* Cockerel statue was plundered by British in 1897
* Cambridge college wants to return it to Benin City
* UK universities in heated debate over colonial legacy
* British Museum also under pressure over Benin artworks
By Estelle Shirbon
LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A Cambridge University college
said on Thursday it would return an antique statue of a cockerel
to Benin City in Nigeria, more than 120 years after the work was
looted by British colonial forces.
The move by Jesus College will likely step up pressure on
other institutions holding plunder from the historic Kingdom of
Benin and other objects taken by British colonialists during the
19th century.
College staff said research had shown there was no doubt the
cockerel had been looted from the Court of Benin, the seat of
the once-mighty West African kingdom.
"This royal ancestral heirloom belongs with the current Oba
at the Court of Benin," the college said on its website,
referring to the traditional and still influential ruler of what
is now part of modern-day Nigeria.
"I hope the other institutions follow suit!" said Nigerian
artist Victor Ehikhamenor, an advocate of the restitution of the
Benin artworks to their city of origin, on Twitter.
British museums have long resisted campaigns for the return
of Nigeria's Benin Bronzes, Greece's Elgin Marbles, Ethiopia's
Magdala treasures and other loot, often citing legislation that
bans them from disposing of their collections.
But the debate has heated up in recent years, particularly
in Britain's universities, where students and campaigners have
called for greater recognition of how the colleges benefited
from colonial-era riches and funding.
Scotland's University of Glasgow said in August it would
spend 20 million pounds ($24.4 million) to make amends for the
financial support it received from people who profited from the
slave trade. COLLECTIONS
Oxford University has launched several projects aimed at
tackling its relationship and links to colonialism, but in 2016
one of its colleges, Oriel, decided not to remove a statue of
imperialist Cecil Rhodes.
Dan Hicks, a professor of archaeology at the Pitt Rivers
Museum in Oxford, said Britain had reached a tipping point in
the national dialogue about the restitution of looted objects.
"In the past, our attention on this matter was focused on
national collections like the British Museum," he told the
Guardian newspaper. "But in reality such loot is held in dozens
of institutions across the regions: city museums, art galleries
and the collections of universities."
The statue of the cockerel was given to Jesus College in
1905 by the father of a student and was on display in the dining
hall until 2016, when it was put into storage following student
protests over its provenance.
The British Museum, which has around 100 objects from Benin
on display, announced last year that it would loan some of them
to a new Benin Royal Museum in Benin City that is due to open in
2023.
Along with representatives from Nigeria and from museums in
Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, the British Museum
is a member of the Benin Dialogue Group, which is working on the
creation of the new Nigerian museum.
The idea is that the European museums would contribute
objects from their collections, on a rotating basis, to the
Benin City museum's displays. The British Museum has agreed a
three-year loan that could potentially be extended.
"The loan is being developed in close dialogue with the
Benin Royal Court and the Benin Royal Museum project
team, although no final decisions have yet been made concerning
specific objects," the British Museum said on Wednesday.