Magnificent Oba skull. - Yoruba - Nigeria (No reserve price)

Magnificent Skull, in the south of Nigeria, was one of the most powerful empires in Africa. The royal city is said to have been founded by a prince of the neighboring city of Ife around the 13th century, before contact with Portuguese colonizers from the 15th century, followed by trade, and attempts at Christianization. Benin City would be sacked by the English in 1897. The king of Benin was the Oba, who was glorified by a highly developed court art, of which these carved leopards with the lost-wax casting technique and cast in bronze (brass made of copper and lead) are among the most representative elements. The leopard occupied, symbolically among animals, the same rank as the Oba among his subjects. The Kingdom of Benin is also famous for its bronze Oba heads, its court dwarf sculptures, its European soldiers, its carved ivory tusks, and especially the bronze plaques which