
Benin City, the mighty medieval capital now lost without trace - globba22
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace
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MusaTheRedGuard
I had to make a HN account once I saw this title. I'm Nigerian. Benin City is
clearly still there. The modern Benin city is very obviously divided into 'old
Benin' and Benin city proper.

So no, not 'lost without a trace'.

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OoTheNigerian
Ha!

I was born and grew up in Benin City!!

In summary, the city definitely exist but we have refused to maintain our
historical artifacts. Although it is easy to blame the "evil British" , I
think we back home can do better to preserve historical stuff.

But the British really messed up a lot of places. But after a while we have to
take responsibility.

It's really cool to discuss where I grew up in a global platform though.

~~~
Lordarminius
domo! woyiena?

~~~
OoTheNigerian
Oyese!

But I'm not Bini though. I'm Igbo, from Anambra.

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JoeAltmaier
Google satellite view of modern-day Benin City shows clear evidence of past
earthworks in the countryside surrounding. In particular traces of an earthen
structure runs northeast out of the city starting at about St. Savior Rd,
through Urhokuosa, Erua and Ethor to Irrua. A distance of 50 miles, and
perhaps further.

[https://www.google.com/maps/@6.3474921,5.747339,27322m/data=...](https://www.google.com/maps/@6.3474921,5.747339,27322m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en)

~~~
13of40
Wow, that city has one of the best visible-from-sky modern artifact
collections I've seen:

[https://www.google.com/maps/@6.3105913,5.595516,407m/data=!3...](https://www.google.com/maps/@6.3105913,5.595516,407m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en)

~~~
themodelplumber
The way those artifacts gradually start to blend with the greenery is
fascinating. It'd be fun to play there as a kid I'll bet

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rurban
Plenty of those early huge capital cities got lost. Angkor Wat, Edo,
Vilcabamba, Troy, Helike, Ai, Aztlán, Ys, Shambhala, Xanadu, Carthago,
Karakorum, Niniveh, Persepolis, Ur, Samarkand, ...

See e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_city](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_city)

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adwf
I wonder whether there should be a word for the feeling you get when reading
something like this and thinking "Please don't be the British again..."

Dammit :(

~~~
shaftoe
Read other sources on the history of the sack of Benin. This article
romanticizes a city with human sacrifices and slave trade.

From Wikipedia's article on the Benin Massacre:

But the way Benin treated its slaves and the public display of large
quantities of human remains hardened British attitudes towards Benin's rulers.
The trader James Pinnock wrote that he saw 'a large number of men all
handcuffed and chained' there, with 'their ears cut off with a razor'. T.B
Auchterlonie described the approach to the capital through an avenue of trees
hung with decomposing human remains. After the 'lane of horrors' came a grass
common 'thickly stewn with the skulls and bones of sacrificed human beings.'

~~~
adwf
Oh I know. There's always many sides to these stories. I don't feel bad about
it other than in an abstract modern moral way, it's history.

But the number of times something from the 18th-20th centuries like this comes
up and you find out it was our ancestors...

I sometimes wonder whether this'll be the same reaction Americans will have in
200 years time. Things always look better when justified in the moral context
of their time.

~~~
thechao
No, no, don't worry; there's been more than one occasion when I silently
repeated to myself: "please not Texas, please not Texas..."

~~~
CPLX
You're in luck, it's Florida again.

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afarrell
When I was a kid, I was frustrated by the absence of an RTS or city-building
game set in sub-Saharan Africa. I continue to be annoyed by this.

~~~
mozumder
Heart of Africa on Commodore 64?

~~~
eggman
I got caught up in that C64 madness. I walked away from that game thinking
that the quickest way to victory includes robbing the natives. Never again.

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hutzlibu
Never heard of Benin... and after reading the article, I "knew": lost without
trace, great culture, great wealth and great security for all its people...,
great artists. And in the end - destroyed by the Britains.

Hm ... so after reading Wikipedia, I knew, it is not lost without trace, but
the great Kingdom of Benin was also the great capital of slave trade, with
human sacrifices(in the end about 23 a day) and all in all a deep despotic
society, etc.

But the artists are indeed great.

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frogpelt
This is the fifth of a fifty-part series Jack Shenker is doing for the
Guardian. So far he's cranked out one-a-day.

~~~
cholantesh
Do you mean that he's overseeing the entire series? Each of the five
installments that are up right now were written by different authors.

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kiiski
Is the word "medieval" commonly used to refer to some African time period? My
understanding is that the term refers specifically to the Middle Ages, which
is a time period in European history, so it wouldn't make any sense to talk
about a "medieval capital" in Africa (especially far away from the
Mediterranean). The British only annexed Benin in 1897, long after the Middle
Ages.

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anonymous325
Notice all the hand-waving in the article about mathematics. Mathematics
proper, as in the derivation of theorems from axioms by means of proof, was
discovered by the Greeks, and unless the residents of Benin City, or the Maya,
or any other non-Western society that biased academics seek to rehabilitate
were similarly deriving theorems from axioms by means of proof as did Euclid,
speaking of their supposed mathematical prowess is extremely disingenuous and
misleading.

~~~
apalmer
Mathematics as far as it being a branch of logic was pretty much invented by
the greeks as you say.

And the mathematics mentioned in this article are definitely 'tenuous' at
best. I clicked on the 'African Fractals' and didn't really see anything that
I would consider mathematics, although I did see some organizing principals I
guess.

However the claim that mathematics is either 'theorems' or bust is not really
valid standpoint in general... seeking one must by a practical definition of
mathematics include at least Egyptians (at least in practical geometry), early
South American (at least in practical geometry). Neither of which had any
strong belief in the necessity or ideal of 'proving' theorems. Further one
should include without doubt early Indian contributions which covered both
practical and theoretical mathematics and early Chinese contributions although
they seem grounded in theorem based approach

~~~
anonymous325
> However the claim that mathematics is either 'theorems' or bust

The theorems of mathematics are what distinguishes it from other enterprises
and provides us with a degree of certainty of the correctness of our
conclusions that would otherwise be unavailable. No number of (Euclidean)
triangles measured, however great, would convince us equally well that their
interior angles always sum to 180 degrees, nor would any exhaustive search of
pairs of integers convince us equally well that the square root of two really
is irrational.

By exaggerating the accomplishments of Africans to a lay audience, the article
is minimizing the accomplishments of Europeans.

~~~
apalmer
Seems like this viewpoint is based on preconceived views of 'europeaness'.
However agree in general that this articles claim of African fractals doesn't
seems to be based more on geometric patterns that please they eye more than
mathematical principles

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ommunist
Slave trade kills cities and cultures.

~~~
apalmer
Unfortunately although the practice is horrid, I dont see much to justify the
claim

~~~
wtbob
Back when the Brits were hell-bent on destroying the slave trade, being the
capitol of a slave-trading culture was a good way to get destroyed.

