Akhẹ-Osun (Osun pot) is a specific term for the pot used for storing medicinal plants at the Osun Shrine. Akhẹ-Osun can be distinguished by the high-relief decorative motifs around the rim of these pots, which are often figurative. The motifs depend on the deity at whose shrine the Akhẹ-Osun was used for medicine. We have Akhẹ-Osun Ake, Akhẹ-Osun Ebomisi, Akhẹ-Osun Olokun, Akhẹ-Osun Oghidian and many other deities.
Akhẹ-Osun, Akhẹ-Amẹ and Akhẹ are all grouped under the English designation ‘pots’.
Bronze vase from Benin. No. 107 in the sale catalogue where it is described as follows: " A RARE BENIN BRONZE VASE the ovoid body with flared neck, and double handles formed of catfish each with a nativeman in its mouth and divided by human figures playing musical instruments, their heads touching the rim and modelled in the round to the waist, the draped skirts and crossed legs in relief, flanked by a tortoise and a snail on a field of interlaced strapwork, guilloche decoration and geometric motifs in eight zones, 9 1/4 ins., perhaps unique."
This was bought after the sale by negotiation with the buyer at the sale, Mr. A. Vecht of Amsterdam, Holland.
Purchased by the Nigerian Government at the Sale by Messrs. Sotheby & Co. Bond Street, London on April 26th 1954: M. B. E. B. Fagg, assistant surveyor of antiquities, acted for the Nigerian Government at the sale and in subsequent negotiations : P.V. 5/14/54-55 and 5/15/54-55.
The property of Mrs. Dorothy Hemingway. (From the collection of Dr. R. Allman, Principal Medical Officer of Southern Nigeria during the Benin Punitive Expeditionof 1897).