Ama is a pictorial combination of figures that has a historical explanation or is a visual representation of a historical event. Ama had a mnemonic purpose, aiding one to recall the events or persons represented in the artwork. Benin oral traditions are popularly transmitted in the form of commemorative festivals, stories, plays, songs, poems, riddles, proverbs and other forms of oral literature. Ben-Amos (1980:28) observed the existence of over nine hundred known plaques which provided a testimony to court life at the time of Ọba Esigie, considered ‘a sort of pictorial record of events in Benin history, an aid to memorizing oral traditions’.

Although the objects grouped here are singularly described as Ama in Edo, in English they are described as relief plaques or carved wooden panels.

European historical accounts and Edo oral tradition alike describe how the relief plaques decorated the walls or pillars of the Benin royal palace as a piece of monumental architecture. By 1897, when British forces captured, looted and burnt down the royal palace, the plaques were no longer on display, they had been placed in storage within the palace. Gunsch’s (2017

) most recent survey has indicated there are at least 850 plaques in collections globally. When exactly the plaques were made is source of debate – some have argued they were cast over a period of around 150 years from the mid-sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth century (Fagg, 1970

). Meanwhile, others have attributed their manufacture to a much narrower window of around fifty years from the end of fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century (Gunsch, 2017

). Despite these differences, it is agreed that some plaques were commissioned by Ọba Esigie (who reigned c. 1516/17–1550s).

Relief Plaque

A large number of fragments of objects are known from collections associated with the Kingdom of Benin. Some of these objects may have been broken before 1897 and looted in this fragmentary state. The fact that such objects were also seized in 1897 indicates the extent to which looting took place, extending beyond the largest, most intricate pieces, to virtually anything and everything. Others may have been broken during the military campaign and fire, and some in the years after, as objects moved between museums and owners. Some fragments of the same objects are known in different collections, and it is hoped by placing them together here, more examples might be found.

Fragment

Austria

Website

Online Catalogue

Weltmuseum Wien

Internal Data (ger)

British Museum link

Knize, Frederick

Collector

Dealer

Knize, Peter

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hofzwerg

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British Colonial Military Campaign on Benin, February 1897

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