Jos Museum is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

Jos Jos is a city in the north central region of Nigeria. The city has a population of about 900,000 residents based on the 2006 census. Popularly called "J-Town", it is the administrative capital and largest city of Plateau State. During British ...

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. The museum was established in 1952 by Bernard Fagg. The museum administers the Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture.

History

The museum was founded in 1952 by Bernard E. B. Fagg, who served as the Director of Antiquities of the colonial administration at the time. It was the first public museum in West Africa. In 1963,

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

established the Regional Training Centre in Jos. The institution was bilingual in English and French until the establishment of a separate French-language centre in Niamey. After UNESCO ended its financial support, the centre lost funding and resources. The museum has fallen into disrepair, attributed to a lack of government funding, raising concerns about loss of cultural preservation. In 2019, the museum was only allocated

₦ The naira ( sign: ₦; code: NGN) is the currency of Nigeria. One naira is divided into 100 ''kobo''. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is the sole issuer of legal tender money throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It controls the vol ...

158,197,120.

Theft and recovery of artifacts

On 14 January 1987, the museum was robbed of many valuable artifacts by a group of thieves. A list of the stolen artifacts was made by UNESCO. In December 1990, one of the stolen artifacts, a fifteenth-century Benin Bronze, was discovered at an auctioneer in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

. It was returned to the museum after two independent Swiss citizens suspected and confirmed that it was stolen. Another stolen artifact, a bronze head from

Ifẹ Ifẹ̀ ( yo, Ifẹ̀, also ''Ilé-Ifẹ̀'') is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. The city is located in present-day Osun State. Ife is about 218 kilometers northeast of Lagos with a population of over 500,000 people, which is t ...

, was discovered in London in 2017. The sculpture had been auctioned off in 2007 by the Belgian government. It was purchased by an antiques dealer, unaware that it was stolen. The buyer attempted to sell the head through the auction house Woolley and Wallis, but auctioneer John Axford realized it was stolen and passed it on to police. This led to a legal battle between the Jos Museum and the buyer over ownership of the artifact. As of 2022, the artifact is currently held by UK police.

References

Museums in Nigeria Museums established in 1952 Jos Architecture museums Archaeological museums 20th-century architecture in Nigeria {{Nigeria-museum-stub