This building and its annexes house the Edo State High Court, as well as the offices of the state judiciary. Several parts of the facade bear relief work by Ben Osawe (1931-2007). His three-story rendering is linear and geometric in conception, showing a figure dressed in the traditional beluku skirt-like garment while flourishing the ada ceremonial sword that indicates the right to take life. "Justice" is similarly linear, and is a Benin version of the blindfolded figure with scales in one hand.

Osawe, born to a father who was a Benin palace carver, but trained himself as a signmaker. He then schooled overseas in London, first at the School of Graphic Art, then at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. He returned to Nigeria in 1966, but it took more than a decade for him to leave Lagos and take up residence in Benin City again. Familiar with many media--cement, metal, and wood--most of his work was modernist, ranging from the abstract to totally non-objective directions, although he also created several naturalistic bronzes, including one of Oba Erediauwa..

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Ring Road is one of Benin City's busiest intersections, with major roads such as Akpakpava, Airport, Sapele, Forestry, Old Sakpoba, and other streets running off the roundabout in spoke-like fashion. In the middle stands the National Museum, Benin City, as well as a small children's amusement park and other public structures. Around its perimeter are numerous commercial and governmental buildings, examples of colonial architecture, and numerous public sculptures. The latter are a notable feature of Benin City, and the then-Bendel Arts Council initiated the program in 1987 with four statues. Their numbers have grown significantly; while many were in place by the 1990s. figurative depictions of historic monarchs multiplied have multiplied in the past decade or so.

This area was part of the pre-1897 royal palace, consisting of sections of its many courtyards, as well as its huge forecourt and the shrine to Ogiuwu, the deity of death. Some even attribute the many traffic accidents on Ring Road as the deity's continued efforts to "feed." British colonial occupation cut through the palace, clearing certain areas for new construction. What is now Ring Road's "island" became the site of the British fort and barracks, providing an overview and a challenge to the remaining palace buildings, as well as the reconstructed palace after the monarchy's 1914 restoration.

Urhokpota ("Okpota's gate") Hall, another early colonial building, is also located along Ring Road. Its name refers to a ritual specialist named Okpota, who came to Benin from the Esan (Ishan) area during Oba Ozolua's reign. He told the monarch he could produce a charm that would draw wealth, and the Oba tested him by ordering Okpota to first use it himself. When the ruler saw gifts pouring in, he commissioned his own charms, which were buried under one of the palace entrances Built in 1906, it is one of the oldest colonial structures in Benin. Although British-built, the Native Council collected taxes for its payment, and it was used as a traditional court while the Oba was exiled in Calabar and no ruler was on the throne. Today it is the site of the public coronation of the Oba and first public reveal of his throne name. He then leaves and enters the nearby palace.

This city sector receives periodic facelifts because of its central site. During Adams Oshiomhole's governorship (2008-2016), a series of illuminated "dancing" fountains was installed, as were gardens and extensive landscaping. The 2016 enthronement of Oba Ewuare II brought further updates. Despite government efforts to create a park-like environment, however, the iron fence around the traffic island continues to host banners that advertise events and products, and shop-less merchants have crept back, using surrounding sidewalks as an open-air market.

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Benin City's National Museum was, in 1944, the second museum to be established in the country, under the auspices of Oba Akenzua II. He first hosted a collection of antiquities in the palace, some of which had been uncovered during 20th-century royal construction. This included a large brass snake's head of the type that had formerly hung on the palace towers, as well as several hip pendants, a figure, and large shield-shaped plaques whose thinness, style, and metallic content suggested an early date. This initial collection developed into Benin's National Museum, with local historian Chief Jacob Egharevba serving as its first curator. It moved to the colonial tax office on Ring Road, then back to the Divisional Council within palace grounds, then into the colonial post office. In 1960, it was handed over to the government. The impetus for museum foundation and the establishment of a federal Department of Antiquities came from a British colonial education officer, Kenneth C. Murray. In the early 1970s, when oil revenue fueled infrastructures, Gov. S. O. Ogbemudia funded the construction of a new dedicated building on King's Square, the centrally-located circle surrounded by the city's Ring Road. This land had been part of the palace complex before the 1987 British invasion, but in 1973 it was opened to the public as a cultural display site.

Its rounded Brutalist exterior echoes the circular parcel of land where the museum stands. Antithetical to the traditional rectangular courtyard architecture of the ancient kingdom, it does, however, mimic those structures' reddish earth color, albeit through cement. A 1976 exterior mosaic by Yoruba artist Jimoh Buraimoh depicts a lively abstracted court scene of an Oba (presumably Oba Akenzua, as he wears circular spectacles) surrounded by chiefs, courtiers, and shield-bearing figures drawn from 16th-century plaques.

The building's three floors consisted of displays that remained consistent for decades, with the exception of a 1982 special exhibition of repurchased Benin arts. The first (ground) floor was dedicated to mostly pre-1897 antiquities, some of which had been purchased back from Britain when Nigeria was still a colony. This area included exhibits of partially-reconstructed royal altars, albeit with objects clearly separated from one another for display purposes. The second floor included some Benin City objects of more recent manufacture, including divination equipment, as well as pottery, masks, and other artworks from elsewhere in the former Bendel State (now divided into Edo and Delta States). The third floor included wooden sculpture, masks, and additional art from other regions of Nigeria. In late September 2017, however, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art brought their exhibition “Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria” to the museum as part of its permanent installation.

Although limited archaeology has been conducted in Benin City, in 1961-62 Graham Connah investigated the area earmarked for the new museum's construction. While the area was likely the site of the large open gathering place just in front of palace structures, over twenty sections of pre-14th century potsherd pavement were found in a pit. This type of terracotta paving was atypical of Benin City, but is known to have been a feature of the Yoruba city of Ife to the northwest; Benin's present dynasty is said to have originated from Ife. Other cuttings yielded pottery remains and a trussed skeleton, suggesting human sacrifice and/or execution, the former practiced at the palace in past centuries during ceremonies or times of crisis.

When the British established their colonial government in Benin City, they cut roads through the former palace grounds and cleared buildings. The area where the museum now stands became their Public Works Department, site of urban planning. The British introduced "burnt bricks," as opposed to sun-dried bricks, as a civic building material, using metal molds to form the local clay and emboss it with the imperial crown. Both manufacturing and kiln-firing of the bricks was done along the banks of the Ikpoba River.

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Chief Nosa Isekhure, the hereditary chief priest of the Oba, belongs to the Ihogbe guild, the palace group that tends the royal ancestors. The Erimwi-Idu royal ancestral shrine was erected in his home for convenient prayer centuries ago, as was an altar to his own ancestors. Newly-made chiefs stopped at the royal shrine when celebrating their titles in a procession through the city.

In 1995, he gave his home a facelift, employing sculptors to add a figurative balustrade and adorn the roofline with relief sculpture. He incorporated his title, as well as an item associated with him--the ukhurhe, or ancestral staff, covered with red ododo cloth. Chief Isekhurhe held the staff in ceremonies when he prayed for the Oba.

When Oba Ewuare II was crowned in October of 2016, Isekhure refused to participate in some key rites and offended the monarch. Some months later, the Traditional Council carried out the Oba's will and stripped him of the privileges and responsibilities of his title. In January of 2017 the palace took control of the royal shrine, destroyed part of the facade, and sealed the front entrance to the home.

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The Benin palace (eguae) shares many contemporary elements with royal accommodations worldwide: air conditioning, electricity, electronics, and a glamorous new facade–an innovation of the current monarch, Oba Ewuare II. Altars to the monarchs of the past, buried in the living quarters they once occupied, nonetheless remain the spiritual heart of this royal compound. Still, externals have always been important, for they reinforce the monarch’s ultimate social status.

Many of Benin’s architectural innovations began with the palace, whether they were Oba Esigie’s 16th-century introduction of a shingled roof, Oba Ovoranmwen’s late 19th-century novel use of corrugated metal sheeting for the same purpose, or his mirrored bedroom ceiling. Sumptuary laws still affect Benin architecture. Only the monarch and those chiefs to whom he grants the privilege may score their walls with the horizontal grooving (eken agben) that marks rank, a feature incorporated into current cement buildings, as well as older earthen construction techniques. When the latter were the norm, the palace had walls that were built from five to nine courses or layers high; most other citizens were limited to four, although a few privileged chiefs were permitted to have five. The earthen walls were thick—usually two to three feet at the base, thinning as they rose. That produced an insulating effect that, combined with shaded passages and the lack of exterior windows, helped to keep the interiors cooler.

Our knowledge of the original palace is limited. The first dynasty’s monarchs, known as the Ogiso, resided elsewhere in town, its location disputed. When the present Oranmiyan dynasty was initially established, the first few monarchs had their palace at Usama, in that sector of the city where the Usama chiefs who invited them lived. It was not until the reign of Oba Ewedo in the 14th century that the inner section of the town was breached. Ewedo built his palace where the royal residence still stands: land the indigenes had used as a cemetery. This ensured that the dynasty, which had entered Benin from the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife, had suzerainty over the ancestral forces that owned the land. While the palace's structures have changed significantly over time, what little archaeology has occurred took place on what were once palace grounds—small areas on the Benin Museum grounds and the site of the former Clerk's Quarters. Even those limited excavations revealing. Connah discovered segments of pottery shard pavements reminiscent of Ile-Ife, their date coinciding with the Oranmiyan dynasty’s establishment of the current palace site. These dropped out of use long ago.

Extensive decoration marked palace structures. In the 16th century, Oba Esigie constructed a reception hall whose wooden verandah supports were decorated by over 800 brass plaques depicting court officials, animals, Portuguese visitors, and other subjects. Royal ancestral altars bore cast metal heads, carved ivory tusks, brass figures, wooden staffs and other decorations. Walls included patterns beyond fluting, and sometimes incorporated modeled clay tableaux. Wooden lintels decorated with interlace motifs or carved figurative scenes were visible in passageways, and patterned brass sheets decorated some lintels and doors. Cowrie shells, a precolonial currency, were pressed into some clay flooring in the form of animals or courtiers, a practice that flaunted the Oba’s wealth.

The palace was once considerably larger than it is today. Seventeenth-century visitors remarked on its many galleries and courts, as well as the reflective surfaces of its burnished red earthen walls, described by the 17th-century author Dapper as “as shining as a looking glass.” Towers topped by brass birds standing over snakes were visible over the perimeter walls, making the Oba’s home larger, taller, and far more imposing than any other city buildings. Like many African households, space within the palace moved inward, from public to private. Large-scale activities took place in the open areas and forecourts, while reception areas ranged from royal encounters with chiefs, subjects, and visitors to more intimate ones. Despite its size and costly decorations, the palace's basic design--rooms arranged around open courtyards with impluvia, bordered by shaded galleries with a compluvium opening in at the center--was aligned with that of chiefs and other citizens. When an Oba joined his ancestors, he was buried in the courtyard that held his suite of personal rooms, and the altar erected over his grave served as a focus for sacrifice and ritual. When his successor took the throne, he had new personal quarters erected.

Destruction–both accidental and deliberate–encouraged innovations via rebuilding. Goodwin’s limited excavations revealed that a single segment of the former royal compound that showed evidence of four successive blazes. Accidental fires periodically occurred, as in 1922, but succession disputes caused Oba Ewuare I to burn both palace and town, while the short-reigned Oba Egbebo restricted himself to torching the palace. The British were responsible for the greatest palace devastation, however. In 1897, in retaliation for the death of a few Britons (who had been warned not to come) eager to force Benin to become part of a “Protectorate” and agree to exclusive trade, the British Navy led an assault on the city. They fought their way to the palace, which the monarch finally had vacated during the bombardment, and took possession of kingdom. They used explosives on the area bordering the palace, in order to, as Roth put it, “enable the invaders to defend their positions should the Binis return to the fight.” Clearing the shrines of their altarpiece decorations, they removed personal and state objects for shipment to Britain, where they subsequently were sold and scattered to museums and collections worldwide. While the soldiers were bivouacked in the royal compound, the palace and ultimately much of the surrounding Ogbe quarter caught fire and burned for three days. After clearing the debris, colonial administrators carved up the extensive grounds. Roads cut through the space; the current museum complex, Ring Road, the prison and the former Clerk's Quarters were all once part of the palace.

In 1914, after the death of his father, Oba Eweka II took the throne and began reconstructing both structures and altars. He created a large freestanding courtyard, the ugha, that included both a joint altar for all prior monarchs, whose quadrangles had been destroyed, and individual altars to his father Oba Ovoranmwen and his grandfather Oba Adolor. This quadrangle is the site of some of ceremonies held during the December/January festival period, including Ugie Erhoba, which honors the current monarch’s father, and Ugie Iron, which recreates a 16th-century power struggle.

His son Oba Akenzua II 's innovations included a billiards room and air conditioning. Akenzua's palace commissions to the artist Ovia Idah included an enshrined cement and clay figure of late 15th-century/early 16th century Oba Ozolua (made ca. 1947-50). Erected in the open area in front of the present palace, its position marks where his courtyard once stood. This open area hosts palace ceremonies such as Igu’Oba, which honors the monarch’s head and destiny, and Ugi’Ewere, the celebration that closes the festival season. Idah also produced cement and clay portraits of royals that were part the palace’s façade at that time. In the 1960s, he replaced these deteriorated palace decorations with five reliefs of monarchs and two of royal wives, the effect recalling both the clay reliefs on former palace pillars and the hundreds of 16th-century brass plaques Oba Esigie had cast and nailed to the wooden supports of his reception court.

Some of Oba Erediauwa’s subjects urged him to create a palace in contemporary style like those of certain of his Yoruba counterparts, but he was uninterested. At the time of his installation he did, however, replace the earthen palace entry with a steel gate, and introduced other innovations that were less noticeable.

Oba Ewuare II completely revamped the palace’s public face before his installation in October of 2016, although he retained most of the structures behind the façade, as well as the courtyard with ancestral altars. Color integrates old and new: the red roofs of the new structures harmonize with the palace’s earthen walls and a small section of the newly paved forecourt, while new white structures match the repainted cement sections of old buildings, the front fencing, and the bulk of the forecourt. The palace’s new entry building is a sizable two-story streamlined Neoclassical mansion, its entrance marked with a columned portico. The emphasis on red and white reflects these colors’ symbolic importance: white stands for purity and peace, and is the color associated with Olokun, the deity of the sea whose palace the monarch’s is said to imitate; red, on the other hand, is associated with power.

Today’s palace compound still includes a sacred grove, as well as a school for male pages, the Oba’s secretary's office, a library, and the Benin Traditional Council's suite, as well as the royal ancestral shrines, shrines to other deities, meeting and reception rooms, and the private quarters of the Oba and his wives. As residence, ritual and administrative center, and site of annual celebrations, the palace was and is physically the center of the Benin Kingdom's capital, with the main market located nearby. Through the centuries, its days were filled by chiefs, priests, citizens, and visitors, but at night it housed only the monarch, his wives, infant children, and male and female pages. Older royal children lived outside the palace and were raised by various chiefs.

Many parts of the palace are off-limits to most people. Chiefs belonging to the Eghaevbo n’Ogbe category are affiliated with one of three palace societies and have access only to general spaces and those quadrangles reserved for their specific group: Iwebo, the largest group, concerned mostly with administrative duties, public functions, and royal objects and dress; Iweguae, which cares for the Oba’s ancestors and his royal person; and Ibiwe, which looks after the harem and children. Courtyards have particular functions, as Dmochowski noted; one is devoted to the storage of state drums, another is earmarked for the enisen wardrobe officials. Many of the courtyards are site of altars to various deities, and include visible protective medicines. It is likely that the walls themselves contain amulets and other devices, for the British discovered certain bronzes within the walls, invisible to passers-by.

Even on a quiet day, the palace hosts numerous chiefs, pages, and visitors both lofty and humble. At times of royal ceremonies, its grounds flood with people. As an Edo proverb has it, "The palace full to capacity is the Oba's happiness."

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