Rossikk:
According to British newspaper, the UK Guardian,



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

Benin Wall and Moat

As it looked 500 years ago:

NzogbuNzogbu:
the problem is you believers don't understand context of scripture

1 John 1:5 God is light and in him there is no darkness.

Yaweh created all things, and their is nothing that happens that he doesn't permit

So you can technically say something came from me because i permit it, this doesn't invalidate 1John 1:5

He that breaks the edge the Serpent will bite

Rossikk:


I think you may be confusing the Benin wall with the OTHER massive Nigerian wall, the Eredo Earthworks also known as Sungbo's Eredo, located near Ijebu Ode.

The queen who ordered its construction was Bilikisu Sungbo, and some have posited that she was the legendary Queen of Sheba. ('Ijebu' and 'Sheba' could well be referring to the same place.

'Sheba' sounds like what an oyinbo person would call Ijebu.

JoeEeL:


They did this to erase the handiwork and craftsmanship of our forefathers. This is the extent of damage the colonists did to us as a people

The walls were not just huge and big but they had mathematical inscriptions and advanced code symbols that were privy to the rulership class systems.

It was too inspirational and the Brits came in to destroy this in order to break the chain that links our identity from generation to generation. This eventually creates a loser's and conquered mindset which is why we as blacks do not easily recognise ourselves anymore.

It took several centuries to build that and imagine we continued up till this day, we would have kept advancing and advancing in our knowledge but they destroyed this and gave you guys nigeria.

It is because many of us do not know our history and the extreme damage of colonialism that we still embrace One Nigeria. This is why as they say, being a One Nigerian and an intellectual are mutually exclusive. What these colonialists carried out is more than genocide. This is the peak of world crimes. They didn't just end peoples, they ended their identity. This is deeper than what you can ever imagine.

They also destroyed Arochukwu temple in Abia today. They made us hate our ancestors and burnt temples and shrines all over southern africa. They gave us their fake bible and interpreted our ancestors like Esu and Ekwensu as "devil", very mischievously.

Africans do not know who they have been. Africans should stop looking forward... they have to first start from looking back and way back to see where they're coming from.

Where's Nsibidi today? Do you know we had systems of reading and writing? Our Ifa system they tried to demonise it. I posted Isese day on my whatsapp status, one bornfool was telling me to repent. A great pity for d black man but its not too late.

Rossikk:


A simple trip to Benin will solve your issue. Simply get to Benin and ask anyone to direct you to the 'moat' as they call it.

Everyone in Benin knows about it. I actually lived in Benin for a while as a kid. The moat was very close to our house, and no one seemed to know why it was there. It was very massive and deep. You dare not get too near it because if you fall inside, your own don finish be dat. It's like falling down from a three storey building. Obviously you will find the moat at many points in the city since it is an endless wall. It is so deep and wide that you will wonder how on earth did those people build it for 6,500 kilometres in total length, with no tractors or cranes or modern equipment. It's just incredible.

Artistic rendition of 15th century Benin City showing the wall and streetlights, as described by Dutch and Portuguese visitors, who also described Benin City as one of the best planned and most beautiful cities in the world.

Rossikk:


Everything doesn’t revolve around you, Mr Igbo man. Get lost.

This thread is for nationalists, not tribalists.

SuperOnyi:






This got me thinking... Why didn't he order the intellectuals to develop a writing system after seeing how the Portuguese rolled? We would have gotten to hear Benin empire's history from the horse's mouth.

JuanDeDios:

Any sub-Saharan Africans who left and travelled did so individually. They were the exceptions. We never built ocean-going vessels to explore the seas. We did not travel far as organized groups.

NzogbuNzogbu:
lol, that is kaballah lies.

And it's usually esoteric dark stuffs that tell this info

No way would demons be building a house for yaweh, was the temple builders any different from the David labourers who built Jerusalem as a formidable city with walls

XY23:


There were very few intellectuals then, many of the Binis didn't take any pride in learning about the ways of the 'whites' nor writing about them. Apart from the ease of doing business with them, the Binis general abhored anything that could ruboff on their identity. However, details of their early dealings were instead documented in Edo language (we had special unit for that at the time). The archives were destroyed or stolen by the British.

Kenmatt:
This also proves the fact that truthfully Benin is an ancient City and her Culture is actually rooted.

We all can easily assimilate this fact that Yoruba was an offspring of Benin.

SuperOnyi:







The British did a number on us 😠.

Was it written in the alphabets we are familiar with today?

tsdarkside:


soo,you are sayin the bible cant be completly believed....??

JuanDeDios:

Bolded makes sense. So because of that we should abandon the text of that verse and go with some interpretation. Ok. But I must warn you that taking this approach to the Old Testament will be very very exhausting - lots of unsavoury things to INTERPRET there.

tommy589:


We were developing at our own pace until the cursed day we met the whites. Since then we have become their victim of servitude and our land theirs to plunder

Fujiyama:


^^^


And yet everyone hates Naira today. A prophet indeed without honour.

Rossikk:


I have NEVER been a tribalist.

I am Igbo, and I hate IPOB, and all traitors of Nigeria of whatever ethnic colouration, including Boko Haram.

IPOB and Boko Haram are two sides of the same coin of ignorance and stupidity.

One thing you guys need to realise is that this tribalism you practice is unAFRICAN.

It was the colonialists who got you thinking in terms of 'I am Igbo'. 'You are Yoruba'.

Before colonialism, we identified ourselves by our town of origin and family/community lineage - NOT by our language.


Speaking Yoruba did not make you a ''Yoruba man''. You were an Egba man or an Ekiti man etc. Same for Igbos. Igbos never regarded themselves as one group before colonialism came. Go and read Achebe. Each town was a nation unto itself.

The colonialists introduced language bloc identification.

Dronedude:
“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”


150 million hours translates to more than 17 thousand years. Are the saying it took 17 thousand years to build the wall of 16k kilometers?

Rossikk:


You are right my brother.

The biggest damage they did to us wasn't even the looting of our resources, which in itself was massive.

It was the damage they did to our MINDS.

They destroyed our self-belief.

Our ancestors never entertained the idea of being unable to build something that they required building.

If they needed it, they gathered round and decided how to go about it and they just did it.

It never even OCCURRED to them to get people from overseas to do it for them.

Today, it is the complete opposite.

The minute we decide on building something even mildly tasking or complex, we look for 'white people' to do it for us, because in our minds we are incapable of doing it, including railway lines or airports.

Why do you need foreigners to build an airport or a railway station, or a road?

It's just pathetic.

The Chinese and others must be wondering to themselves, ''What on Earth is the matter with these people?''

You have other 300 universities in the country filled with multiple professors and lecturers in every field of endeavour.

So why do you need foreigners to build you a railway line or an airport or a mall?

Rossikk:


I just posted pictures of the wall above here. What are you talking about?

The wall is partly overground and partly moat, which is covered by greenery.

Successive governments have neglected and ignored it.

In a serious country where people took pride in their history and heritage, that wall would have been our BIGGEST INCOME EARNER even more than oil, as a result of tourism.

This is literally the biggest man-made structure ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH!

Yet most NIGERIANS don't even know it exists, talk less of the world's people.

Ordinary Stonehenge in England brings in more than 20 billion dollars annually to the UK in tourism receipts.

Stonehenge is just a few rocks piled on top of each other to form a small circle.

Stonehenge


The whole world knows about Stonehenge, but nobody knows about the Great Benin Wall that is 4 times longer than the Great Wall of China.

In fact we have problems as a people.

membranus:


Yoruba was an offspring of Benin you say, yet we Yorubas lent our son Oranmiyan to the Benins to stabilise their kingdom. How can you explain that?

Rossikk:
I suspect this wall was built to keep out the Arab jihadists invading West Africa many centuries ago.

It clearly worked. For centuries. In fact it could be reasonably argued that had this wall not been built, we would be bearing names like Abdullahi and Muhammed today instead of Ayodele, Chukwuma, and so on, since Benin was the biggest and most powerful kingdom of the south, and had they captured Benin, the rest of the region would have been a breeze for them.

So, a very good and laudable project.

Indigenously envisioned, conceptualized, and executed.

With no stories of mago mago or somebody chopping the money meant for building the wall.

tommy589:


We were developing at our own pace until the cursed day we met the whites. Since then we have become their victim of servitude and our land theirs to plunder

MorataFC:
Mr Man your writeup is watery, the length of the whole world is 40,000 km by length and the wall of Benin covers half of that, from Lagos to London is 5,020 km while the wall of Benin is 16,000 km long?
How is that even possible?

Rossikk:


It is not my write-up. Go and debate the experts who penned the report. Didn't you see the source of the links?

I no get time for your wahala abeg. The wall is not a straight round wall. It is more like a maze or labyrinth of walls and ramparts protecting the city as well as up to 500 interconnected towns and villages.

Rossikk:
If we had to implement such a project today, we would not believe in our capacity to do it.

We would be looking for China or Julius Berger to do it, and we would be ready to pay them billions of dollars.

Such is the damage that colonial rule did to our sense of confidence in our capacity as a people.

.
This wall was built long before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.

They did not use any machines at all (at least none that we know of. Maybe they invented something they used, who knows? Do we research our history?)

But today, if we want to build a COMMON RAILWAY LINE, we call the Chinese.

We want to build an expressway, we call Julius Berger.

We want to build an airport or shopping mall, we call China.

I mean, we need to snap out of it, and become MEN again.

.

Just like our illustrious ancestors.

SuperOnyi:








Don't stop... We're all here to learn. Can nsibidi be revived? I've heard so much about it! Imagine our kids being literal in English and nsibidi alphabet. If I die without seeing Africa rise, I will curse her 😠😔.