Bells made from copper alloy constituted essential components of ancestral altars throughout the Kingdom of Benin from at least the 16th century onwards. These ritual objects, known as eroro in the Edo language, were placed at the front center of altars dedicated to deceased kings, queen mothers, chiefs, and commoner family heads. The bells served the practical function of summoning ancestral spirits during sacrificial ceremonies, their distinctive tones believed to penetrate the barrier between the living world and the spirit realm. Production occurred exclusively in the Igun Eronmwon quarter of Benin City, where members of the brass-casting guild created these objects using lost-wax techniques passed down through generations since the 13th century. The British military expedition that destroyed Benin City in February 1897 looted thousands of these bells along with other palace regalia, dispersing them to museums and private collections worldwide. Bells varied in size from small hand-held instruments approximately 10 to 15 centimeters in height to larger ceremonial pieces exceeding 20 centimeters, with weights ranging from several hundred grams to over two kilograms depending on dimensions and wall thickness.

 Material and Craftsmanship

Benin bronze casters worked with copper alloy rather than pure bronze, using brass composed primarily of copper with varying proportions of zinc, tin, and lead. The metal originated from multiple sources over the centuries. Prior to Portuguese contact in the late 15th century, casters obtained copper through trans-Saharan trade routes connecting West Africa to North African and Mediterranean markets. After 1485, when Portuguese traders established direct maritime contact with Benin, manillas became the primary metal source. These horseshoe-shaped brass bracelets, manufactured in the Rhineland region of Germany and traded by Portuguese merchants, were melted down to provide raw material for casting.

The lost-wax casting process began with creating a clay core slightly smaller than the intended final object. Casters covered this core with beeswax, modeling the bell's form and all decorative details in the wax layer. The thickness of the wax determined the finished bell's wall thickness, typically between 3 and 6 millimeters. Decorative elements including faces, geometric patterns, and relief imagery were carved into the wax surface or built up through additional wax application.

After completing the wax model, artisans applied multiple layers of fine clay mixed with organic materials over the wax, creating an outer mold. They left channels open at the top and bottom to allow wax drainage and metal flow. The assembly was dried thoroughly, then heated to melt out the wax, leaving a hollow cavity between the inner core and outer mold matching the bell's intended form.

Molten brass heated to approximately we the space formerly occupied by wax, replicating every detail of the original model. After cooling for several hours, casters broke away the outer clay mold and removed the inner core, revealing the finished bell. Surface finishing involved filing away rough edges, smoothing casting seams, and polishing the metal to desired luster.

Clappers were fabricated separately, usually from iron or brass. Some examples feature phallic-shaped clappers, their form carrying symbolic associations with fertility and regenerative power. The clapper attached to the bell's interior through a hole cast into the top, allowing it to swing freely and strike the bell walls when shaken.

Decorative embellishments varied according to the altar's status and the patron's resources. Royal altar bells displayed the most elaborate ornamentation, featuring miniature swords suspended from wire loops threaded through tiers of cast rings encircling the bell body. These leaf-shaped swords, called eben, were emblems of leadership carried by the Oba and principal chiefs during palace ceremonies. When the bell was shaken, the miniature swords shimmered and rattled against each other, adding buzzing overtones to the bell's fundamental tone.

 Form and Features

Benin bells exhibit considerable variation in form, reflecting their diverse ritual contexts and the creative interpretations of individual casters. The basic structure consists of a hollow, roughly conical or cylindrical body with flared opening at the bottom and narrowed top section serving as handle. Heights range from approximately 10 centimeters for smaller examples to over 30 centimeters for large ceremonial bells, with base diameters typically measuring between 5 and 15 centimeters.


The handle section frequently incorporates representational imagery. Some bells feature human heads crowned with elaborate caps decorated with incised patterns including fish-scale designs and feather ornaments. These heads often depict Portuguese merchants, their distinctive European features including beards, long hair, and characteristic hats rendered with careful attention to detail. The presence of Portuguese imagery connected these bells to Olokun, the deity of the ocean and prosperity, as Portuguese trade brought wealth to the kingdom.

Other handle designs show Oba figures identifiable through coral bead crowns and royal regalia. Bells commemorating specific rulers might display iconographic references to significant events during their reigns. One example shows miniature representations of warfare symbols including stone axe heads, leopards flanking elephants, and crocodiles representing Olokun, all compressed into the limited space of the bell's upper section.

The bell body itself varies from plain surfaces with minimal decoration to extensively ornamented examples covered with geometric patterns, relief figures, and symbolic motifs. Some display vertical ribbing or horizontal bands dividing the surface into registers. Others show scenes from court life including warriors, attendants, musicians, and ceremonial activities executed in low relief.

Miniature masks occasionally appear as decorative elements on bell surfaces. These replicate larger masks worn as ornaments attached to girdles during ceremonies, creating visual connections between different categories of royal regalia. The masks typically show stylized human faces with characteristic Benin conventions including prominent eyes, broad noses, and full lips.

The interior construction reveals the technical sophistication of Benin casters. Wall thickness remains remarkably consistent throughout individual bells, demonstrating precise control over wax modeling and metal flow during casting. The interior surfaces often retain traces of the clay core material, while exterior surfaces show the smooth finish achieved through post-casting treatment.

Sound quality varied according to bell dimensions, wall thickness, metal composition, and clapper design. Thinner walls produced higher-pitched, more resonant tones, while thicker constructions yielded deeper, more muted sounds. The addition of suspended miniature swords or other rattling elements created complex timbres combining the bell's fundamental tone with metallic percussion effects.

 Function and Use

Benin bells functioned primarily as ritual communication devices on ancestral altars. When a newly installed Oba created an altar dedicated to his predecessor, typically his father, bells formed essential components of the assemblage alongside commemorative brass heads supporting carved ivory tusks, rattle staffs, and sacrificial implements. The bells were positioned at the altar's front center, readily accessible for ritual use.


During sacrificial ceremonies, the officiant rang the bell while uttering prayers to attract ancestral attention. The sound was believed to penetrate the spirit world, alerting the deceased to offerings being made in their honor. The ringing accompanied the sprinkling of animal blood or palm wine on altar objects, actions that fed and honored the ancestors while soliciting their intervention in matters affecting the living.

The bell's function paralleled that of rattle staffs, known as ukhurhe in Edo language. While staffs were struck on the ground to produce rattling sounds, bells were shaken or struck with implements to create metallic tones. Both served the same purpose of calling spirits, and both appeared on all categories of ancestral altars from royal shrines to commoner family altars, though the elaboration and materials differed according to social rank.

Royal altars contained brass bells exclusively, as metal casting rights belonged to the Oba, who controlled access to imported copper alloy through his monopoly on European trade. Chiefs and commoners used brass bells if they could afford to commission them from the guild, or substituted less expensive alternatives including iron bells or wooden clappers. The presence of elaborate brass bells on an altar signaled the deceased's high status and the family's wealth.

Beyond their primary ritual function, bells carried symbolic associations connecting sound production to spiritual power. The ability to create loud, penetrating noises was understood as demonstrating command over supernatural forces. Warriors wore bells as pendants during battles, their jingling announcing the wearer's sacred status and supposedly neutralizing hostile spiritual forces that might otherwise harm them.

The bells also documented diplomatic and commercial relationships between Benin and European powers. Portuguese imagery appearing on bell handles commemorated the wealth Portuguese trade brought to the kingdom. The miniature swords suspended from some examples referenced the leaf-shaped eben carried by the Oba and chiefs as symbols of authority, creating visual parallels between the ritual object and royal regalia.

 Cultural Context

The development of bronze casting in Benin traces to the 13th century, when Oba Oguola invited brass workers from Ife to teach casting techniques to Edo craftsmen. This artistic exchange established the guild of bronze casters, whose members settled in the Igun Eronmwon quarter of Benin City and maintained hereditary monopoly over metal casting for royal patrons. The guild's organization paralleled other specialized craft groups including ivory carvers, wood sculptors, and coral bead workers, all of whom produced materials for royal ancestral altars and court ceremonies.

The Kingdom of Benin reached its greatest territorial extent and wealth between the 15th and 17th centuries, the period when most surviving bells were produced. Military conquests expanded the kingdom's boundaries and subjected neighboring peoples to tribute obligations. Simultaneously, Portuguese contact beginning in 1485 established lucrative trade exchanging European manufactured goods including metal manillas, textiles, and firearms for African pepper, ivory, and enslaved persons.

This commercial prosperity enabled unprecedented patronage of court arts. The Oba's palace in Benin City expanded to contain as many as 100 courtyards, each dedicated to specific deities or administrative functions. The royal court supported numerous guilds whose members created the elaborate material culture surrounding kingship. By the early 19th century, the palace contained 25 or more ancestral shrines, each equipped with complete assemblages of ritual objects including multiple bells, commemorative heads, carved tusks, and rattle staffs.

The theological framework underlying ancestral veneration emphasized continuity between living and dead. Edo cosmology held that deceased persons, particularly those who had fulfilled their social destinies during life, became ancestors capable of influencing events in the living world. The head was considered the seat of wisdom and supernatural guidance for rational behavior. The Oba's head carried exceptional sacred significance, as the kingdom's survival, security, and prosperity depended on his wisdom and the ancestors' support for his reign.

Annual festivals reinforced the mystical power of the Oba through sacrificial rituals performed at ancestral altars. The most important of these ceremonies, the Igue Erha Oba rite, occurred when the new Oba made offerings at his father's shrine. These rituals were considered essential for the continuation of the reign, establishing reciprocal relationships between the living king and his deified predecessors.

The materials employed in altar construction carried symbolic significance beyond their economic value. Brass and other copper alloys were associated with the color red when oxidized, connecting them to blood, sacrifice, and life force. Ivory's whiteness resembled kaolin clay used in purification rituals, symbolizing joy, prosperity, purity, and peace. The combination of materials created altars that functioned as concentrated nodes of spiritual power, points of intersection between earthly and supernatural realms.

 Discovery and Preservation

The British military expedition that destroyed Benin City in February 1897 fundamentally altered the trajectory of Benin art history and initiated the dispersal of ritual objects including bells to collections worldwide. The expedition followed the killing of Acting Consul-General James Robert Phillips and most members of his delegation in January 1897, when they attempted to enter Benin City during the annual Igue festival despite warnings that foreigners could not visit during ritual periods.

British forces under Admiral Harry Rawson invaded Benin City on February 18, 1897, encountering minimal resistance from Oba Ovonramwen's warriors. The troops systematically looted the palace, removing an estimated 10,000 objects including brass plaques, commemorative heads, ivory carvings, bells, rattle staffs, coral regalia, and other ritual materials. The soldiers set fire to the palace and much of the city, destroying architectural contexts that would have provided crucial information about objects' original placements and functions.

The British auctioned looted materials in London soon after the expedition, dispersing Benin objects to museums, private collectors, and dealers throughout Europe and North America. This commercial distribution created the current pattern of institutional holdings, with the British Museum and Ethnologisches Museum Berlin maintaining the largest collections. Additional concentrations exist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and numerous European museums in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

Documentation of the looted materials proceeded haphazardly. Some objects entered museum collections with acquisition records noting their Benin origin but lacking specific contextual information about which altar they came from or what ceremonies they participated in. Others passed through dealers and private hands, accumulating provenances that obscured their ritual histories. This documentary fragmentation has complicated efforts to reconstruct the original altar assemblages and understand how different object categories functioned together.

Academic study of Benin bells began shortly after the 1897 expedition, when scholars including Charles Hercules Read and Ormonde Maddock Dalton published analyses of the seized materials. Early interpretations reflected racist assumptions attributing Benin metalwork to Portuguese instruction rather than recognizing indigenous Edo artistic traditions. Later research by scholars including Paula Girshick Ben-Amos and Kate Ezra established accurate historical frameworks documenting the guild system, stylistic development, and ritual functions of Benin court arts.

In 1914, British colonial authorities permitted restoration of the Benin monarchy, and the new Oba began rebuilding palace structures and reviving ceremonial practices. He reactivated four ancestral shrines dedicated to his immediate predecessors and created a communal shrine honoring earlier Obas. These reconstructed altars required new ritual objects to replace those looted in 1897. Contemporary brass casters in Igun Eronmwon quarter continued producing bells and other altar furniture using traditional techniques, maintaining craft continuity despite the traumatic disruption of 1897.

Repatriation efforts began in 1936, when Oba Akenzua II made the first formal request for return of looted materials. Subsequent calls intensified through the late 20th and early 21st centuries, gaining momentum after movements for social justice including Black Lives Matter focused attention on colonial violence and cultural theft. Germany became the first European country to sign a restitution agreement in July 2022, committing to return 1,130 objects. The Netherlands announced return of 119 pieces in February 2025. The Smithsonian Institution transferred ownership of objects to Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments in October 2022, though materials remain on loan to the National Museum of African Art in Washington.


 Why It Matters

Benin bronze bells document sophisticated metallurgical traditions and guild organization in precolonial West Africa, demonstrating technical mastery of lost-wax casting developed independently from European influence. The bells provide material evidence of ritual practices connecting living communities to ancestral spirits, illustrating theological systems that understood death as transformation rather than termination. The incorporation of Portuguese imagery on royal bells documents the economic impact of Atlantic trade on West African kingdoms and the ways Edo artists integrated foreign elements into indigenous aesthetic traditions. The violent removal of these bells during the 1897 British expedition and their subsequent dispersal to Western institutions exemplifies colonial appropriation of African cultural heritage. Contemporary repatriation movements seeking return of these objects to Nigeria address historical injustices while raising questions about cultural property rights, museum ethics, and the responsibilities of institutions holding materials acquired through colonial violence.