Papaye n° 3
Historical
Museum of Abomey in Benin : The restored history of a kingdom
From
1600 to 1900, the different monarchs of the famous kingdom of Danxome had built
their royal palaces in Abomey, historical capital city and county-town of Zou
department. It’s on that historical and royal site that the historical museum
of Abomey is located and it represents a daily testimony of a past period.
What
still remains from the kingdom of Abomey in Benin, are the temples and the
graves, its buildings, the ruins of 4 km long city walls, essences of more than
200 years old ; similar to the site, the historical museum of Abomey claims
itself to represent an everlasting sources of worthy knowledge. At the service
of young generations to encourage education, training and an awareness to
cultural values, the site is preserving intact the architecture of royal
palaces.
For
each palace, there is a wall in addition to the main yards (outside and inside)
or moreover, the place of sites and of military parades is the place where great
royal decisions were taken. The realization of this architecture was made
possible by the use of materials like sand bar, wood and straw. And it explains
the degrading situation of the site today.
Thus,
the historical museum of Abomey is spreading on two hectares. It is composed of
more than twenty buildings.
However
the historical space has been restored thanks to the financial help of Benin’s
state, of Germany and Italy, but mainly, of UNESCO, the Francophony Agency and
the Getty Conservation Institute. Concerning the project of Iccrom-Prema Benin,
it has contributed in the putting into place of the conditions of conservation,
of building and the training of manaers and of maintenance agents, in the
realization of prevention works. Today, the principal challenge of the
historical museum of Abomey to get the royal
palaces of Abomey out of the group of endangered world patrimony by the year
2004.
Regarding
the collection, the museum is exhibiting and keeping testifying objects which
essentially belonged to different kings who successively held for three hundred
years the reins of Danxome’s kingdom. It is consisted of cleaned thrones,
sunshades, hammocks, sculptures made of copper, silver, iron, wood, royal
jewelry, pyro-carved calabashes, ceramic jar, portable altars, ritual swords.
The museum has collected as well textiles namely royal tunics of Amazon
dignitaries, silken wrappers, blades, heavy machine guns, rifles etc...
Today
you can see royal families using, in traditional ceremonies, certain of these
objects they had received in the past . This is done under the form of a lending
from the museum and these items are sent back after usage.
Created
in 1931, the museum is still facing difficulties to do the inventory of all
works. Objects are also deprived of labels and readable references. The museum
doesn’t have yet a clear policy
of objects collecting.