Archival Institutions

Study institutional collections of archival materials in the structure used by each institution internally. Selecting an institution gives access to details about the institution, the archival materials the institution holds, contextual references for the documents in each institution and access to the archival documents themselves. The Archive includes: descriptions of archival materials; digitised material provided by the holding institutions; links to useful resources and materials that are not digitised for further research; Digital Benin received over 900 photographs from institutions, and these are currently under review by our working group: Approaching Colonial Photographs with Care. Many of the received photographs were “produced by British and other European colonial actors and document the desecration and looting of 1897, the Benin royal palace and community (including private shrines and altars), as well as the journey of the Benin Bronzes out of Nigeria after looting [...] This means that the photographs are contested and potentially distressing, in the sense that they represent (and enact) violence, theft, appropriation, racialization, dissemination and sale of cultural property, and exhibition in European and American museums.” (Odomosu, 2023, pp.1, 4). Digital Benin continues to gather these photographs from museum, library and archive collections around the world, many which have already provided varying degrees of digital access. The working group, consisting of experts in Benin City and the diaspora, have started the process to produce ethical considerations initially outlined by Dr Temi Odumosu in the text linked here. The group’s aim is to produce a guide for critical cataloguing and the creation of an ethical guidance resource for access to these photographs. For a more detailed account of the selection process for archival documents, see the documentation. Other useful resources: Charles Gore’s ‘Bibliography of Published Research on Benin City’ Charles Gore’s ‘Films on Benin City and the Edo Kingdom' See the CD resource from L. Harding (2010), Das Königreich Benin: Geschichte – Kultur – Wirtschaft, De Gruyter Oldenbourg.