Overview
The Benin walls and moat, known locally as the iya, are the earthworks of the old capital of the Benin Kingdom at Benin City in Edo State, in the South South zone. They consist of banks and ditches around the city and outward through the surrounding country.
History
The earthworks were built and extended over centuries by the Edo kingdom, with the inner city circuit associated in tradition with a major reorganisation of the capital, and outer ditches marking village and boundary lines beyond it. Together they form one of the largest earthwork systems recorded in Africa, and their total extent has been estimated in thousands of kilometres, though such figures depend on how the rural sections are counted. The city was sacked by a British expedition in 1897, after which the earthworks lost their defensive role, and much of the circuit has since been eroded, farmed over or built on. Surviving sections have been the subject of documentation and conservation proposals.
What to expect
What remains reads as an earth bank with a ditch on its outer side, in places still several metres deep, appearing in stretches through the city and in the countryside around it. Condition varies greatly from section to section, and some lie within built-up areas. Because visible remains and access differ by location, current local information should be sought rather than assumed.
Connected history or culture
The earthworks are the fortifications of the Benin Kingdom, whose court art is described in Benin bronze casting, and their end belongs to the events covered in British colonisation and the scramble for Africa.