Rights management: Linden-Museum Stuttgart
Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 4.0 International
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Rights management: Linden-Museum Stuttgart
Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 4.0 International
Full screen
Initial display
Zoom in
Zoom out
Previous image
Next image
Downloads the object
This collection item does not have a name in the language of origin. If you know the name or have comments, use this form to contact the data-providing institution.
carved elephant tusk
This richly carved elephant tusk stood vertically on one of the royal ancestral altars in the palace courtyards. It thus embodied the world axis, i.e. the connection between earth (this world) and heaven (the otherworld). This perpendicular is a central stylistic element in the formal language of Beninese art. These altars with their objects served the ancestor cult. The king as the highest priest offered sacrifices here in order to draw the blessings of the heavenly powers over his royal ancestors to earth. The tusks were thus covered with sacrificial blood. The burn marks, however, are from the British plunder during the conquest in 1897. Depicted here are King Ohen (with fish tail, snake belt and ceremonial sword), a soldier (with bell), King Ewuare (supported by the throne prince and by the supreme commander of the army) King Ohen (drawn by two crocodiles into the realm of the god Olokun), the messenger of the king of Ife (who had to agree to the election of a new Oba of Benin) and two Portuguese. Text: Dietmar Neitzke.
- Data Provider
- Linden-Museum Stuttgart Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde Show original at data provider
Cataloguing data
- Cultural attribution
- Edo
- Object type
- Elephant tooth
- Dimensions
-
Length: 155 cm
Diameter: 11 cm - Material/Technique
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Ivory
carved
- Current location
- Linden-Museum Stuttgart
- Inventory number
- 097400
Provenance and sources
-
Assignment to a curated holding:
-
Change of physical control or legal title
-
where
-
Nigeria
-
-
Change of physical control
-
when
-
1912
-
- Provenance
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The carved elephant tusk was bought from the ethnographic dealer Gustav Umlauff (Hamburg, Germany). Text: Markus Himmelsbach.
Information about the record
- Legal status metadata
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED
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