Again , just throwing this culture in Africa
out there. I continue to see great civilizations again, and again that get over
looked, and people still call people of Africa
primitive sand eating people. Bah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdVIoaTq-5Q&feature=channel_page
Origin
According to one traditional account, the original people and founders of the Benin Empire, the Bini, were initially ruled by the Ogisos (Kings of the Sky). The city of Ubini (later called Benin City) was founded in 1180 AD.
About 36 known Ogiso are accounted for as rulers of the
empire. One oral tradition states that during the reign the last Ogiso,
his son and heir apparent Ekaladerhan was banished from Benin as a
result of one of the Queens changing a message from the oracle to the
Ogiso. Prince Ekaladerhan was a powerful warrior and well loved. On
leaving Benin he travelled in a westerly direction to the land of the Yoruba. At that time the Ifá oracle said that the Yoruba people of Ile Ife (also known as Ife)
will be ruled by a man who would come out of the forest. Following
Ekaladerhans arrival at the Yoruba city of Ife also known as Ile Ife,
he finally rose to the position of the Oba (meaning 'king' or 'ruler'
in the Yoruba language) and later received the title of Ooni of Ife. He
changed his name to 'Izoduwa,' (which in his native language meant, 'I
have chosen the path of prosperity') and became The great Oduduwa,
also known as Odudua, Oòdua and Eleduwa, of the Yoruba. On the death of
his father, the last Ogiso, a group of Benin Chiefs led by Chief Oliha
came to Ife, pleading with Oba (King) Oduduwa to return to Benin to
ascend the throne. Oduduwa's reply was that a ruler cannot leave his
domain but he had seven sons and would ask one of them to go back to
Benin to become the next King.
Note: there are other versions of the story of Oduduwa. Many Yoruba
often attribute Oduduwa as coming from a place towards the east of the
land of the Yoruba peoples, however it tends not to be attributed to
Benin City.
Oranyan
(also known as Oranmiyan), one of the sons of Oduduwa and son of
Oduduwa's Yoruba wife Okanbi, agreed to go to Benin. He spent some
years in Benin before returning to the Yoruba lands before establishing
his own Yoruba kingdom at Oyo.
It is said that he left the place in anger and called it 'Ile Ibinu'
(meaning, 'land of annoyance and vexation) and it was this phrase that
became the origin of Benin city's former name 'Ubini'. Oranmiyan, on
his way home to Ife, stopped briefly at Ego, where he impregnated
Princess Erimwinde, the daughter of the Enogie of Ego and she gave
birth to a son named Eweka.
During Oba Oduduwas reign as Alaafin of Oyo, Eweka became the oba at
Ile Ibinu. Oba Ewedo, an ancestor of Oba Ewaka I, changed the name of
the city of Ile Ibinu to Ubini, which the Portuguese, in their own
language, corrupted it to Benin or Bini. In 1440, Oba Ewuare, also
known as 'Ewuare the Great', came to power and turned the city-state
into an empire. Around 1470, he named the new state Edo.
--------------------------------------------
Golden Age
The Oba had become the paramount power within the region. Oba Ewuare, the first Golden Age
Oba, is credited with turning Benin City into a military fortress
protected by moats and walls. It was from this bastion that he launched
his military campaigns and began the expansion of the kingdom from the
Edo-speaking heartlands.
Oba Ewuare was a direct descendant of Oduduwa, the first Oni of Ife.
Oduduwa was considered divine according to some legends the god Oduduwa
descended to Ife (the center of all creation) and became it's first Oni
or ruler. Other legends say he came from Mecca or Egypt. a series of
walls marked the incremental growth of the sacred city from 850 CE
until it's decline in the 16th century. In the 15th century Benin
became the greatest city of the empire created by Oba or king Ewuare.
To enclose his palace he commanded the building of Benin's inner wall,
a seven mile (11 km) long earthen rampart girded by a moat 50 feet
(15 m) deep. This was excavated in the early 1960s by Graham Connah.
Connah estimated that it's construction if spread out over 5 dry
seasons would have required a workforce of 1,00 laborers working 10
hours a day 7 days a week. Ewuare also added great thoroughfares and
erected 9 fortified gateways. Excavations also uncovered a rural
network of earthen walls 4 to 8 thousand miles long that would have
taken an estimated 150 million man hours to build and must have taken
hundreds of years to build. these were apparently thrown down to mark
out territories for towns and cities. 13 years after Ewuare's death
tales of Benin's splendors lured the Portuguese traders to the city
gates.[2]
At its maximum extent the empire is claimed by the Edos to have extended from the Igbo kingdom of Onitsha in the east of Nigeria, through parts the southwestern region of Nigeria, Modern day Benin Republic, Togo, and into the present-day nation of Ghana. The Ga peoples of Ghana trace their ancestry to the ancient Kingdom of Benin.
The state developed an advanced artistic culture especially in its
famous artifacts of bronze, iron and ivory. These include bronze wall
plaques and life-sized bronze heads of the Obas of Benin. The most
common artifact is based on Queen Idia, now best known as the FESTAC Mask
after it was used in 1977 in the logo of the Nigeria-financed and
hosted Second Festival of Black & African Arts and Culture (FESTAC
77).
-------------------
More info here -----> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_Empire
Edited by dieheart - 14-Apr-2009 at 10:01