The aim of this space is to display the historical objects with their correct Edo designation, which creates object groups that differ from the current vocabulary used and interpreted by institutions outside of Nigeria. The object groups are displayed visually, described in written language and vocalised in spoken language.

Ẹyo Otọ

A central tool of Digital Benin, the catalogue forms one of two digital spaces on the platform where the dispersed Benin objects are re-assembled. Object data from 137 institutions across twenty countries that currently hold 5,285 historic Benin objects can be searched, filtered, studied and viewed.

Catalogue

Study each institutional collection of Benin objects and sort the list of institutions by name, object count and country. Selecting an institution gives access to an introduction page with details about the institution, the collected data and an overview of object groups in the collection.

Institutions

Central to the consideration of the Benin objects currently dispersed across at least 136 institutions is the question of their ties to the British colonial military campaign on Benin City, or the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1897, led by British Navy forces and members of the Niger Coast Protectorate, which caused the wide-scale looting of the royal palace and the city.

Provenance

This map shows contemporary Edo South (ancient Benin Kingdom) and Benin City. Focussing on the historical landmarks of Benin Kingdom, it is a geographical presentation of the rich cultural heritage of Benin people from the capital Benin City to the outlying ancient towns and villages within the seven present-day Local Government Areas of Edo South Senatorial District of Edo State, Nigeria.

This is to tell our story as Benin people, the way we want it to be told

. Benin people teach and learn about their history and culture through oral accounts passed down from one generation to another. These accounts have been preserved for centuries.

Oral History

Itan Edo means the story of Benin Kingdom. This space presents Benin history from an indigenous perspective using Benin-authored sources exclusively. The historical narration dates back to the earliest period of the Ogiso dynasty, revealing the societal evolution and significant developments in Benin Kingdom until the twentieth century.

Itan Edo

Access to archival documents is a pivotal expansion from the 

. Just as the historic Benin objects are dispersed across institutions globally, so are the relevant archival materials. Although not comprehensive, these documents are identified and brought together by Digital Benin, and selected for their relevance to the study of the historic objects and the history of the Benin Kingdom.

Archival Documents

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.

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.


Bibliography of Published Research on Benin City

See the CD resource from L. Harding (2010), Das Königreich Benin: Geschichte – Kultur – Wirtschaft, De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Archival Institutions

Digital Benin makes research, materials and developments on the platform visible here. Interactions within these visual research tools provide a distant view and the possibility to dive deeper into the assembled materials on the platform.

Digital Research Tools

The Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung (Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation) generously funded the project with more than 1.5 million Euros for the initial two years (2020–22) and an extension for one more year (2023). The Gerda Henkel Foundation has also supported digitization measures in Nigeria as part of Digital Benin with 25,000 Euros. Since December 2023, the new project phase of three years funded by the Mellon Foundation continues with a grant of 2.6 million Euros.

The MARKK serves as the official seat of the project and is responsible for the project administration, accounting, press relations and reporting to the foundation.

Funding & host

Dimitri Müller is a Data Scientist and Engineer, specializing in the fields of digital humanities and computational social sciences. He holds a Mathematics degree from Sorbonne University. Dimitri worked at the Sciences Po médialab, where he contributed to research projects that merged technology and social sciences. His work involved the collection and management of datasets, training and applying machine learning models, conducting statistical and network analysis, and performing data visualization for various research projects across the domains of sociology, political science and art history.

Dimitri Müller is responsible for the data transfer, management, modeling and processing for Digital Benin. His crucial role in the project is to make it the data accessible first to the researchers in the project and ultimately for the presentation on the platform. He worked collaboratively with the technical team and researchers on all archival materials, photographs, updated object data and research presented on Digital Benin. 

Dimitri Müller

Mabel Osaruemwinnomwan Oviahon is a Junior Research Fellow at the Institute for Benin Studies. She is a Research Fellow of the French Institute for Research in Africa, Nigeria (IFRA-NIGERIA). Her research interests are Cultural History in general and Benin Art History in particular. She worked as a Research Assistant at the Institute for Benin Studies until 2021. She is a graduate in the Department of History and international Studies, University of Benin, where she obtained her B.A in History. Currently, she is collecting and documenting funeral songs by the Benin people of southern Nigeria as part of an Institute for Benin Studies and IFRA-Nigeria collaborative project on digitalization.

Mabel Osaruemwinnomwan Oviahon assists the content production and bibliographical reference for Itan Edo. Her extensive knowledge of Benin history and culture makes it possible to locate non-digitised texts in libraries in Benin City, particularly the Institute for Benin Studies, where she is a research assistant with a special interest in historical Benin objects, funeral songs and oral traditions. She collaborates in the establishment of an extensive bibliography brought together by Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie and on the documentation of oral traditions in Benin City. 

Mabel Osaruemwinnomwan Oviahon

The logo for Digital Benin was designed by the Agency for Branddesign MüllerValentini prior to the beginning of the project in 2020.

MüllerValentini

University of Benin

Prof. Dr. Omoregbe

Max Bach, based in Berlin, brought his expertise in proofreading and editing international and multi-dimensional publications (digital and printed) to this project. The preservation of the diverse voices and a mix of English standards and Edo grammar in the text was a key baseline for the proofreading. The Digital Benin-authored texts were proofread, while the data provided by the institutions was not changed at a

Max Bach

Dr. Temi Odumosu is an interdisciplinary scholar and curator at University of Washington Information School in Seattle. She is author of the book 

Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour

 (2017). Her current teaching is in the field of critical information studies, and her research and curatorial interests include archives and African Diasporic memory, digitization of cultural heritage, image ethics, and information justice. Overall, she is focused on the ways art can mediate social transformation and healing.

Dr. Temi Odumosu wrote the initial outline of the reasoning and decision to form a group that will work in the upcoming project phase on accessibility formats for over 900 photographs from institutions worldwide. One outcome of her 

 was to review the photographs and to form the working group '

Approaching Colonial Photographs with Care

Dr. Temi Odumosu

Chao Tayiana Maina is a Kenyan digital heritage specialist and digital humanities scholar working at the intersection of culture and technology. Her work primarily focuses on the application of technology in the preservation, engagement and dissemination of African heritage. She holds an MSc International Heritage Visualisation (distinction) and a BSc Mathematics and Computer Science. Her research work explored the possibilities of embedding intangible histories in 3D digital environments. She is a recipient of the Google Anita Borg scholarship for women in technology. She is the founder of African Digital Heritage (https://africandigitalheritage.org/), she is also a co-founder of the Museum of British Colonialism (https://www.museumofbritishcolonialism.org/) where she leads digital engagement and is a co-founder of the Open Restitution Africa (http://openrestitution.africa/) project. Portfolio website: https://headstronghistorian.com/ (https://headstronghistorian.com/)

Chao Tayiana Maina, a Kenyan historian and digital-heritage specialist working at the intersection of culture and technology, consulted Digital Benin on the use and publication of derogatory, racist and harmful language on the platform in data and information received from the institutions. Her work primarily focuses on the use of technology in the preservation, engagement and dissemination of African heritage, and she consulted multiple institutions about the topic prior to the proposal she established within the limited time frame after having viewed most of the data on the platform. Her proposal led to the development of trigger warnings in the data transferred by the institutions and a matrix for the differing wording. One outcome of her proposal was to bring the publication of the archival material received from the institutions into an extension of the project because the content and language in the material demands more extensive consultation.

Chao Tayiana Maina

Iwinosa Oyakhire is a cultural practitioner committed to designing impactful programming focused on Nigerian and African cultures. Through cultural research, program design, and community engagement, she aims to make African heritage accessible and relevant to contemporary audiences. With nearly a decade of experience in various roles, Iwinosa has made a notable impact on the Nigerian creative and cultural landscape. At the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), she was instrumental in shaping the institution’s early growth in Benin City, facilitating key stakeholder relationships with government bodies and traditional arts councils to bring the museum’s vision to life. She later played a pivotal role in developing and implementing outreach and educational programs.
Iwinosa has contributed to several high-impact heritage projects, engaging over 500 students across Edo State and numerous young heritage professionals across Nigeria. These projects include the “Heritage Futures” program, which provided hands-on learning to over 100 students, and the UNEARTH Fellowship, a cross-disciplinary initiative offering practical experience in archaeology and heritage management for early-career professionals. She also contributed to the Horniman Redisplay Project, helping to reinterpret and reimagine Benin artifacts, and co-designed programming around the digitization and research of the Benin Plaques, showcasing their rich history and cultural significance to contemporary audiences. In all these initiatives, Iwinosa ensured that each project was culturally relevant and impactful, fostering deeper connections between communities and their heritage.
Looking ahead, Iwinosa plans to continue advancing cultural programming by creating projects that actively engage communities and celebrate their heritage. Her vision includes expanding the use of digital tools, storytelling, and immersive experiences to make cultural narratives accessible to wider audiences. She remains dedicated to empowering communities to reclaim and celebrate their cultural legacies, ensuring these stories endure for generations to come.

Iwinosa Oyakhire serves as the Outreach Coordinator and Project Researcher for Digital Benin, specializing in iconography. She connects diverse communities with digital initiatives and content through innovative outreach strategies and collaborative engagement. Iwinosa has developed a comprehensive digital and in-person communication strategy set for implementation in 2025-2026. In collaboration with Eiloghosa Obobaifo, she conducts research on recording oral traditions and local knowledge related to the iconography of historical objects in Benin City and the Edo-speaking region, contributing to the creation of an iconography tool. Her efforts ensure that Edo voices shape Digital Benin, enhancing digital accessibility both locally and internationally.

Iwinosa Oyakhire

Dr. Felicity Bodenstein is an art historian working in Paris, specialized in the history of archaeological and ethnographic collections and the social, economic, and cultural processes involved in their creation, classification, interpretation, display, and reception during the 19th and 20th century. After completing a Ph.D. on the history of the collections of the department of coins and medals at the National Library in Paris in the 19th century, she now works on questions of representation in the display of contested, translocated objects. Her on-going research since 2015 is dedicated to understanding the global destiny of the Benin pieces looted in 1897 by British Naval forces in present-day Nigeria and considers the value transformations and narratives that have accompanied their initial looting and the successive displacements through the market and through collections. She is also interested in the long history of the restitution debates that they are currently part of. Her research was supported by post-doctoral fellowships from the Max Planck Institut at the Kunsthistoriches Institut in Florence, by the musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac in Paris and by the Technische Univeristät in Berlin; where she worked for two years in the project translocations, piloted by Professor Bénédicte Savoy. Since 2019, she is a lecturer in the history of museums and heritage studies at Sorbonne Université, Paris.︎

Dr. Felicity Bodenstein provides general guidance and oversight as well as input and insight on provenance research and publications locating archival records. She played a role in the preparatory work in defining the guiding parameters on the basis of which collections/objects are included in the database. In particular, she oversees the development of the ‘Provenance’ space on the platform, working closely with Ermeline de la Croix, providing bibliographical references and archival resources for the identification and qualification of the provenance names. She reviews provenance roles and co-authors biographies of important figures. She provides relevant contacts for research and contributes her own research on the market history of the Benin pieces. She set up the initial Zotero bibliography that the team builds on.

Dr. Felicity Bodenstein

Eiloghosa Obobaifo is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Benin, Benin City. She holds a BSc in Sociology and Anthropology in the same University. She also holds a Diploma in Air-Ticketing and Reservation from Anis School of Travel and Tourism. She worked under the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development Imo State during her National Youth Service Corps, 2015-2016. Obobaifo joined BAMSHACK Tours, Benin City in 2016 as a tour guide and educator, where she served as the Assistant educator in-charge of visitation to Heritage sites within Benin City. Beyond her role as Research Assistant and Data Steward, responsible for the collection of metadata from Nigerian museums, Obobaifo’s MSc thesis shall focus on the use of Digital Benin as a research interface for Museum Studies among Nigerian Scholars.

Eiloghosa Obobaifo gathers, documents and evaluates pertinent collection information in Nigerian museums and archives and transcribed all data from the National Museums in Benin City, Lagos and Owo included in the platform. The digitization of this data, including object photography, led to research on the native designations of objects which was missing from the data collected and digitised on the platform. She assists Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie in the research and recording of oral traditions and local knowledge related to the historical works of art in Benin City and the Edo-speaking region and collaborates with Imogen Coulsen on the development of object descriptions for Ẹyo Otọ. She works closely with Prof. Kokunre Agbontaen at University of Benin and brings consultants, such as Mr Aiko Obobaifo and Prof. Dr. Omoregbe in the Linguistics Department of the University of Benin, into the project. She also reviews and edits the Edo language on the platform and establishes the first ever Edo controlled vocabulary for the historical Benin objects shown on the platform. Her consultation on the visual contribution by Osaze Amadasun was pivotal to laying out the visual language of the entire platform.

Eiloghosa Obobaifo

Imogen holds a B.A. from the University of Cambridge with a specialism in Archaeology, and a M.A. in the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas from the Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK. Subsequently, Imogen worked as a Project Curator for the Lower Niger Bronzes Research Project, in the Africa section, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, British Museum. In addition to forming and developing this project alongside colleagues, her research explored the provenance and collection histories of copper alloy cast objects from southern Nigeria in the British Museum’s collections, including a number of those looted by the British from Benin City in 1897. She has attended and presented papers at academic conferences.

Imogen Coulson joined the project in fall 2021 and contributes crucial object and archive research and review. Her experience as project curator for the Lower Niger Bronzes Research Project in the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum is vital to the research conducted for Digital Benin. She collaborates on object research for the catalogue and Ẹyo Otọ with Eiloghosa Obobaifo and establishes conceptual, content and data driven processes for Digital Benin. She came up with controlled vocabularies for object designations and categories which linked all records on the platform and allowed for the development of filters in the catalogue. She brought together an elaborate bibliography and authored original research on the objects as data came in from institutions. She also led the review process for all institutional data and coordinated with the review panel. In 2022 she gathered all new and updated object data from institutions and worked on the processing, structuring and enhancing of meta-data of all archival materials. Coulson wrote all introduction pages with details about the archive institution, the collected data and an overview of object groups in the archival materials presented on Digital Benin. Her role and expertise was pivotal to the development of the visual research tools in collaboration with the technical team. 

Imogen Coulson

Museum am Rothenbaum Kulturen und Künste der Welt

Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Benin Studies, presently the Secretary to the Executive Council of the Institute. He is a Fellow of the French Institute for Research in Africa, Nigeria (IFRA-NIGERIA) and a member of Lagos Studies Association (LSA). He serves as tour guide for visitors to the historical/heritage sites of the Ancient Benin Kingdom and has developed a flair for the promotion of the history, cultural tradition and language of Benin/Edo speaking people. His on-going PhD research is focused on the cultural history of Benin people/kingdom. His research interests are Ethnicity and Nationalism, Migration and Citizenship, Cultural History in general and Benin Studies in particular. Ekhator-Obogie graduated from Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo with a Bachelor's Degree in Arts and Education (History). He holds an M.A. in History from the Ibadan School of History in Nigeria’s premier University of Ibadan. He has also attended and read papers at academic conferences and workshops.

Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie gathers, documents and evaluates pertinent collection information in Nigerian museums and designs and executes research relating to the historical works of art in Benin City and the Edo-speaking region. He records oral traditions and local knowledge in his essential role in the project. He sets up research methodologies which include the determined and informed establishment of partnerships with stakeholders in Nigeria. His field research includes the respectful inclusion of contributions from his long-standing relationships in Benin City in his role as researcher that he brings to the project. The contributions of oral histories and traditions are accompanied by repeated introductions of the project and digital context as well as hours spent in the field with participants to conduct research, consultations and conversations prior to the video and audio documentation. He advises the research of the platform at large under the guidance of Prof. Kokunre Agbontaen at the University of Benin and the project catalyst Anne Luther. He also coordinates and supervises the research and work of project researcher Eiloghosa Obobaifo and assistant researcher Mabel Osaruemwinnomwan Oviahon. He contributes a bibliography of Edo scholars and authors from his time as a research fellow at the Institute for Benin Studies – presently he is secretary to the executive council of the institute – and established the platform’s research spaces ‘Itan Edo’ and ‘Oral History’.

Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie

Mellon Foundation

Welt Museum Wien

Gwenlyn Tiedemann is a digital humanties expert and software engineer, specialising in research data management and digital art history. Especially data processing, modelling, visualisation, as well as virtual (reality) museums and 3D modelling. She studied Information Processing and Art History at the University of Cologne. There she also worked at the WiSo IT and Infrastructure, the Institute of Art History, the Institute of Musicology and the Cologne Center for eHumanities. In recent years, she was head of the information infrastructure project of the Collaborative Research Centre 1167 “Macht and Herrschaft – Premodern Configurations in a Transcultural Perspective” at the University of Bonn. Her work focuses on the digital preservation of cultural heritage. She has conducted numerous projects. Including the conception and implementation of a VR museum for the instrument museum of the Cologne Musicology and of a digital edition of letters from World War II. Moreover, she has developed platforms and apps for museums and cultural institutions.

Gwenlyn Tiedemann played the critical role on the receiving end of the data transfer of all institutions between 2021-2022. Her expertise in digital humanities and software engineering, specialising in research data management and digital art history, data processing and modelling, made it possible to show and link the platform – first for the researchers in the team and ultimately on the launched platform. She processed the transferred data and the image-to-object mapping for research and study by the team and worked alongside the team’s technical leads to develop data pipelines for data organisation and online publication. In addition, she has viewed, sorted and prepared the archival materials received from the museums for further processing and research. She engaged with all team members to provide updates and feedback and to share documentation on the received and processed data and communicated directly with institutions on more complex technical issues and image matching. She worked closely with Krystelle Denis and Alex Horak on bringing the transferred data onto the platform and played a foundational role in the launch of the platform.

Gwenlyn Tiedemann

Prof. Victor Osaro Edo is professor of African history in the Department of History at the University of Ibdan. He participated in the peer review of the content presented in Itan Edo and the historical content linked to the map.

He is a specialist in Benin studies as well as political and cultural history and has published many articles in books and journals nationally and internationally. His works include African Culture and Civilisation, co-authored with Oguntomisin (2005); African Culture and Civilisation from Earliest Times to 1500 AD, also co-authored with Oguntomisin (2007); and Nigeria at 50: Politics, Society and Development, co-edited with B. Sofela and R. O. Olaniyi (2013). He is a member of the Historical Society of Nigeria (HSN) and the Nigeria Academy of Letters. From 2012 to 2014 Edo was the head of the Department of History at the University of Ibadan. Currently he is the assistant dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ibadan.

Prof. Victor Osaro Edo

Dr. Anne Luther is a specialist for digital heritage and a digital humanities scholar. Her work applies technology, design and humanities research for the interaction, exploration and opening of cultural heritage preserved and represented in digital data. She is the founder of the Institute for Digital Heritage, an organisation that specialises in the development of digital solutions for cultural heritage. Luther secured grants for the Chair of Modern Art History at TU Berlin (VW Foundation), Fordham University (NEH) and the Museum am Rothenbaum, MARKK (Siemens Foundation) amongst others and is the Principle Investigator for these projects in digital scholarship and digital art history. She was the research manager at the Center for Data Arts at The New School in New York and built an emphasis on the analysis of museum data and leading data sprints, workshops, international research collaborations, software development, and publications between 2015-2018 and was a ​​Andrew W. Mellon Fellow for 2021-22 at the Price Lab for Digital Humanities at UPenn. She established a focus in data-driven research in museums and digital art history and taught art theory as a teaching assistant for Professor Boris Groys at NYU in 2014-2017. She received her PhD from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. Her research is grounded in cultural studies, digital humanities, and art theory bridging an interdisciplinary approach to computer sciences, IT, and design. Anne worked in several arts institutions internationally including MoMA PS1, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, HKW, Front Desk Apparatus and continues to work as an independent art advisor, consultant and curator internationally.

Dr. Anne Luther is the project catalyst. She ensures that all participants are on the same page according to timeline, design, technical development and research goals. She defines the overall operations strategy and set the development direction based on her years of experience as a research manager at the Center for Data Arts at the New School in New York and as a PI and catalyst for various digital projects with museums internationally. Her knowledge of digital project development standards is used to comply with regulatory requirements and ensure the operation and security of all services. Luther has an in-depth, advanced understanding of various digital platforms, protocols and related technical standards critical to the operation of the digital platform. She leads the team in assessing all changes and improvements and achieving strategic goals. Furthermore, she takes the lead role in the testing and evaluation of new and enhanced developments. She liaises among various stakeholders for project and operation needs and communicates with all institutions for the acquisition and transfer of data, answering legal negotiations and building partnerships with the institutions. Luther collaborates with the technical lead, researchers, PIs and external scholars and consultants. She sets standards and requirements for equipment needs and implemented procedures to ensure maximum uptime and quality. She also maintains and defines budgetary needs and establishes, maintains and negotiates institutional partnerships. She works with the technical team on the overall development approach for the platform and established the metadata structure for linking the diverse datasets.

Dr. Anne Luther

Calibro is a design studio founded by Matteo Azzi and Giorgio Uboldi based in Milan focused on tailoring visual tools to explore and visualize data, complex information and archives. Calibro conducts research and teaches at Design Academy Eindhoven, UNIRSM Design, ISIA Urbino, Cfp Bauer and Scuola Politecnica di Design.

Calibro is the development and design lead of Digital Benin since 2022. They developed the archive, interactive oral history videos and internal software tools in the first year after joining Digital Benin. Calibro continues to develop open source software and research outcomes and representations in collaboration with the researcher and are responsible for the overall front- and backend development of Digital Benin. 

Calibro

Amanda M. Maples is Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. She has taught university courses in African arts and served in curatorial and scholarly capacities at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center, the Yale University Art Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, the High Desert Museum, and UC Berkeley’s Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Maples has curated a range of exhibitions on historical and contemporary African arts and has written about urban and contemporary masquerade, decoloniality, jewelry and self-fashioning, museum policies, collecting practices, and restitutions. Maples holds a PhD in Visual Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Amanda Maples joined the project for one year between 2020-21 and contributed initial object research and introduction outreach to museums. She brought together preliminary data that institutions shared online and internally with the project and worked on an institutional overview of holding institutions.

Amanda M. Maples

Barbara Plankensteiner is director of the Museum am Rothenbaum–World Cultures and Arts (MARKK) since 2017. Under her leadership, the museum initiated a repositioning and decolonization process that also lead to a change of name. From 2015 she was Frances and Benjamin Benenson Foundation Senior Curator of African Art at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Before, at the Weltmuseum Wien, she served as deputy director, chief curator and curator of the Africa collections where she had a decisive impact in the repositioning of the museum and the conceptualization of the new permanent collection. Her most well-known international exhibitions are 

Benin—Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria

 where she was lead curator and editor of the accompanying handbook, and 

African Lace: A History of Trade, Creativity and Fashion in Nigeria

 that she co-curated and for which she co-edited the accompanying catalogue. Her research and publications focus on African art and material culture, history of ethnographic collections, and museum anthropology.

Barbara Plankensteiner is a co-founder of the Benin Dialogue Group and with Prince Gregory Akenzua the co-chair of its steering committee. One of its outcomes is the Digital Benin project.

Prof. Dr. Barbara Plankensteiner, director of the MARKK, oversees the project and provides guidance for institutional contacts and introductions to the various institutions holding Benin collections. She shares her personal and professional archive and knowledge of Benin collections worldwide. Together with Jonathan Fine she introduced the project to the Benin Dialogue Group and relevant museum colleagues and scholars specialising in Benin art and history. With her long-term experience with collections and connoisseurship, she guides and oversees the inclusion of works to ensure that recent market copies were not included.

Prof. Dr. Barbara Plankensteiner

Kokunre Agbontaen-Eghafona is a graduate of the University of Benin, Benin City; University of Ibadan, Ibadan; University of Nigeria, Nsukka, all in Nigeria, and New York University. She holds a B.A (Hons.) and M.A History; M.Sc. Archaeology and Anthropology; Professional Certificate in Museum Studies, and Ph.D. Archaeology, specializing in cultural resource management and museum studies. She was a Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) (1984-1989). She worked as a museum intern at the Department of Arts in Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1990-1991). She has been a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Benin since 1992, and an Associate Professor / Professor of Anthropology since 2003. Her research interests include oral literature and ethnography of the Benin people of Nigeria; peoples and cultures of Nigeria and Africa; cultural resource management; indigenous knowledge systems. Her doctoral thesis titled “Curating Benin Cultural Materials: Towards Integrating Indigenous and Orthodox Methods,” (2001) investigated and highlighted the indigenous curatorial, conservation, and exhibition practices of the Benin people during the pre-colonial era; drawing out similarities that existed with such practices in today's museums. She has over sixty academic publications mainly on Benin culture and tradition.

Prof. Dr. Kokunre Agbontaen-Eghafona oversees the relation to the research team in Benin City and stakeholders in Nigeria such as the University of Benin, Benin City. She consults and shares her research on oral literature and the ethnography of the Benin people of Nigeria; peoples and cultures of Nigeria and Africa; cultural resource management; indigenous knowledge systems; and indigenous curatorial, conservation and exhibition practices of the Benin people during the pre-colonial era, drawing out similarities to such practices in today’s museums. Her extensive academic publications on Benin culture and tradition are pivotal for the project.

Prof. Dr. Kokunre Agbontaen-Eghafona

Olanrewaju Victor Ali is an accomplished photographer and emerging cinematographer with over a decade of experience. His journey into photography began during his university years, and since then, he has honed his skills, capturing moments that tell compelling stories. Victor's passion for his craft is evident in his work, as he finds joy and fulfillment in connecting with people and exploring diverse locations through his lens. His artistic journey continues to unfold, promising exciting visual narratives ahead.

Olanrewaju Ali assisted Tolulope Sanusi in photographing objects in the National Museum Benin and Lagos for the digitization project initiated by Digital Benin.

Olanrewaju Ali

Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung

Sorbonne Université

Institute for Benin Studies

Krystelle Denis is a software engineer and designer specializing in visual frameworks, data-driven narratives, and pedagogical tools, particularly in contexts of cultural heritage. She has designed and built projects at metaLAB at Harvard, OBVIL at Paris Sorbonne, Harvard Art Museums, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, and Piaggio Fast Forward, amongst others. She received her master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and now co-runs Behavior/time, a multidisciplinary design and development studio that creates digital tools and experiential artifacts for museums, research labs, archives, schools, libraries, and cultural initiatives.

Krystelle Denis led the project’s design and development together with Alex Horak (https://digitalbenin.org/team/alex-horak). Having worked on diverse projects with prominent museums, research labs, archives, schools, libraries and cultural initiatives, the team has amassed years of experience with and insight into digital collections and cultural data building pedagogical tools and designing ontological frameworks. The studio offered a unique blend of creative design strategy and proven technical competency informed and augmented by their critical perspective of the social and philosophical ramifications of their work and process.

Denis and Horak established the overall approach, concept and technical layout of the platform in collaboration with the team and technical scope, development of the data feed and usability of the digital platform. Since the earliest phase of the project, they helped develop a collaborative workflow between the technical development, object research and novel Benin-centred historical and oral-history data. They conducted the necessary design, server architecture and data structuring research and, in collaboration with the data engineer, set up frameworks for structuring and relating the data provided by disparate institutions worldwide in a functional manner which at the same time avoids colonizing the data anew. They developed a client-server architecture, designed and developed the interface and operational flows of the public client and its admin client, and all the while ensured the use of trusted and reliable software frameworks and practices. From the beginning of the project, they set up the framework that research will inform the development of the platform’s data, documentation, linking, weaving, usability and mobile friendliness. They immediately developed twelve internal, custom-built software tools for the research and linking of the data received for the project before prototyping, testing and developing the back end and front end. Their focus on mobile use and experience led to the development of the platform in its current state and to the technical documentation for the long-term host.

Krystelle Denis

Ermeline de la Croix studied Law, Art History and Archaeology at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University. After obtaining a double bachelor’s degree, she specialized in Heritage and Museums in the same university. Her first master's thesis focused on the Iy’Ọba Idia ivory uhunmwu-ẹkuẹ kept in the British Museum. Now in her second year of master’s degree, she is working under the direction of Dr. Felicity Bodenstein for both Digital Benin and her second thesis, which focuses on Benin wooden uhunmwu-elao.

Ermeline de la Croix collaborates closely with Dr. Felicity Bodenstein on the research and writing of the Digital Benin-authored provenance data. She identified over one thousand unique provenance names in the data transferred by the institutions and co-authored over fifty biographies. She linked all provenance data to the controlled vocabularies that she established for provenance names and roles on the platform. This research led to the development of the ‘Provenance’ space on the platform, which allows users to access the provenance names and linked objects. The provenance data was linked to external websites such as Wikidata, Getty vocabulary and others. Ermeline De la Croix and Felicity Bodenstein are establishing provenance research and tool development for internal and external use. 

Ermeline de la Croix

Osaze Amadasun is an illustrator and designer currently living and working in Lagos, Nigeria. His works cut across drawing, painting, illustration and graphic design. He created the Bini playing cards based on his elaborate research on the ancient Kingdom of Benin and its classical works of art. Inspired by the cards, he was brought into the project to create a visual language for the controlled vocabulary for the native Edo designations identified by Eiloghosa Obobaifo for the grouping of all object information on the platform. Based on a selection of objects, he developed illustrations that represent the object groups and made print-outs of the illustrations as language cards and a colouring book that can be used by our users for education and creative exploration of the content brought together on the platform. Amadasun is an expert in concepts of design thinking as well as computer-aided design (CAD) and consequently created a design concept and visual language for the front-end of the entire platform in the final stage of the project.

Osaze Amadasun is an illustrator and designer currently living and working in Lagos, Nigeria. His works cut across drawing, painting, illustration and graphic design. He created the Bini playing cards based on his extensive research on the ancient Kingdom of Benin and its classical works of art. He created a visual language for the Edo designations identified by Eiloghosa Obobaifo in Ẹyo Otọ. Based on a selection of objects, he developed illustrations that represent the object groups and that users can printed out as language cards and a colouring book for educational purposes and creative exploration of the content on the platform. An expert in design thinking and computer-aided design (CAD), Amadasun created a design concept and visual language for the front end of the platform in the final stage of the project.

Osaze Amadasun

Dr. Uyilawa Usuanlele studied in Nigeria, Sweden and Canada and majored in African history. He worked as a researcher and administrator with National Council for Arts and Culture in Nigeria. He was a founding member and coordinator of the Institute for Benin Studies, Benin City, and a recipient of the Swedish International Development Fellowship award, and gave lectures at conferences in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. He has contributed articles and chapters to journals and books and presently teaches African history and peace and conflict studies at the State University of New York (SUNY) Oswego, New York. With Bonny Ibhawoh, he co-edited Minority Rights and the National Question in Nigeria (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He is the editor of Benin Studies Under the Scalpel and founding editor of Umewaen Journal on Benin and Edoid Studies and Benin Studies Newsletter.

Dr. Uyilawa Usuanlele participated in the peer review of the content presented in Itan Edo and the historical content linked to the map. 

Dr. Uyilawa Usuanlele

Alex Horak is a software engineer and designer with a background in human-computer interaction. He has worked across various disciplines, from research in the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and brain-computer interfaces at the University of Michigan, to chief technology officer at the software productivity company Fetchnotes. Most recently, he has helped grow social movements like the Dear Black Women Project, a strong community of affirmation-based support, as well as brought to life humanitarian research such as SMS Pantry, which provided resources to people with food insecurity in the USA. He also worked at the Japan Disasters Archive which documents stories and resources relating to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, as well as on experimental museum curation while working for metaLAB at Harvard. He now co-runs Behavior/time, a multidisciplinary design and development studio.

Alex Horak, led the project’s design and development together with Krystelle Denis (https://digitalbenin.org/team/krystelle-denis) between 2020-2022. Having worked on diverse projects with prominent museums, research labs, archives, schools, libraries and cultural initiatives, the team has amassed years of experience with and insight into digital collections and cultural data building pedagogical tools and designing ontological frameworks. The studio offered a unique blend of creative design strategy and proven technical competency informed and augmented by their critical perspective of the social and philosophical ramifications of their work and process.

Alex Horak

. Before coming to Vienna in 2021, he served as head of collections (Museumsleiter) and curator for the collections from West Africa, Cameroon, Gabon, and Namibia at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin. Fine’s scholarly and curatorial work has focused on colonialism and museum collections, with an emphasis on works of art and cultural objects from West and Central Africa. He is one of the authors of the German Museums Association guidelines for collections from colonial contexts and is chair of the Advisory Committee for Guidelines for Collections in Austrian Federal Museums from Colonial Contexts. Fine holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Dr. Jonathan Fine provides general guidance and oversight and, along with Prof. Dr. Barbara Plankensteiner, introduced the project to the Benin Dialogue Group. He assisted in the coordination and negotiation of legal agreements with the institutions.

Dr. Jonathan Fine

Prof. Dr. Omoregbe is a linguist at the University of Benin and supported, consulted and contributed to the development of the Edo designations in Ẹyo Otọ. She lent her voice for the vocalisations of the Edo designations.

Ẹsọhẹ Mercy Ọmọrẹgbẹ Ph.D, Professor of Morpho-Syntax & Applied Linguistics, Department of Linguistics Studies, Faculty Of Arts, University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. Former Head of Department, Linguistics Studies, Uniben, Pioneer Director, Benson Idahosa University (BIU) Centre for Ẹdo Studies, Coordinator, Edo Language Research Unit, Department of Linguistics Studies, Uniben, Co-Editor, Idẹn:a Journal of Ẹdo Studies, University of Benin. A strong advocate of Ẹdo Language teaching /learning, reforms, revival, vitality, sustenance, documentation and preservation. Highly published in several Local, National and International Journals. Member of different professional associations and voluntary organizations including the Linguistics Association of Nigeria (LAN) & Institute for Benin Studies.

Aiko Obobaifo, a historian in Benin City and former secretary of the Institute for Benin Studies, has been engaged in the study and documentation of Benin history since 1997. He consulted Digital Benin regarding the Edo language and the establishment of the Edo designations in Ẹyo Otọ as well as contributing to the oral-history research. He also lent his voice for the vocalisations of the Edo designations.

Aiko Obobaifo

Tolulope Sanusi began her career as a Graduate Architect and has since evolved into a professional architectural photographer. Her work involves collaborating with architects, designers, contractors, and editorial clients. She has captured numerous contemporary projects in Lagos and Abuja, and her photographs have gained recognition in leading global design publications.

Tolulope Sanusi photographed objects in the National Museum Benin and Lagos for the digitization project initiated by Digital Benin. 