OVERVIEW

Before you answer the questions, go to the Benin Plaque Home Page and carefully study the plaque and the information provided. Follow the links, and when you have completed your overview answer the questions below.

THE PARTS OF THE PLAQUE

Return to the Benin Plaque Home Page

1. Where is Benin located?

2. Who was the Oba?

3. What value do the plaques have for modern historians?

Return to the Warrior Chief

4. What was the Otue ceremony?

Return to the Eben

5. What was an Eben? Why is the warrior chief holding the eben in an upright position?

Return to the Cap and Necklace

6. What privilege do the leopard's teeth give to the warrior chief?

7. What does the coral necklace symbolize? What will happen to the coral when the warrior chief dies?

Return to the Mask and Robe

8. What does the presence of the brass mask tell us?

9. What does the presence of the Portuguese head suggest about relations between Benin and Portugal?

Return to the Warriors

10. Why are the two warriors smaller than the warrior chief?

11. What were three functions of the quadrangular bell?

Return to the Attendants

12. How does the artist indicate the attendant's low status?

Return to the River Leaves

13. What do the river leaves symbolize?

THINKING ABOUT BENIN CULTURE

14. Scholars believe that the plaque depicts the warrior chief at the Otue ceremony.What are three symbols that support this hypothesis?

15. "Although the Oba is not shown in the plaque he is still its dominant figure." Use the information provided in this site to support or refute this statement.