Stolen Benin bronzes, currently housed in museums across Europe, will be loaned to a new museum in Nigeria.

Artnet News reports the Benin Dialogue Group—which consists of Nigerian representatives and European museum officials—agreed to a plan to house the bronzes in Nigeria temporarily. The group announced the three-year plan for the museum opening in 2021 in a meeting last Friday. 

The rare West African artifacts were stolen by the British in an 1897 expedition. Many of the estimated 4,000 pieces looted from the former Kingdom of Benin, now southern Nigeria, have yet to be returned to the African nation. 

The group hopes the new Benin Royal Museum will serve as the permanent location of these precious statues, shrines and historical items, according to The Arts Newspaper.    

“I am happy we are making progress in the effort to give our people the opportunity to once more access our heritage that was looted,” Prince Gregory Akenzua (Enogie of Evbobanosa) said in a statement provided to Nigerian daily This Day.

As early as 2007, the group has created strategies to facilitate the return of the artifacts. Other African nations like Ethiopia has had to fight tooth and nail to have their looted objects returned. 

“Returning Benin Bronzes to Nigeria is certainly a step in the right direction as it acknowledges that the European ownership is problematic,” Jürgen Zimmerer, a professor of global history at the University of Hamburg, told Artnet News. “It must not replace a discussion about ownership and restitution, though.”

Others agree. Christian Kopp of the organization Berlin Postkolonial has reckoned with Germany's past and believes the nation should give back the 500-plus Benin artifacts immediately. 

“It is us Europeans who should ask for loans—after we have legally restituted all looted African treasures to their rightful owners,” he said.

Meanwhile, the group will meet next year in Benin City, in 2020 at the British Museum and once more in 2021 in Hamburg. 

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