(SenePlus) – A race against time begins to save one of the most impressive archaeological sites in Africa. The fortifications of the ancient kingdom of Benin, today located in Nigeria, constitute an architectural masterpiece threatened with disappearance.
This monumental structure, called “Iya”, extends over 16,000 kilometers across the territory. Made up of massive ramparts and ditches covered with vegetation, it represents the largest earthworks ever built by man. Its construction, completed before the 16th century, testifies to a remarkable technical prowess for the time.
The urgency of the situation is now pushing Nigerian and German archaeologists to join forces. Their observations are alarming: more than half of the structures mapped in the 1960s and 1970s have already disappeared. Benin City’s urban expansion poses the main threat, with residents using the land from the ramparts as building materials and flattening historic landforms to build new homes.
Beyond the physical preservation of the site, researchers hope to unravel the mysteries of this exceptional construction. The Iya would in fact have fulfilled multiple essential functions for the city: defensive system, water regulation, protection of fauna and territorial delimitation. These fortifications constitute a unique testimony to the ingenuity of the Kingdom of Benin, before its fall to British troops in 1897.
Safeguarding this exceptional heritage now represents a major challenge for the Nigerian authorities and the international scientific community. Time is running out to preserve what remains of this historic monument, witness to an African civilization at its peak.
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