Legend · Ogiso era to today
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The palace was burned and its bronzes carried to London in 1897. The casters scattered. When a new Oba came home in 1914, they came back too, to a street off Sakponba Road, and started making the work again.
If you walk off Sakponba Road in Benin City, a short way from the Ring Road roundabout, you come to Igun Street. Its other name is Igun-Eronmwon Quarters. It is home to the Guild of Benin Bronze and Brass Casters and is said to be the second most visited tourist spot in the city. Visitors come to buy, and to watch the casters at work.
The guild says its story starts very early. Benin tradition places its founding in the time of the Ogiso, the first royal dynasty, under Ogiso Ere, whose reign is dated in that tradition to between 16 and 66 AD. Back then the quarter was called Obayagbon, which means "all land belongs to the king". Its first leader is remembered as Igueghae. These dates come from Benin's own history and should be read as tradition rather than proven fact, but they tell you how the casters see themselves: as old as the kingdom.
For most of that history, the casters did not sit on a public street. Their quarter was inside the royal palace grounds, and it stayed there until 1897. They made bronze and brass works for the Oba, for chiefs and for priests across Benin City and the kingdom. In return for meeting the palace's needs, the kings gave them the sole right to do the work.
The famous plaques came later. Under Oba Esigie, who reigned from 1504 to 1550, casting grew into elaborate forms. Esigie also locked in the guild's monopoly and set aside quarters specifically for the royal casters. So the bronze plaques we see in museums today were made by a single closed group of families who worked for the throne.
In 1897 a British force took Benin City. The palace was looted and burned, and thousands of objects, including the plaques and heads now called the Benin Bronzes, were shipped to Britain. The casters' quarter, inside the palace grounds, did not escape. In November 1899, seven royal chiefs of Benin reported that the place had been damaged during the expedition.
The craftsmen fled. With the Oba sent into exile, the palace that had commissioned their work for centuries was gone. A guild that existed to serve a king had no king to serve.
That silence lasted about seventeen years. In 1914 the throne was restored to Eweka II, and Benin had an Oba again. Some of the craftsmen who had run away came back. This time their quarters were moved out of the palace to Igun Street, where they still are.
What they did next is the remarkable part. The returning casters were encouraged to copy the objects the British had taken. They began rebuilding their practice by recreating, from memory and skill, the very works that had been carried overseas. At the same time, the old restrictions on selling their art were lifted. For the first time, the guild could sell to anyone. Think about what that means. The men who had lost their workshops to a foreign army answered by making their art again, and making it available to the world on their own terms.
Later, Oba Akenzua II, who reigned from 1933 to 1978, pushed this work further and campaigned for looted pieces to be returned. The idea that Benin's art had been stolen, and should come home, has deep roots on this street.
The guild still runs on old rules. Its members share a common ancestry. Only descendants of the original seven families of Igun Street may practise as Benin bronze and brass casters, a right they say they have held since Igueghae's time.
At the head of the guild is the Inneh N'Igun-Eronmwon, a hereditary office responsible for protecting the art of bronze casting in Benin. Alongside him sits a secretary, who is not hereditary. The secretary named in the sources is Eric Ogbemudia.
After 1897, palace demand shrank. So the casters set up their own workshops and began making sculpture for buyers around the world, while still serving the Oba when he needs them. The guild keeps its techniques secret from outsiders. That secrecy matters. In a world where a Benin-style head can be faked and sold anywhere, the only real guarantee of the craft is the family line behind it. A caster on Igun Street is not just someone who learned a skill. He is someone whose ancestors were doing the same work for the palace, long before any British ship reached the coast.
There is one more modern habit worth knowing. Anyone who owns a Benin bronze or brass piece is expected to have proof that it was bought on Igun Street. Buyers are given a receipt from the workshop as that proof.
So the next time you see a Benin plaque behind museum glass in London or Berlin, remember that the families who made it never stopped working. They lost their palace, scattered, came back, and moved to a street. They are still there, casting.
