Context (Field collection)
Presumed taken on the British Colonial Military Campaign on Benin, February 1897, as Webster became the pre-eminent dealer in looted Benin material
Event Date 2/1897
Author: rachel hand

Description (Labels & Markings)
Old museum paper label notes '1902.448 Portion of a plaque Benin W.D.webster, Esq'.
Event Date 1902
Author: maa

Context (Display)
Displayed in "Metal in Africa", an MAA exhibition, held in the Andrews Gallery, 26 September 1996- 28 February 1998
Event Date 26/9/1996
Author: Katrina Dring

Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card notes: "An oblong plaque with patterned ground and border depicting a well cast rosette (the corner of a larger plaque)"
Event Date 6/6/2000
Author: maa

Context (Analysis)
In January 2017, Prof. Marcos Martinon-Torres and Agnese Benzonelli, UCL Institute of Archaeology, tested this idno using a portable XRF as part of a programme of base metal analysis of Benin material.
Event Date 27/1/2017
Author: Eleanor Wilkinson

Context (Amendments / updates)
The Register noted only 'Benin, West Africa'. The narrow term 'Benin' has been used within the museum and more widely to refer to the both Benin City as well as the Kingdom of Benin
Event Date 2/10/2018
Author: rachel hand

Context (Related Documents)
Catalogue card reads, in blue biro: "1902 E 448 | AFRICA | WEST AFRICA / NIGERIA / Oblong PLAQUE with patterned ground and border depicting a well cast rosette (the corner of a larger plaque) / Benin, W. Africa / Mr. W.D Webster | R. 1903.262"

Red circular sticker in bottom right of card.
Event Date 24/8/2020
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (Amendments / updates)
Photograph attached to rear of catalogue card.
Event Date 24/8/2020
Author: Katrina Dring

Description (Physical description)
Fragment of a plaque with patterned ground and border with rosette, lower left corner only.
Event Date 15/10/2021
Author: rachel hand

Description (Labels & Markings)
Remains of the number '48' on the left upper corner.
Written in the same font as Webster lot numbers but no white pigment remains and it appears to have been erased with only the oils remaining on the surface of the metal
Event Date 15/10/2021
Author: rachel hand

Description (Physical description)
Ama. Fragment of a plaque with patterned ground and border with rosette, lower left corner only. Iron nail embedded in the cebte abive the rosette, presumably used for attachment
Event Date 14/3/2023
Author: rachel hand

Context (Analysis)
Analysed using XRF instrumentation by Dr Agnese Benzonelli, University of Cambridge, as part of research by Prof. Marcos Martinon-Torres and Dr Agnese Benzonelli into Benin material at MAA
Event Date 14/3/2023
Author: Eleanor Wilkinson

Context (References)
Part of the Digital Benin project website. Available at

Noted as Ama. 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; Dark, 1982). 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).
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.
Event Date 14/3/2023
Author: rachel hand