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A Famous Queen Mother from Benin

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A Famous Queen Mother from Benin FAVORITE OBJECT A Famous Queen Mother from Benin BY HEATHER J. SHARKEY THE QUEEN MOTHER, or “Iyoba,” was a goods to raise money, which is how they were powerful figure in the Edo kingdom of Benin, scattered into museums and private collections. which ruled parts of the West African coast In 1920, the Penn Museum bought for seven centuries. this statue from William Oldman, a British Starting in the 16th century, the kings or antiquities dealer who also sold objects “obas” of this realm appointed craftsmen to from Pacific islands like New Zealand, New make figurative sculptures and reliefs from Caledonia, and New Guinea. About 4,000 cast bronze and carved ivory. Installed in items from the Museum’s Africa and palace shrines, these figures exalted past Oceania sections came from this dealer. obas and their mothers, along with the As one of the great Benin Bronzes, chiefs and warriors who helped them. the statue of the Queen Mother is a The Penn Museum’s iyoba shows world-class work of art. More than the first and most famous queen 300 years after a royal metalsmith mother, Idia, whose son Oba Esigie poured her likeness in bronze, ruled from 1504 to 1550. Idia was and a century since Philadelphia legendary. She raised an army of became her new home, the Iyoba her own and used medicine and Idia has the beauty and strength magic to defeat her son’s enemies. to stop visitors in their tracks Probably cast around 1700, this as they pass. sculpture shows her wearing the conical, curved headdress of royalty, Heather J. Sharkey, Ph.D., is Professor of along with four vertical scars above Middle Eastern and Islamic History at the each eyebrow, which mark her as female. University of Pennsylvania. The Kingdom of Benin fell in 1897, when British forces launched WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE OBJECT? a “punitive expedition” against it. We encourage you to tell us about your Amid the European “scramble” for favorite Penn Museum object and why Africa, this invasion enabled Britain you like it. Essays should be about 300 to secure a strategic section of the words. Write the editor at jhickman@ coast and forge what we now call upenn.edu for more information or Nigeria. This expedition also en- to submit your essay. abled British forces to seize several left: This statue of the Benin thousand objects from the oba’s Queen Mother named Idia was compound. The Foreign Ofce cast in bronze using the lost wax process, PM object AF5102. You in London later auctioned of the will find her in the Africa Galleries. 82 EXPEDITION Vol. 61 | No. 2.
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