Benin Versus London - How Times Have Changed.

''This is the story of a lost medieval city you’ve probably never heard about. Benin City, originally known as Edo, was once the capital of a pre-colonial African empire located in what is now southern Nigeria. The Benin empire was one of the oldest and most highly developed states in west Africa, dating back to the 11th century.

The Guinness Book of Records (1974 edition) described the walls of Benin City and its surrounding kingdom as the world’s largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era. According to estimates by the New Scientist’s Fred Pearce, Benin City’s walls were at one point “four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops”.

Situated on a plain, Benin City was enclosed by massive walls in the south and deep ditches in the north. Beyond the city walls, numerous further walls were erected that separated the surroundings of the capital into around 500 distinct villages.


................[img]https://prolificstella.files./2015/09/b1.jpg[/img]
................Benin City, 15th century

Pearce writes that these walls “extended for some 16,000 km in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They covered 6,500 sq km and were all dug by the Edo people … They took an estimated 150 million hours to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet”.

Benin City was also one of the first cities to have a semblance of street lighting. Huge metal lamps, many feet high, were built and placed around the city, especially near the king’s palace. Fuelled by palm oil, their burning wicks were lit at night to provide illumination for traffic to and from the palace.

When the Portuguese first “discovered” the city in 1485, they were stunned to find this vast kingdom made of hundreds of interlocked cities and villages in the middle of the African jungle. They called it the “Great City of Benin”, at a time when there were hardly any other places in Africa the Europeans acknowledged as a city. Indeed, they classified Benin City as one of the most beautiful and best planned cities in the world.

In 1691, the Portuguese ship captain Lourenco Pinto observed: “Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”

In contrast, London at the same time is described by Bruce Holsinger, professor of English at the University of Virginia, as being a city of “thievery, prostitution, murder, bribery and a thriving black market made the medieval city ripe for exploitation by those with a skill for the quick blade or picking a pocket”.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace

Benin's African fractals

Benin City’s planning and design was done according to careful rules of symmetry, proportionality and repetition now known as fractal design. The mathematician Ron Eglash, author of African Fractals – which examines the patterns underpinning architecture, art and design in many parts of Africa – notes that the city and its surrounding villages were purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with similar shapes repeated in the rooms of each house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village in mathematically predictable patterns.

As he puts it: “When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganised and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn’t even discovered yet.”

At the centre of the city stood the king’s court, from which extended 30 very straight, broad streets, each about 120-ft wide. These main streets, which ran at right angles to each other, had underground drainage made of a sunken impluvium with an outlet to carry away storm water. Many narrower side and intersecting streets extended off them...

“Houses are built alongside the streets in good order, the one close to the other,” writes the 17th-century Dutch visitor Olfert Dapper. “Adorned with gables and steps … they are usually broad with long galleries inside, especially so in the case of the houses of the nobility, and divided into many rooms which are separated by walls made of red clay, very well erected.”

Dapper adds that wealthy residents kept these walls “as shiny and smooth by washing and rubbing as any wall in Holland can be made with chalk, and they are like mirrors. The upper storeys are made of the same sort of clay. Moreover, every house is provided with a well for the supply of fresh water”.

Family houses were divided into three sections: the central part was the husband’s quarters, looking towards the road; to the left the wives’ quarters (oderie), and to the right the young men’s quarters (yekogbe).

Daily street life in Benin City might have consisted of large crowds going though even larger streets, with people colourfully dressed – some in white, others in yellow, blue or green – and the city captains acting as judges to resolve lawsuits, moderating debates in the numerous galleries, and arbitrating petty conflicts in the markets.

The early foreign explorers’ descriptions of Benin City portrayed it as a place free of crime and hunger, with large streets and houses kept clean; a city filled with courteous, honest people, and run by a centralised and highly sophisticated bureaucracy.

What impressed the first visiting Europeans most was the wealth, artistic beauty and magnificence of the city. The city was split into 11 divisions, each a smaller replication of the king’s court, comprising a sprawling series of compounds containing accommodation, workshops and public buildings – interconnected by innumerable doors and passageways, all richly decorated with the art that made Benin famous. The city was literally covered in it.

The exterior walls of the courts and compounds were decorated with horizontal ridge designs (agben) and clay carvings portraying animals, warriors and other symbols of power – the carvings would create contrasting patterns in the strong sunlight. Natural objects (pebbles or pieces of mica) were also pressed into the wet clay, while in the palaces, pillars were covered with bronze plaques illustrating the victories and deeds of former kings and nobles.

At the height of its greatness in the 12th century – well before the start of the European Renaissance – the kings and nobles of Benin City patronised craftsmen and lavished them with gifts and wealth, in return for their depiction of the kings’ and dignitaries’ great exploits in intricate bronze sculptures.

World famous Benin Bronzes
[img]https:///561/19024646418_ddddbbf801_b.jpg[/img]




“These works from Benin are equal to the very finest examples of European casting technique,” wrote Professor Felix von Luschan, formerly of the Berlin Ethnological Museum in Germany. “Benvenuto Celini could not have cast them better, nor could anyone else before or after him. Technically, these bronzes represent the very highest possible achievement.”

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace

When are the europeans returning the stolen benin bronze artefacts?

Where re the mods

kayusely70:
When are the europeans returning the stolen benin bronze art?

I think they're scared to return them to us in case we invoke the angry ancestral powers behind the stolen artefacts to unleash mayhem in their direction.

Hmmm

I'm becoming more confident that yoruba Obas have their ancestry from Benin kingdom. They may be probably renegades from Benin Royal family. I wish a DNA study can be done on it.

kayusely70:
When are the europeans returning the stolen benin bronze art?

What about the ones they didn't touched??

Are we not burning them in the name of liberation

Rossikk:


I think they're scared to return them to us in case we invoke the angry ancestral powers behind the stolen artefacts to unleash mayhem in their direction.

Edo is making plans to build a world standard museum called "Royal museum", Edo state governments and oba of Benin are working together in it. The plan is to make Benin the cultural capital of west Africa.

Those stolen artifacts will be returned when the museum is completed(20-2022)

https://thenationonlineng.net/why-we-are-building-benin-royal-museum-by-obaseki/

Rossikk:


I think they're scared to return them to us in case we invoke the angry ancestral powers behind the stolen artefacts to unleash mayhem in their direction.

Where were these so-called "angry ancestral powers" when the Benin niggers were being killed and sold as slaves by the whites?

According to estimates by the New Scientist’s Fred Pearce, Benin City’s walls were at one point “four times longer than the Great Wall of China....

"The combined length of the walls, many of which were outside the city, was over 16,000 kilometres (9,900 miles)."
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Benin

"Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measures out to be 21,196 km (13,171 mi)."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China

rookidmart:


Where were these so-called "angry ancestral powers" when the Benin niggers were being killed and sold as slaves by the whites?

Kindly refrain from using racist terminology on this thread. Strange how you and your type never ask these questions of/or demand instant justice from the imported gods you worship.

rookidmart:


"The combined length of the walls, many of which were outside the city, was over 16,000 kilometres (9,900 miles)."
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Benin

"Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measures out to be 21,196 km (13,171 mi)."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China

That's still amazingly close.

And they like to tell us we had no civilization

Rossikk:


Kindly refrain from using racist terminology on this thread. Strange how you and your type never ask these questions of/or demand instant justice from the imported gods you worship.

Lmao
I'm not even religious and I never mentioned anything about any foreign deity.

You said "they're scared to return them to us in case we invoke the angry ancestral powers behind the stolen artefacts to unleash mayhem in their direction."

And I'm asking you where your so-called angry ancestral powers were when the Benin people were being ravaged by the whites from the Portuguese to the British.
Or do they keep African Time too?

''In 1691, the Portuguese ship captain Lourenco Pinto observed: “Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown, and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”''


Strange how we regard our past as ''primitive and uncivilized'', when it is us putting up barbed wires and fences.

rookidmart:

Lmao
I'm not even religious and I never mentioned anything about any foreign deity.

You said "they're scared to return them to us in case we invoke the angry ancestral powers behind the stolen artefacts to unleash mayhem in their direction."

And I'm asking you where your so-called angry ancestral powers were when the Benin people were being ravaged by the whites from the Portuguese to the British.
Or do they keep African Time too?

In the world of the supernatural there is a time for everything, including a time to be conquered by others. There is also a time for revenge by the gods for wrongs committed against their people.

Rossikk:


I think they're scared to return them to us in case we invoke the angry ancestral powers behind the stolen artefacts to unleash mayhem in their direction.

Lubbish ancestral boosit

They won't return anything cos immediately it lands on our shores it will bevstolen and resold back to them

Rossikk:


I think they're scared to return them to us in case we invoke the angry ancestral powers behind the stolen artefacts to unleash mayhem in their direction.

where were the ancestral powers they were stolen?

blackpanda:



Lubbish ancestral boosit

They won't return anything cos immediately it lands on our shores it will be stolen and resold back to them

Nigeria has functional, secure museums, and the artefacts there are not stolen and sold. You wouldn't know this because you've never visited a Nigerian museum in your life.

babyfaceafrica:
where were the ancestral powers when they were stolen?

Where was your almighty imported god when his ''only son'' was being slaughtered?
You are only sharp and critical when it comes to African religion. Your imported religion will tell you to wait for the next 1,000 years to be ''saved'' and to just ''believe'', and you will do so meekly like a mumu. You only get smart when they mention African religion. Demanding to know why it doesn't all work immediately. Colonised man.

Rossikk:


In the world of the supernatural there is a time for everything, including a time to be conquered by others. There is also a time for revenge by the gods for wrongs committed against their people.

Rossikk:


Where was your almighty imported god when his ''only son'' was being slaughtered?

To quote someone:
In the world of the supernatural there is a time for everything, including a time to be conquered by others. There is also a time for revenge by God for wrongs committed against his son.

rookidmart:


Where were these so-called "angry ancestral powers" when the Benin niggers were being killed and sold as slaves by the whites?

Benin people were never taken as slaves. Never

Rossikk:


Where was your almighty imported god when his ''only son'' was being slaughtered?
You are only sharp and critical when it comes to African religion. Your imported religion will tell you to wait for the next 1,000 years to be ''saved'' and just ''believe'', and you will do so meekly like a mumu. You only get smart when they mention African religion. Demanding to know why it doesn't all work immediately. Colonised man.

I hate it when people ask stupid question like where were the African gods when the white people were enslaving them but never asked where was yarweh when Adolf Hitler was killing 6 million of his chosen generation.

Nice one..Nollywood should look into making a well constructed movie about the ancient benin city.

[s]

Rossikk:


Where was your almighty imported god when his ''only son'' was being slaughtered?
You are only sharp and critical when it comes to African religion. Your imported religion will tell you to wait for the next 1,000 years to be ''saved'' and just ''believe'', and you will do so meekly like a mumu. You only get smart when they mention African religion. Demanding to know why it doesn't all work immediately. Colonised man.

[/s]
The person you quoted is a Muslim. Why not attack his religion?

Nonsense.

And where has civilization taken Benin City to comparable to London even after 58years of independence? Africa is just synonymous with backwardness

rookidmart:

Lmao
I'm not even religious and I never mentioned anything about any foreign deity.

You said "they're scared to return them to us in case we invoke the angry ancestral powers behind the stolen artefacts to unleash mayhem in their direction."

And I'm asking you where your so-called angry ancestral powers were when the Benin people were being ravaged by the whites from the Portuguese to the British.
Or do they keep African Time too?

Through them we got christ,its a good thing they enslaved us

The Great Benin City..
I remember those walls and fractals.
.
Those are the places benin ancestors used to gather for group masturbation.
Those good old days.
No wonder modern day Benin is cursed with cultism,rape,armed robbery and many other criminal activities.
*spits

Rossikk:


Where was your almighty imported god when his ''only son'' was being slaughtered?
You are only sharp and critical when it comes to African religion. Your imported religion will tell you to wait for the next 1,000 years to be ''saved'' and just ''believe'', and you will do so meekly like a mumu. You only get smart when they mention African religion. Demanding to know why it doesn't all work immediately. Colonised man.

you assume too much!!!
. who told u I am either a xtain or Muslim?