Records of the Canterbury Museum Volume 28 2014 EDITORS Natural History Paul Scofield Cor Vink Human History Roger Fyfe Sarah Murray Editor in Chief Derene Flood Canterbury Museum gratefully acknowledges a grant from the Mason Foundation for the publication of the Records of the Canterbury Museum. ISSN 0370 3878 RECORDS OF THE CANTERBURY MUSEUM Volume 28, 2014 Published August 2014 © Canterbury Museum Rolleston Avenue Christchurch 8013 New Zealand Canterbury Museum would like to thank both the anonymous peer reviewers and the following people for acting as referees on papers submitted for this volume: Emma Brooks Ulf R Hansson Research Manager Senior Research Fellow Department of Anthropology and Archaeology Department of Classics Otago University The University of Texas at Austin PO Box 56 2210 Speedway, Stop C3400 Dunedin 9054 Austin NEW ZEALAND Texas 78712-1738 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Barbara Burrell Associate Professor of Classics Dr Andreas J M Kropp Department of Classics Department of Classics University of Cincinnati University of Nottingham Field Director, Promontory Palace Excavations at Nottingham NG7 2RD Caesarea Maritima ENGLAND 410 Blegen Library PO Box 210226 Dr Phil Sirvid Cincinnati, Ohio 45221 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PO Box 467 Wellington 6140 Dr Kate Ezra NEW ZEALAND Yale University Art Gallery PO Box 20827 New Haven Connecticut 06510 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Dr Volker Framenau Phoenix Environmental Sciences 1/511 Wanneroo Road Balcatta Western Australia 6021 AUSTRALIA Contents 1. Benin Art in Canterbury Museum 7 ROGER FYFE AND SARAH MURRAY 2. Chasing the Sun: Coinage and Solar Worship in the Roman Empire of the Third 31 and Early Fourth Centuries CE DANIELLE STEYN 3. Funerary Portrait Of A Palmyrene Priest 49 DR LUCY WADESON 4. The type specimen of Argiope leucopicta Urquhart, 1890 (Araneae: Araneidae) 61 COR J VINK Instructions for Authors 64 Records of the Canterbury Museum, 2014 Vol. 28: 7-29 © Canterbury Museum 2014 Benin Art in Canterbury Museum ROGER FYFE Canterbury Museum, Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch 8013, New Zealand [email protected] SARAH MURRAY Canterbury Museum, Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch 8013, New Zealand [email protected] ABSTRACT ethnographic collector William Downing Webster back Canterbury Museum cares for 16 items of nineteenth to the conquest of Benin in early 1897 by the British century and one early twentieth century example Punitive Expedition. The Expedition, which resulted of Benin art. This paper offers the first published in the destruction of the city and the exile of its King, description of this collection, presenting a looted great works of art from the city which were straightforward illustrated catalogue with a brief later auctioned to defray costs; an activity then seen description of the individual pieces as well as their to be a legitimate prerogative of a punitive expedition. acquisition history and provenance.1 A short historical Thousands of Benin art and ethnographic objects, and political overview together with a narrative through government and private sales, soon found their placing Benin art within an indigenous context are way into museum and personal collections throughout also included to ensure the ethnographic perspective the United Kingdom, Europe and America. A lesser of the objects complements their descriptions. This number of items of Benin art were also solicited by addition to the body of literature related to Benin art museums throughout the British Empire, no doubt will alert international scholars to the existence of the prompted in part by feelings of patriotic emotion and Canterbury Museum collection, allowing it to become a tendency of colonial museums to mimic collecting a more academically active and accessible part of the patterns of large international institutions such as large, but finite, worldwide corpus of Benin art. the British Museum. While the majority of items in Canterbury Museum’s collection were obtained KEY WORDS around the turn of the twentieth century, an additional Benin; collection. acquisition in 2005 of a bronze commemorative head further developed the museum collections artistic and INTRODUCTION historical context of this genre. Canterbury Museum cares for the largest collection of nineteenth century Benin art in any public collection The British Punitive Expedition, while led by in Australia or New Zealand.2 The provenance of the British military, attracted attention throughout most items can be securely traced through the English the world. Newspapers in New Zealand kept readers 8 Records of the Canterbury Museum, Volume 28, 2014 informed of activities in Benin with sensational seat of elaborate court institutions. At the political headlines such as ‘A Horrible Place’ and ‘The Niger and religious apex of the kingdom was a semi-divine Expedition – Capture of Benin – Human Sacrifices’.3 king, the oba, supported by three groups of chiefs: otu The expedition stayed in the news for months with (appointees to the palace), eghaebho n’ore (appointed more detailed, but no less gruesome, eye witness town officials) and uzama (senior hereditary chiefs). accounts of the campaign. These accounts justified the The bureaucracy, organised on the basis of both destruction of Benin in a variety of ways. ‘The Benin hereditary authority (oba and uzuma) and achievement Expedition – The Story of one of the Party’ drew, for through promotion by the oba, was a sophisticated example, on the practice of human sacrifice to validate political system with constitutional checks and the Expedition: balances. The uzama were excluded from political office but delegated the authority as ‘king-makers’ Then we came to an open glade, and there was a most on the death of an oba and the iyase (the senior town revolting sight – a human sacrifice of a young girl chief) entrusted with responsibility to act as a check on disemboweled, her arms tied behind her, and a stick excesses by the monarch.6 Queen mothers (Iye Oba) driven through her cheeks as a gag. It turned me sick… have played a conspicuous role in Benin court life for at That sight put an end to any nervousness I felt, and I least four hundred years and are traditionally the only simply thirsted for blood and vengeance.4 women who have had a voice in administration and politics. Iye Oba live in a separate court on the outskirts Over a year after the conclusion of the Expedition, of Benin city. They are customarily consulted by the Canterbury’s daily newspaper The Press still claimed it oba on all state affairs. However direct contact with was fresh in the minds of its readers and congratulated their son is ‘officially’ forbidden and all communication Canterbury Museum on obtaining, for its collection, is conducted through messengers. Within their own valuable examples of the booty taken from Benin.5 court Iya Oba have ascribed rights, responsibilities and privileges and effectively perform a role comparable to Over the twentieth century, worldwide collections that of a high ranking chief. After his mother’s death, of Benin art became the focus of an ever growing her son erects an altar in her memory in his palace. corpus of research, exhibition and scholarly These altars are usually decorated with rattle staffs, publication. Yet, few scholars are aware of the existence commemorative heads, and rectangular cast brass/ of the small but important collection of Benin art bronze altarpieces depicting figures representing the held by Canterbury Museum. As a result, this paper Iye Oba and her court attendants. The oba customarily contextualises these items within the history of Benin holds an annual commemorative service at his and an understanding of its art before examining how mother’s altar and offers sacrifices in her memory.7 these items made their way to Canterbury Museum. It Many elements of the sophisticated political system, concludes with an illustrated catalogue of the Benin Art the hierarchical structure of society and complex held by this institution. belief systems of Benin are clearly reflected in the art associated with the court and bureaucracy. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL OVERVIEW OF THE KINGDOM OF BENIN When Portuguese explorers first reached Benin in Today, Benin City is the capital of the Edo state of about 1490 they found a flourishing kingdom. Trade Nigeria, located on a rolling coastal plain on the west and treaties, entered into on an equal-sovereign-nation coast of Africa, with the River Niger running along basis, saw generally successful relations develop. The its southern border. The Kingdom of Benin (known Portuguese were to be the first of a succession of as Edo to its inhabitants) represents the oldest extant European explorers and traders woven through the monarchy in Africa and appears to have reached its history of Benin. Dutch migrants visited Benin from territorial apogee before the arrival of Europeans. A the first half of the seventeenth century, followed by the highly centralised kingdom was established sometime French in the eighteenth century and the British in the in the fourteenth century with political authority nineteenth century.8 By the mid-nineteenth century the based in the capital city Benin, which was also the political and economic fortunes of Benin were in slow Fyfe and Murray – Benin Art in Canterbury Museum 9 decline. The British, who had established the adjacent The royal palace was considered the centre of the British Protectorate of Nigeria viewed Benin as an Benin world and a focal