This map presents Edo South, the heartland of the Benin Kingdom, highlighting cultural sites, towns, and landmarks connected to Benin history and heritage. By linking people, places, and objects, it reveals relationships that shaped the kingdom and contextualises Emwin Arre—objects of tradition or historical relevance—within their places of origin. Contextual texts link to Itan Edo, connecting places to broader histories.
It traces the global dispersal of Emwin Arre through institutions worldwide, connecting local histories with international collections. When enabled, geolocation shows these places in relation to the viewer’s location.
Digital Benin collates digital material from institutions, and some of this material is inherently colonial and contains words, terms and phrases that are inaccurate, derogatory and harmful towards African and African diasporic communities. Catalogue transcriptions, book titles, exhibition titles and museum titles may contain harmful terms. We recognise the potential for the material to cause physical and mental distress as well as evoke strong emotions. Owing to the scale of the collection’s data, a process to implement sensitive-content warnings in the displayed data is still incomplete. The material within the catalogue does not represent Digital Benin’s views. Digital Benin maintains a strong anti-colonial, anti-racist position and affirms its support for centring the humanity of historically marginalised and disenfranchised communities. Read more about the background of this statement here