THE BENIN BRONZES’ SECRET INGREDIENT
Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Edo people of the Kingdom of Benin, which controlled territory on the west coast of Africa that is now part of Nigeria, produced thousands of artworks that have come to be known as the Benin Bronzes. The works, which once decorated the kingdom’s royal palace, include personal ornaments, animal and human figurines, plaques that illustrate the kingdom’s history, and sculpted heads of its , or kings. A