Sweden begins returning 116 looted objects to Nigeria and Bolivia

By Olivia Hart

What moved, and where?

Swedish museums began returning 39 Benin objects to Nigeria and 77 objects to Bolivia last week, entering the final phase of two restitution requests approved by the Swedish government three years ago. The National Museums of World Culture (SMVK) oversaw both processes.

The government behind the decision had the backing of the far-right Sweden Democrats.

The 39 Nigerian objects come from a history of colonial seizure. British troops violently looted thousands of items from the Edo people in the old Kingdom of Benin in 1897, in what is now Nigeria.

The former Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm acquired the objects later. Six will remain in Sweden as part of a ten-year loan; the rest joined the Lagos handover.

The 77 objects from the Niño Korin village include the skull of a Kallawaya healer. According to Swedish media, they left storage in Gothenburg for transport to the National Museum of Archaeology in La Paz.

SMVK dates the group to roughly AD 600–1000, the Tiwanku period, and says locals engaged in grave robbery looted the objects in the 1970s before selling them to the museum.

What did the Lagos handover change?

SMVK began the Nigerian return after receiving “clear signals from the Nigerian authority, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, that they would welcome the return of all objects.” The institution formally restituted the 39 pieces, known as Emwin Arre, at the ceremony in Lagos.

Michael Barrett, SMVK’s curator for Africa, attended the ceremonial signing-over. He told The Art Newspaper on his return: “I hope [this] is part of a broader shift in how our museums relate to the world around us.”

Can restitution change how museums work?

Barrett also tied the return to the way collections relate to source communities: “For too long colonial legacies of violence, theft, and exploitation have stood in the way of museum practices that are more responsive to a wider set of stakeholders, not least communities who have cultural and historical ties to our collections.”

He called the restitution “a necessary first step”, then widened the frame: the process also helps museums earn modern audiences’ trust. Relationships, he says, must shape practice going forward.

World collections, he says, should let visitors learn about humanity’s cultural achievements and its many ways of being in the world, in an environment defined by respect, empathy and curiosity.

Where does this leave European museums?

These transfers sit within a wider European sequence. Germany handed a substantial collection of Benin bronzes to Nigeria in 2022; the Netherlands returned 119 comparable objects in 2025, and Museum de Fundatie returned another Benin bronze plaque last month.

Britain’s record is less uniform. Cambridge University returned legal ownership of 116 objects to Nigeria in February, while the British Museum ruled out imminent restitution of stolen treasures last year and suggested “collaboration” instead.

Why was the decision largely depoliticised?

Staffan Lundén, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg’s School of Global Studies, has studied “dealing with difficult pasts” and the British Museum’s collection of objects looted in Benin City.

He says the Swedish restitutions were largely depoliticised. “The decision was taken by the right-wing government,” he points out. “It is seen as common sense, moral justice and in line with the Swedish self-perception of being a progressive country which takes international responsibility.”

The politics, in other words, sat oddly with the language of moral inevitability. The test now is whether SMVK can turn relationships into practice rather than ceremony, while six returned objects remain in Sweden on a ten-year loan.