Cast cire perdu head, probably showing Queen Idia, first Queen Mother (Iyoba).
Commemorative Brass/ Bronze heads and sculptures were placed on ancestral altars in the Royal Palace to honour the ancestors. Altars allowed people to communicate with their ancestral spirits, to show them respect, ask for protection. This statue is thought to be Queen Idia who was the first Queen Mother, the mother of Esigie who was the Oba of Benin from 1504-1550.
These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.
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