Our new History topic in Class 6 is the Kingdom of Benin.

To introduce our topic this week, we have talked about what we already know about the continent of Africa, found all of the 54 countries of modern Africa in the atlases and found out exactly where the Kingdom of Benin was. We have also begun learning some of the key dates and vocabulary which we will need for this topic. 

We learned that Kingdom of Benin was a civilisation in Africa from circa 900 AD until 1897 and was in the country which is now known as Nigeria. The Kingdom of Benin was known as Igodomigodo until the 1400s until it was renamed by Portuguese explorers.

Through our new class novel,’ The Children of the Benin Kingdom’ by Dinah Orji, we have already learnt a lot about what life was like there  in the 12th Century, which is when the story is set. 

We learned about the Benin Bronzes which are metal plaques, heads and statues which were made by the people of the Kingdom of Benin for the Obas (kings). Since 1897, most of them are in European museums.  One of the ‘Big Questions’ that we will be exploring in this topic is, ‘Who do the Benin Bronzes belong to?’

In Art, we created our own representations of Benin Bronze plaques by talking about some examples and sketching our own. Next, we used the sketches to make print tiles and then created prints using metallic paint. 

Please go to our Class Blog to tell us what you already know about the Kingdom of Benin and what you would like to learn more about.

3 comments on “The Kingdom of Benin

  1. I would like to find out if the Benin kingdom conquered any other countries or city’s.
    Yes there is some activity’s I would like to do such make head sculptures and to also make necklaces.
    The Benin kingdom bronzes did actually belong to them and no one believed them.

  2. 1.) In this new topic i would like to learn about what religion they used to follow.

    2.) I would like to try make the Benin bronzes out of clay before we stop the topic.

    3.) Britain took over the kingdom of Benin and they ”discovered” the Benin bronzes.

  3. Those drawings look so fun and so does the kingdom of Benin i am sure it will be super fun.

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