Ewuare the Great Sacralises the Oba of Benin
Oba Ewuare took the throne of Benin around 1440 after a civil war and rebuilt the kingdom as a centralised state. Benin was a Edo kingdom in what is now southern Nigeria, and the tradition holds that Ewuare took power against a brother after years in exile, and burned much of the capital in the fighting. What he then built is what the kingdom was for the next four centuries. He created a palace administration of title-holders appointed by the Oba rather than inherited, which broke the power of the hereditary chiefs who had made and unmade his predecessors; established a state council; and made the succession pass to the eldest son. He rebuilt the capital on a plan of broad streets, and surrounded it and the surrounding territory with earthworks — banks and ditches that later surveys estimated at something over 16,000 kilometres in total length, among the largest earthmoving projects undertaken anywhere before the modern era. He expanded the kingdom by conquest across the Niger delta and towards Lagos. The brass casting for which Benin is known was reorganised under him into a guild working exclusively for the palace, and the commemorative heads and plaques recording reigns and events date from this period. Portuguese ships arrived in 1485, and Benin traded pepper, ivory and cloth with them, restricting the sale of male captives. A British punitive expedition burned the city in 1897 and removed several thousand brasses and ivories, which are now being returned. The Benin Bronzes are the most contested objects in any Western museum.
- Year: 1440 CE
- Category: Political
