This powder container of cow horn and leather belonged to a woman warrior in the 1860s.

The Dahomey kingdom was founded in the 1600s in what is now the Republic of Benin. For two hundred years the king employed ashosi, female personal bodyguards and elite warriors known in Europe as ‘Dahomey Amazons’, after the female warriors of Greek mythology. Their specialty was hand-to-hand combat and in addition to their swords and firearms they were taught to use their teeth and nails as weapons. They were fearsome, brave and disciplined, renowned for decapitating their male enemies. Numbering 6,000 at their peak, they were eventually wiped out by French firepower in 1892 and the last surviving veteran died in the 1970s.