Photographer: | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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Leopard skull
Animal sacrifices were an integral part of the rituals at the altars in Benin. Among the most prominent sacrifices were leopards, which were only sacrificed by the king himself. Leopards not only metaphorically symbolised the king's power, the king himself was seen as a leopard. It was the "leopard of the palace" and thus the counterpart to the most powerful animal of nature, the wilderness that surrounded civilisation, and leopard skulls cast in brass immortalised the offering of a living leopard.
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Ethnologisches Museum
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Cataloguing data
Object type
Animal sculpture
Dimensions
Height: 7,3 cm
Depth: 11,6 cm
Width: 19,8 cm
Depth: 11,6 cm
Width: 19,8 cm
Material/Technique
Brass, copper alloy
Current location
Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Inventory number
III C 19208
Provenance and sources
where
Benin [kingdom]
when
18th century - 19th century
where
Nigeria [Land]
Benin [Königreich]
who
Paul Bieger - Former Possessors
Hermann Held - Collectors
Description
Commissioned by the Igun Eronmwon or Guild of Brass Casters in the Kingdom of Benin; ownership before 1897 currently unknown; probably looted in connection with the British conquest of Benin, 1897; owned by Hermann Held before 1905; sold to the Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin, 1905.
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