I'ved asked this before but what about benin impressed the Europeans...

It literally had none only Sudanic africa was Muslims but mostly relied on their own culture

What even is this

Im guessing they compared it to their own cities as to say that it's a proper city, like the ones back home and not a village or small town

but that's just my guess

Also like this

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They city also had some semblance of street lighting

>They city
The city

DEY CITY DONE HABS DAT STREET LIGHTS

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

It's sickening how in an way to shit on Blacks under any circumstance you shit on other Europeans and then question then Europeaness of one of the cities.

Yeah theses guys have a massive inferiority complex

benis :DDD

This meme is over used

It was just a really impressive civilization, the way that they conducted themselves, the culture, the governance. It was all, in many ways, comparable to that of the Incans.

Not to mention the famous Benin Walls, which have been discovered that they were far larger than the Great Wall of China (3x as large or something), and took more man-hours to construct than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Those two facts alone make it one of the more impressive civilizations, not just in Africa, but all of history. Especially considering the technological level they were at.

tl;dr
It's for similar reasons as to why the Incans and Aztecs were seen how they were. As nobody from Europe expected anyone in Africa to have been able to do something like this.

As for the comparison to Mali Empire, and other stuff, you have to remember that most of those empires were well past their prime by the time of colonialism, as most of them were the best during the ~8th-~15th centuries.

There is a hell of a lot of written evidence.

This post is so retarded that it's not even funny.
But There is also countless cases of English believing it was a magnificent empire.

Another thing for the walls, is that when one of the Dutch explorers discovered Benin Empire, he actually noted that he believed it to be either one of the greatest, or the greatest feat of architectural design in the entire world.

Thanks for the info lads

The Walls of Benin were a combination of ramparts and moats, called Iya in the local language[which?], used as a defense of the ancient Kingdom of Benin, which is present-day Benin City, the capital of present-day Edo, Nigeria. It was considered the largest man-made structure lengthwise and was hailed as the largest earthwork in the world. It is larger than Sungbo's Eredo.[1] It enclosed 6,500 square kilometres (2,500 sq mi) of community lands. Its length was over 16,000 km (9,900 mi). It was estimated that earliest construction began in 800 and continued into the mid-15th century.

They extend for some 160 km in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They cover 2,510 sq. miles (6,500 square kilometres) and were all dug by the Edo people. In all, they are four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet.[4]

What benin's people looked like

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Neat

Do you have any recommendations for good books about the Benin Empire? I've been wanting to learn more about West African civilizations.

Theres the historical accounts of it you can read about the BBC did a piece about benin

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The Beni were taught to cast bronze by the Ife people

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I'n not saying it was them, but why is it that glimpses of civilization are found only in Africa all were iits plausible they have gad contacts with thd outside world?

Mali had kings with muslim names, Zimbabwe had contacts with traders from India and Arabia, thats where they got their cattle from.

If they really did come up with all this independently, why only in areas where outside contact is playsible? Why only during the middle ages?

>did Africa have contact with the Muslim world
are you serious

Why civilization found I Europe where they had contact with outside civilization

Ah no Zimbabwe just traded with the Swahili coast

Why is it that for Europe?

It didn't though?

The civilization in Zimbabwe was developed before contact

>This guy sounds ignorant as fuck

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en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_West_Africa

The ancient Benin Empire, eventually gained political strength and ascendancy over much of what is now mid-western Nigeria. Nowadays, scientists have discovered that the Edo people did have a writing system, their art work which had let the scientists discover their true history. Including the armor, magnificent drawing skills.

series of walls marked the incremental growth of the sacred city from 850 AD until its decline in the 16th century. In the 15th century Benin became the greatest city of the empire created by Oba Ewuare. To enclose his palace he commanded the building of Benin's inner wall, an 11-kilometre-long (7 mi) earthen rampart girded by a moat 6 m (20 ft) deep. This was excavated in the early 1960s by Graham Connah. Connah estimated that its construction, if spread out over five dry seasons, would have required a workforce of 1,000 laborers working ten hours a day seven days a week. Ewuare also added great thoroughfares and erected nine fortified gateways.

No it wasnt. The zebu is central to the Zimbabwe civilization and they got that from Indian during the 1000s, right on the money when Zimbabwe sprung up.

What a coincidence huh.

The first start of stone building occurred before that as did farming which they brought through the Bantu expansion

The king's palace or court is a square, and is as large as the town of Haarlem and entirely surrounded by a special wall, like that which encircles the town. It is divided into many magnificent palaces, houses, and apartments of the courtiers, and comprises beautiful and long square galleries, about as large as the Exchange at Amsterdam, but one larger than another, resting on wooden pillars, from top to bottom covered with cast copper, on which are engraved the pictures of their war exploits and battles...

Also the methods use are unique to the region as it doesn't resemble outside architecture

No it did not.

>Construction on the monument began in the 11th century and continued until the 15th century

>Bos indicus is believed to have first appeared in sub-Saharan Africa between 700 and 1500 and was introduced to the Horn of Africa around 1000

Next

Great Zimbabwe wasn't the first stone monument

None of the pre-date the zebu though :)

Are you saying that great Zimbabwe was the result of outside contact?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mapungubwe

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard's_Kopje

Yes, as the animal that was central to said people was brought to them from the outside quite recently.

>The stratigraphy shows that the earliest settlement is from the 9th century AD, now called the Zhizo phase

The culture predates

1000 BC or ad

The cattle was brought to the horn not Zimbabwe

Culture that did not build Zimbabwes.

It spread from there. Where do you think zebu comes from if not India?

It was the nugani this is like saying European civilization is a result of non Europeans because agriculture came to from the outside

You no that the Zimbabwe culture wasn't the results of outsiders they independently developed the masonry skills

Farming played a far greater role than the cattle

>very autistically planned out and geometric.
The description of the image actually says that the lines weren't that straight as painted.

Not a painting

>What benin's people looked like
Pic related what they actually looked like

Attached: Benin Photo 6.jpg (530x386, 38K)

>Gallwey remarks: " Just before reaching the city we had to pass
through rather an unpleasant half-mile of fairly open country. We presumed it was
the place where all criminals' bodies were deposited. The path was strewn on both
sides with dead bodies in every stage of decomposition ; skulls grinned at you from
every direction — a gruesome experience in its way. Human sacrifices are of frequent
occurrence, and the rule is one of terror. The usual form of sacrifice is crucifixion.
We saw several crucified victims during our stay in Benin city, on the plain outside
the king's residence."
(..)
Two trees near the king's house, growing close
together, were used for sacrifices, either for rain or fine weather, and whenever I
visited Benin this post was always occupied. Sticks were fastened crosswise to
make a ladder. I am told the victim (which might be male or female) never resisted
or objected, mounted the ladder himself, and was then spatchcocked out, tied by his
wrists and legs. Sometimes the victim was left to die from hunger and exposure,
and at others a piece of stick was tied uprightly behind his back, a piece of ' tie-tie '
put round the throat, and he was killed by garotting, the body remaining exposed."

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listverse.com/2016/12/20/10-horrors-of-aztec-ritual-human-sacrifice/

>The king's palace or court is a square, and is as large as the town of Haarlem
And what it actually looked like

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Human sacrifice was practised to some extent by many peoples in Mesoamerica (and for that matter, around the world) for many centuries. But it was the Aztec empire that really took the ritual to new heights. How many people were sacrificed by the Aztecs? We don't know how many were sacrificed over the years - it's possible that some accounts are exaggerated - but it was probably thousands each year - tens of thousands or more all together. Some estimates claim 20,000 a year.

The Aztecs had 18 months in one cycle, and for each of the 18 months there was ritual sacrifice. The victim would be painted as a part of the ritual, they would be placed on a slab where their heart would be removed and held up to the sun. The body would be thrown down the stairs of the temple/pyramid.

The body would be disposed of in various ways, such as feeding animals at the zoo or putting on display (the heads). There are some accounts of cannibalism, but it's uncertain if this was practised to any great extent.

There were other ways that humans would be sacrificed - shot with arrows, drowned, burned, or otherwise mutilated. Killing in a fight (like the Roman gladiators) also took place.

Both the empire's own people, and their enemies were sacrificed. The warriors were often involved in a special ritual war called a xochiyaoyotl (or flower war/flowery war). The object was not to gain territory or kill the enemy, but to capture them as food for the gods. Both sides of the battle were required to fight, and they usually were willing participants. The people would be captured instead of killed, and then sacrificed.

I always laugh about the WE WUZ threads because we actually have live accounts on how their "kingdoms" looked like and even photographs.
These kingdoms were literally just cannibals and human sacrifice villages made out of straw huts and mud, where the king lived in his palace AKA wooden hut.

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>it's yet ANOTHER /leftypol/ afrocentric thread

That's just the outskirts the kings palace was within the walls

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>The body would be disposed of in various ways
Oh wow, amusing how Afri-KANGZ never thught of that and actually lived among rotten corpses

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>literally a wooden hut surrounded by pallisade
Slavs did better 2000 years before

anthropology.msu.edu/anp363-ss13/2013/04/21/human-sacrifice-and-cannibalism-in-the-aztec-people/

You seemed triggered

Don't make me quote the expedition witness statements on how Benin "the human slaughterhouse cesspit" really looked like Afri-Kangs, I am warning you.

>You seemed triggered
Yeah, normal human reaction to human sacrifice.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

So the Aztecs Tigger you than?

>try to prove that Benin was a normal civilization
>by comparing it to something that is considered the most evil aberration of human polity that ever existed

>They city
"Truly has Benin been called The City of
Blood. Its history is one long record of
savagery of the most debased kind. In the earlier
part of this century, when it was the centre of the
slave trade, human suffering must here have reached
its most acute form, but it is doubtful if even then
the wanton sacrifice of life could have exceeded
that of more recent times. Nothing that can be
called religion exists within its limits, only paganism
of the most unenlightened description, with certain
rites and observances, which, from their ferocious
cruelty, have caused Benin to be the capital of
superstitious idolatry and barbarity for more than a
hundred miles inland."

The Aztecs sacrifice by the thousands

One again Aztecs sacrifice by the thousands

A massively baised source

Hahahahahahaha you fucking WE WUZZERS have no shame

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”.

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..

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>What benin's people looked like
Yeah, we have real photos on how they looked like and their "city"

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Yeah theirs shirtless people in the painting

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more photos of the magnificient Benin civilization

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The city was in ruins by then

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”.

>in reality the lines are not as clear as depicted

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