Oba Esigie improves brass-casting in Benin

Tradition credits Oba Esigie, son of Ozolua and one of the rulers in the early sixteenth century, with the improvement of brass-casting in Benin at a time when the metal became available in quantities sufficient to permit experimentation and continuous production. Manillas supplied by the Portuguese provided an increased supply of copper and brass. The Benin court also began to shift its preference from copper manillas to brass ones. Palace artisans had by this time developed a recognisable corpus of court plaques and bronzes.