Planks (plaques, reliefs) depicting various scenes from the everyday and court life of Benin, among whose characters - warriors, nobles, cult animals, Europeans (from the 16th century), covered the columns of galleries that surrounded the courtyards of the palaces of ob - rulers and sacred kings of Benin. At the courts of Benin there was a complex hierarchical system of court ranks, which consisted of relatives of the Oba and the clan nobility. On the plaque, the nobleman holds in his hands the ritual sacred sword eben, with which the ruler is greeted in festive ceremonies.
Olderogge Dmitry Alekseevich Antiquities of Benin, II (uhuv-elao of Benin kings) // Collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography / otv. ed. S.P. Tolstov. - M .; L .: Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1955. - 461 p .: ill. - (Collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography; vol. 16) 1955 Olderogge Dmitry Alekseevich Antiquities of Benin (from the collections of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography) // Collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography / otv. ed. S.P. Tolstov. - M .; L .: Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1953 .-- 554 p .: ill. - (Collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography; vol. 15).