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Captive Passage
has been made
possible in part by:
Recognition of
additional sponsors
for this exhibition
can be found by
clicking on
ExhibitionSponsors.
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King of Benin with Armed Soldiers
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Although Benin remained out of large-scale slave trading activities, it was the
first to attract serious attention in Europe. Partly because of its extensive military
power and also because of early Portuguese missionary efforts there, it continued to
be one of the best known African states in Europe.
The Kingdom of Benin and its art flourished in the centuries before the arrival of Europeans. When the Portuguese first reached Benin in 1472, they found a city-state that was prosperous and greatly skilled in the working of metals and wood. Benin's art, primarily made of cast brass and carved ivory, had existed and flourished for more than half a millennium, and its themes of history, politics, and divine kingship reveal much about the people and their culture.
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