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| The great walls of Benin kingdom |
When we talk about monumental feats of human engineering, the Great Wall of China tends to steal all the spotlight. But guess what? There’s another wall, right in Africa, that deserves to be in the conversation, and it might just blow your mind. Let me introduce you to the Great Walls of Benin – an ancient wonder that’s often overlooked but no less impressive in scale or historical significance.
Picture this: The Great Walls of Benin are not only the second largest man-made structure in human history, and the second only to the Great Wall of China but they are also the largest man made earth work ever constructed. Yes you heard that right. It was a structure that used to extend approximately more than 10000 miles surrounding an area of more than 2530 square miles. That is almost the size of a small country, yet the system continues to expand in innovation and complexity. And yet for some or other reason, this mind-blowing structure does not receive half the attention that it should.
The Edo people built this wonder, and apart from being a great wall, it was a symbol of the great civilization that existed in the ancient Kingdom of Benin. These walls were not only a shield but the core of an instantly working community that was much needed to cure the emptiness within the characters. Suppose that there are numerous walls inside and outside the Kingdom of Benen and they create a very large protective structure that can be compared with urban fortress. But more than that, it conveyed the creativity, skill, and sheer managerial muscle power on the part of the builders of that structure.
Now, let’s get into the numbers for a moment. The Great Wall of China clocks in at roughly 21,000 kilometers. Benin's walls, though slightly shorter at 16,000 kilometers, were no less remarkable. These walls were built using earth a natural resource that might seem basic but requires serious skill to work with on this scale. To give you a better idea, these walls occupied an area the size of modern day Rwanda. That’s huge! The complexity of this structure wasn't just in its length, though. It was an intricate system of trenches and ramparts designed to protect and connect the cities within the kingdom.
And here’s where it gets even more interesting: Benin's walls weren’t just slapped together in a year or two. No, this was a multi generational project that took centuries to complete. Imagine the dedication it took to build something that your great great great grandchildren would finish. It’s almost impossible to comprehend that level of long-term planning, and yet, it speaks to the strength and vision of the Benin Kingdom.
However like most great civilization around the world the walls of Benin were also marked to suffer their finality. Most of the wall was in ruins when the British invaded towards the end of the nineteenth-century during the Punitive Expedition of 1897, ransacked, and burnt down the Kingdom of Benin. Today one can only imagine what was once one of the most detailed man made constructions in the whole wide world.
So why don’t we hear more about the Great Walls of Benin? However, as it almost always goes with history, and particularly the writing of African history, it has been a blatant erasure of African accomplishment for the Europeans’ own. But the good news is that things are gradually changing. Due to growing interest from scholars and historians to embrace the exploration of Africa’s past, beauty such as the walls of Benin are illuminated. It is about time that we seriously started to pay our respects to this wonder of the world.
The Great Walls of Benin are a reminder that African civilizations were not only advanced but capable of achieving remarkable feats of engineering and Structure. It up to us to keep that story alive. So the next time someone brings up the Great Wall of China, hit them with this fact: Africa’s own ancient wall, built by the Edo people, is just as monumental – in both size and significance