The Great Wall of Africa: the Empire of Benin's 10,000 Mile Long Wall

The Great Wall of Africa: the Empire of Benin's 10,000 Mile Long Wall

Author: Maurice Martinez

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-10

Total Pages: 135

ISBN-13:

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Nestled in the southern section of modern-day Nigeria are the remnants of a civilization so vast that one of its crowning achievements has never been matched by any civilization that has ever existed on the planet--including all modern societies. Archeologically known as the Ancient Linear Earthworks of Benin and Ishan, the Great Wall of Africa, also known as the Great Wall of Benin is almost 10,000 miles long and at some points reaches more than 60 feet in height. Even though it holds a place in the 1982 Guinness Book of World Records as the most massive structure that has ever been constructed, almost no one outside of a select few archeologists and specialists has heard of its enormous breadth. This book attempts to change that forever.The Great Wall of Africa or Great Wall of Benin actually consists of a series of linear earthworks, many of them circular, some straight, some which stand on their own, and others that interconnect across a large area of Southern Nigeria. The Great Wall of Africa, like the Great Wall of China, is not a single wall, but a series of separate walls. Until the writing of this book, and another that I authored called: From Man To Superman: Dr. John Henrik Clarke vs. Herman Cain, the Great Wall of Africa, which stretches 9,941 miles long, was known popularly among African scholars as the Walls of Benin. However, as I shall show, like the Great Wall of China, they were created by a single civilization, and therefore, constitute one major wall system. Surprisingly, Benin is an area that cultural anthropologists, known as ethnographers have taken time to study and have written about extensively. However, as Dr. Ivan Van Sertima pointed out in one of his lectures, one of the great flaws of scholarship on Africa is that: "Anthropology has for a long time had a love affair with the primitive... man living on the edge of the world... The Great Wall of Africa consists of the Great Walls of Benin which are called Iya by the Beni people. To understand the enormity of The Great Wall of Africa, one must consider the magnitude of earth displaced to construct it. The Great Wall of Benin contains more than 100 times the material of the Great Pyramid of Egypt (Pharaoh Khufu's Pyramid). This is no minor feat because the Great Pyramid is a massive structure, containing more stone than 30 Empire State buildings. In all, more than 9.1 billion cubic feet of earth was used to build the Great Wall of Benin over an 800-year time period. The average height of each wall is 3 meters or just under 10 feet high, however, some of the Iya tower almost 60 feet in height (18 meters). The Iya cover more than 2,500 square miles of land area. This massive effort took more than 150 million man-hours to construct. Simply put, if all of the material was taken from all of the buildings on New York City's borough of Manhattan, there would not be enough substance to build the Great Wall of Africa. The Great Wall of Africa contains more material than all of the financial district's buildings, all of midtown Manhattan's buildings and all of uptown Manhattan's buildings (Harlem) combined.The ancient Bini and Ishan people, the people of the Benin Empire, who built their wall, had no bulldozers, cranes or other equipment from the Caterpillar Corporation. They had no backhoe loaders, articulated trucks, or asphalt pavers... What they had was in many ways more impressive than all of these things. They were standing on the history of a continent that built 4,500 year-old pyramids that were 48 stories high, smelted carbon steel 2,000 years before the present, sent 2,400 ships to America 181 years before Christopher Columbus, produced the first universities in the world, understood how to perform surgery on the eye to remove cataracts 700 years ago, and that had charted star systems that were not discovered by Europeans and Americans until the Einstein Orbiting Satellite observed them in 1996.


The Parthenon Sculptures

The Parthenon Sculptures

Author: Ian Dennis Jenkins

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9780674026926

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The Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum are unrivaled examples of classical Greek art, an inspiration to artists and writers since their creation in the fifth century bce. A superb visual introduction to these wonders of antiquity, this book offers a photographic tour of the most famous of the surviving sculptures from ancient Greece, viewed within their cultural and art-historical context. Ian Jenkins offers an account of the history of the Parthenon and its architectural refinements. He introduces the sculptures as architecture--pediments, metopes, Ionic frieze--and provides an overview of their subject matter and possible meaning for the people of ancient Athens. Accompanying photographs focus on the pediment sculptures that filled the triangular gables at each end of the temple; the metopes that crowned the architrave surmounting the outer columns; and the frieze that ran around the four sides of the building, inside the colonnade. Comparative images, showing the sculptures in full and fine detail, bring out particular features of design and help to contrast Greek ideas with those of other cultures. The book further reflects on how, over 2,500 years, the cultural identity of the Parthenon sculptures has changed. In particular, Jenkins expands on the irony of our intimate knowledge and appreciation of the sculptures--a relationship far more intense than that experienced by their ancient, intended spectators--as they have been transformed from architectural ornaments into objects of art.


The Benin Plaques

The Benin Plaques

Author: Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-12-15

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1351254596

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The 16th century bronze plaques from the kingdom of Benin are among the most recognized masterpieces of African art, and yet many details of their commission and installation in the palace in Benin City, Nigeria, are little understood. The Benin Plaques, A 16th Century Imperial Monument is a detailed analysis of a corpus of nearly 850 bronze plaques that were installed in the court of the Benin kingdom at the moment of its greatest political power and geographic reach. By examining European accounts, Benin oral histories, and the physical evidence of the extant plaques, Gunsch is the first to propose an installation pattern for the series.


Loot

Loot

Author: Barnaby Phillips

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-04-01

Total Pages: 527

ISBN-13: 1786079364

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A Prospect Best Book of 2021 ‘A fascinating and timely book.’ William Boyd ‘Gripping…a must read.’ FT ‘Compelling…humane, reasonable, and ultimately optimistic.’ Evening Standard ‘[A] valuable guide to a complex narrative.’ The Times In 1897, Britain sent a punitive expedition to the Kingdom of Benin, in what is today Nigeria, in retaliation for the killing of seven British officials and traders. British soldiers and sailors captured Benin, exiled its king and annexed the territory. They also made off with some of Africa’s greatest works of art. The ‘Benin Bronzes’ are now amongst the most admired and valuable artworks in the world. But seeing them in the British Museum today is, in the words of one Benin City artist, like ‘visiting relatives behind bars’. In a time of huge controversy about the legacy of empire, racial justice and the future of museums, what does the future hold for the Bronzes?


Travels in West Africa

Travels in West Africa

Author: Mary H. Kingsley

Publisher:

Published: 1897

Total Pages: 842

ISBN-13:

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As a dutiful Victorian daughter, the author was thirty before being freed (by her parents' deaths) to do as she chose. She went to West Africa in 1893 and again in 1895, to investigate the beliefs and customs of the inland tribes and also to collect zoological specimens. She was appalled by the 'thin veneer of rubbishy white culture' imposed by British officials and was not afraid to say so.


What Britain Did to Nigeria

What Britain Did to Nigeria

Author: Max Siollun

Publisher: Hurst & Company

Published: 2024-04-18

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781911723264

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A revelatory account of British imperialism's shameful impact on Africa's most populous state.


Capitalism and Slavery

Capitalism and Slavery

Author: Eric Williams

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2014-06-30

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1469619490

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Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.


Africans

Africans

Author: John Iliffe

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-07-13

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 1107198321

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An updated and comprehensive single-volume history covering all periods from human origins to contemporary African situations.