When visitors arrive at Benin Airport in southern Nigeria’s Edo State, one of the first things they see is a large poster welcoming them to the state’s capital city. It features an aerial photograph of a huge traffic circle—one of the world’s largest, authorities boast—known as Ovonramwen Square, named for the powerful oba, or king, who reigned over the Benin Kingdom from 1888 to 1897. Towering over the giant roundabout are striking bronze sculptures featuring larger-than-life-size royal figures and their attendants and, in one case, a soon-to-die warrior battling British soldiers. The statues are masterpieces of modern smithing. In a corner of the poster, in front of which travelers pose for family photos, is an image of a sixteenth-century ivory pendant mask depicting Idia, the mother of Oba Esigie (reigned ca. 1504–1550). Five nearly identical pendants, meant to be worn on a belt, are known to exist.
Ovonramwen Square is distinguished by more than its size and statues. Today it lies at the center of the low-rise city’s street network, circled by six lanes of traffic and, on a bad day, partially clogged by market stalls and pedestrians. Set among trees in a small park amid the revolving cars and trucks is the Benin City National Museum, which houses material from Nigeria’s rich array of cultures, including the Benin Kingdom. From the thirteenth to nineteenth century, Benin City, then known as Edo, was the capital of one of West Africa’s most powerful kingdoms. At the end of the twelfth century, according to oral tradition, the Edo people in what is now the center of southern Nigeria rebelled against their rulers, known as ogisos, or “kings of the sky,” and founded the Benin Kingdom. Their first oba was named Eweka.
Over the following centuries, the dynastic kingdom grew through treaties, war, and trade with regional kingdoms, cultures, and, from the fifteenth century, European powers.
