"The spiral narratives carved into Benin's ivory tusks are not mere decorations but sacred archives—each coil a chapter of dynastic history, where leopards symbolize judicial authority, mudfish represent divine kingship, and European soldiers are rendered as subordinate tribute-bearers to the Oba's power."

— Barbara Blackmun, The Iconography of Carved Altar Tusks from Benin, Nigeria (1984), p. 27.

Commemorative Head