Production
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where
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Benin [kingdom]
Photographer: Eva Ritz | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 InternationalThe tendencies towards individualisation in Beninese art in the 18th and 19th centuries can be seen in the emergence of a new type of altar, the altar of the hand. While altars with memorial heads serve to honour the ancestors and the power they inherited, the veneration of the hand on the new altars stands for the individual abilities and achievements of the person. Altars of the king, but also those of dignitaries, show the clenched hand with the thumb outstretched.