kingdom of Benin to merely assume that the history of the kingdom and its empire began in the 15th century. Often, this indifference to properly date the art and objects stolen from the kingdom serves the European or white supremacist idea that the arts of Benin are due the Portuguese arrival — a bold face error that to date continues to be the practice by the museums. The accompanying texts are lazily repeated, in a style no different from cut and paste.

The dwarf here is a case in point. According to the Art Institute of Chicago, "Dwarfs have functioned as court jesters in Benin since the 15th century." (Italics ours)

But this preposition cannot be true. Dwarfs have been a staple of Benin Arts from the Ogiso era and became more universally popular as art subjects during the expansion of the kingdom in the 1300s, i.e. Oba Ewuare's reign proper and earlier, ie before the fixated 'contact with Europeans' centuries of 15th, 16th, 17th century Africa. 

The so-called contact being attributed the 15th century was, by the way, largely at the tail end of the century. The first arrival of the Portuguese, through Ruy-de Sequiera and his wayfaring posse, entirely failed to meet with the old king and were instead held up on orders of the king at Gwatto. It wasn't until 1485 that a meeting was finally arranged, this time with de Aveiro and a new Oba. The old king, whose vision of "Edo Kpolo", ie of an expanded nation of nations, had passed on and his son, Ozolua, already crowned.

Who then dates the stolen dwarf if the museums — i.e the 'erudite' party holding the #BeninBronzes hostage — cannot be bothered to give African Art the time and diligent expertise deserved?

There is a vast, subterranean 'private collection' aspect of the looted arts of Benin Empire, where thousands of 'Benin Bronzes', whether of bronze, brass, wood or terra cotta, are hidden, stored and exchanged, between European hands, rarely openly and often furtively — as was the case of the sale of ESIGIE HEAD, which was secretly sold for £10m by the looted art dealers, the Ohly family.

Actors in this subterranean network, such as dealers in looted art, notable of which are a coterie of German art dealers, surprisingly take the time to carbon date the #BENINBRONZES sculptures. It would seem therefore as if these private, nefarious ring 'care' more, are more rigorous in their handling of the looted art in their possession than do the supposedly 'pc' museums. Even if the motivation of the former appears largely to be greed, i.e. to use the temporal advantage in hope of 'fetching more' at sale. What the museums offer are cut and paste fixations, while the objects languish hidden in dusty basement dungeons despite decades of calls for RETURN OF BENIN ARTEFACTS started since the era of Oba Akenzua by the king himself.

Below is the dating of our particular DWARF figure — supposedly gathered by the same German 'galerie'. The number of documents dating this particular #BeninBronze is supported by an unusual letter, supposedly from 'the ministry' in 'Nigeria', where the name Benin is not only misspelled, the person "Hilla Akintola" appears to be fake or non-existent, all of which exposes as likely dubious the 'galerie''s own efforts, even calling to question the supporting 'lab' dating documents on the whole.

Clearly something fishy is going on with this 'exchange'.

But what if this lab in Germany is a legitimate lab for carbon dating of this sort?

If the transaction is so boldly dubious, what about the dating? Is the date not at least legit?

That this particular DWARF figure would have been made in the time of Ewuare The Great or earlier seems to us here highly likely. Our 700years old dwarf with motif of 'uplifted face' has known many an ancestral shrine prayer and countless court jesting.

May you return back to the palace, from where you were stolen, Isée.