The ancient kingdom of Benin lies in the tropical rain forest of West Africa, next to present-day Nigeria. During its classical age, from the 14th to the 19th centuries, it produced one of the continent’s most glorious artistic legacies. To reflect the splendor of the royal court, the Oba (king) commissioned highly skilled artisans to create rare and beautiful works of art in materials such as ivory and bronze. The most renowned examples of Benin “classical” art are the extraordinary sculptures cast in bronze. When Europeans first discovered this material in the 17th century, there was widespread disbelief that West African peoples could produce works of such high quality. The skills needed for metal casting were, however, well known in Africa from Senegal on the Atlantic coast to Northeast Nigeria dating as far back as the ninth century. The production of bronze objects was almost always done using the “lost wax” method of casting. In lost wax methodology, a model (the statue) is carved from pure beeswax, or for hollow castings, from a thin layer of wax surrounding a clay core. A mold is then created to surround the wax statue. In turn, molten metal is poured into the mold and the wax is displaced. Finally, the mold is broken to reveal the statue. Using this method it is only possible to create a one-of-a-kind object since the mold and the wax original are destroyed as part of the production process. As with many other objects of Benin art, bronze plaques have been influenced by a wide variety of non-African sources. Their fundamental form is probably based on foreign models, such as small-illustrated books that were brought to Benin by the Portuguese. The themes of the plaques are almost exclusively concerned with life at court and related matters. While they complement oral history, they rarely serve as an exact narration of historical events. The interpretation of plaques removed from their original sites proves more difficult, since it is likely most plaques required interpretation when viewed in a certain sequence with others.