Akhẹ is the general term for all earthenware pots. Pottery is one of the oldest traditional crafts practised in Benin, and Akhẹ continue to be made and used today in Benin City. Potters were, and continue to be, known as Imakhe, and they are often women.

Akhẹ had a variety of purposes in Benin Kingdom, and the amount and type of decoration indicate what they may have been used for in the past. For example, simply decorated globular pots identified as Akhẹ-Amẹ likely would have been used to store water. Meanwhile, pots decorated with snakes, frogs and small representations of people are considered Akhẹ-Osun (Osun pots) and would have been used by ritual experts who were associated with the deity of medicine, Osun. Those whose function cannot be identified have been grouped here under the general term Akhẹ.

Akhẹ

. These pots stored water in the past, although they are not so popular today. Akhẹ-Amẹ, Akhẹ-Osun and Akhẹ are all grouped under the English designation ‘pots’.

Akhẹ Amẹ

Pots had a variety of purposes in Benin Kingdom, and the amount and kind of decoration indicates what they may have been used for. Simply decorated globular pots likely would have been used to store water; they are identified as Akhẹ-Amẹ. Pots decorated with snakes, frogs and small representations of people are considered as Akhẹ-Osun, or Osun pots, and would have been used by ritual experts who were associated with Osun, the deity of medicine. Those whose function could not be identified have been grouped here under the general term Akhẹ.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The British Museum’s archives are held in various locations across the institution. The items listed here aim to give an overview of the main locations where relevant archival and photographic material relating to objects from the Kingdom of Benin is housed. Key areas relevant for cultural objects from the Kingdom of Benin are: Corporate Archives; Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas archives; Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory archives; and the Anthropology Library and Research Centre.

Website

Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas 

Online Catalogue

Library & Archive

British Museum

Internal Data (eng)

Wikidata Link

Beasley, Harry Geoffrey

Dealer

Collector

British Museum link

Beasley, Irene Marguerite 

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juju 

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dwarf

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aboriginal

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tribe

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non-western

western-art

western museum

tribal

hofzwerg

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British Colonial Military Campaign on Benin, February 1897

expedition

exotic

negro

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Black Africa

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primitive

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medicine man

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