Manilla (Igho)

"The humble manilla, a brass currency ring, became the atomic unit of the Atlantic slave trade. In Benin, these objects underwent a metamorphosis—from European trade goods to royal regalia, melted down by court artists to create the very plaques that proclaimed the Oba's dominance over the foreigners who brought them."

— Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch, The Benin Plaques: A 16th Century Imperial Monument (2018), p. 67.