“They have been equally unsafe in the hands of British, not least because of attack in 1897, which destroyed so much royal and sacred landscape,” said Dan Hicks, an archaeology professor at the University of Oxford in England who has written extensively on the Benin Bronzes. And, he added, many Benin Bronzes have headed to market in Europe, leaving their whereabouts and their safety uncertain. “The most important of the collections have been sold off in the West.” – ARTnews