Interactive contributions

A Benin centred perspective is essential to enable the understanding of the cultural significance of historic Benin objects from the shared local knowledge of Benin people transmitted from one generation to another. The interactive videos show the functionality and significance of historic objects from Benin Kingdom as archival documentation of stories and historic events. The objects that are referenced in the videos as archival evidence are linked to show a learning experience about the various aspects of Benin traditions and important historical trajectories. Each video has an interaction that can be explored in the following ways: The Ọba timeline contextualises a historic embeddedness of the content mentioned in the videos. Specific objects and object groups that are mentioned in the videos are indexed in a timeline, which gives the users the options to explore the object groups and objects in the catalogue and Eyo Oto. Object parts are highlighted with a zoom in to show the spoken contributions in visual orientation on specific objects. Edo Iconography is a sort of visual language that is used as an integral part of the historic objects to depict historic events, spiritual meaning and cultural traditions. The contributors describe and reference these symbolic icons or a pop-up text including links to other parts of Digital Benin situate the spoken contributions in reference to Edo iconography found as an integral part of the historic objects. A drawing of the Edo iconographies enables one to find and compare objects with similar visual language. Themes summarise the main contents of the contributions. By selecting a theme other oral history contributions that are linked to this theme appear.