Nigeria’s famous Benin bronzes – artifacts stolen during British colonial rule and scattered around the world – have a new online archive that aims to become a digital record of the treasures.

Thousands of metal plaques, sculptures and objects dating from the 16th to 18th centuries were looted from the old Kingdom of Benin and ended up in museums and with art collectors in the US and Europe. Many experts hailed it as the pinnacle of African art.

As Nigeria negotiates their return, Digital Benin (https://digitalbenin.org/) provides a central hub with images and descriptions of more than 5,000 artifacts held in 131 institutions around the world.

“It’s a unique new way to see and compare all the objects together,” Barbara Plankensteiner, director of Germany’s MARKK museum and one of the project’s founders, told AFP.

“It’s really helpful for research that Nigerian scientists can access knowledge they haven’t been able to before.”

The project, which began planning and research two years ago, was launched at an official event over the weekend in Benin City, in southern Nigeria’s Edo state, the heart of the former Kingdom of Benin.

The platform contains a huge collection of images and details of artifacts categorized by object type, from figureheads to shields and ceremonial roosters.

It describes all institutions that house artifacts, from the British Museum, which has more than 900 objects, to places like the Toledo Museum of Art, which only has a commemorative statue with the Queen Mother’s head.

Readers can also browse through the history of the Benin Kingdom, its kings, chiefs and festivals, with a special section devoted to oral tradition.

The project comes online as international momentum grows for the restoration of African artefacts from former colonial powers Britain, France, Germany and Belgium.

Nigeria’s neighbor Benin earlier this year opened an exhibition of artworks and treasures returned by France after two years of negotiations.

These 26 pieces were stolen from the capital of the former kingdom of Dahomey by French colonial troops in 1892.

Germany is in the process of returning hundreds of Benin bronze artifacts to Nigeria, where a new museum is being built in Benin City to house artifacts.

Many of the artifacts were originally captured in 1897 when a British military expedition attacked and destroyed Benin City, looting thousands of metal and ivory sculptures and carvings.

“These are our properties,” Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki said at the platform launch event. “They were taken from us and should be given back to us.”

The Kingdom of Benin, which despite its name was located in present-day south-western Nigeria, dates back to the first century BC.

It expanded through military conquest and trade, which developed into trade in slaves, ivory and spices with the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century.