Town Walls and Earthworks
Sungbo's Eredo, the Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé circuits, the Ifẹ̀ ditches and the Ìbàdàn wall, what they were for and what they prove about the labour a Yoruba polity could command.
intermediatemedium·
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Sungbo's Eredo, the Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé circuits, the Ifẹ̀ ditches and the Ìbàdàn wall, what they were for and what they prove about the labour a Yoruba polity could command.
The Yorùbá wey dem quote, the proverbs, oríkì, ẹsẹ Ifá, word list headwords, Odù names and citations dey exactly as the corpus record dem, for every language.
Di physical remains from Yorubaland before colonial time wey shock pesin pass no be buildings. Na big trench and di heaps of sand wey dem dig troway beside dem, and dem big well well. Sungbo's Eredo wey dey round di Ìjẹ̀bú kingdom long pass one hundred and sixty kilometres and reach twenty metres from di bottom of di ditch go reach di top of di bank; Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé get five wall circuits wey cover about fifty square kilometres; Ilé-Ifẹ̀ get outer ditch of sixteen kilometres wey cover over two hundred square kilometres.
Di tins no be for decoration. Na physical record of wetin Yoruba kingdom fit command for labour, and na dem be di strongest evidence wey dey, independent of any oral tradition, to show di level of political organisation for di region and di time wey e take happen.
Di construction method for everywhere na bank and ditch. Dem dey dig earth from ditch for outside come troway am heap up form rampart for inside, so dat di obstacle wey person wey wan attack go face na di ditch depth plus di bank height, and dem dey use di excavated material instead of to pack am go elsewhere. Di place wey dem cut di ditch enter laterite, e dey stand straight almost like vertical wall, and na why dem dey describe Sungbo's Eredo say e get walls wey smooth well well .
Di advantage na say di technique no need stone, no mortar, and no specialist trades, na only organised labour and time, and e dey work for forest and savanna equally. Di cost na maintenance: ditch wey dem no maintain dey fill with sand and bank wey dem no maintain dey slump, na why di circuits wey still remain today often dey show like shallow ground wey no go let pesin know how big dem be originally.
Extent. Di total length pass one hundred and sixty kilometres, wey form uneven ring round di ancient Ìjẹ̀bú kingdom, and di height difference between di bottom of di ditch and di upper rim of di inner bank reach twenty metres . E represent about three and a half million cubic metres of moved earth and sand . Some sections wide only about eight metres . Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde dey inside di enclosure .
Dating, wey people still dey contest. Make dem report dis one say dem never resolve am because na so e be. Carbon dating go back reach 2000 BCE, wey no necessarily mean say na dat time dem construct di ditch; Patrick Darling propose tenth to eleventh centuries; recent excavation dey suggest di end of fourteenth and di beginning of fifteenth century; and di 800 to 1000 CE range wey people dey quote well well dey show for reference literature about di Ìjẹ̀bú kingdom .
Di spread matter. Tenth-century date go make Eredo be evidence of large-scale organisation for Ìjẹ̀bú area centuries before di Ọbanta dynastic tradition wey put di founding dynasty for fifteenth century, and dat one mean say Ọbanta na dynastic arrival into one polity wey already dey ground. Fifteenth-century date make am roughly contemporary with dat tradition and commot dat implication. Which one correct na wetin dem never settle, and any account wey present one date as established dey overstate di evidence.
Survey. Measurements of di whole earthwork complete for 1998 by British archaeologist Patrick Darling, as e map sections wey people no know before wey centuries of forest growth cover, and e survey di site for September 1999 come start to publicise move to preserve am and raise im profile . Darling claim say Eredo na di largest single monument for Africa by sheer bulk, say e pass di Egyptian pyramids . Make pesin take dat one as wetin im claim during preservation campaign, no be like settled comparative finding; di underlying volume figure no dey under dispute.
Recent work. For 2024 Augustine University Ilara partner with researchers from William and Mary to do LiDAR mapping of di site . LiDAR na di proper technology for here because e dey commot vegetation from di surface model to show earthworks under forest canopy, and na di method wey don transform di study of similar features for oda places.
Di tradition. Ìjẹ̀bú tradition associate di earthwork with Bilikisu Sungbo, rich widow wey no get pikin, and communities hold am say im grave dey for Ọ̀kè-Èrì north of di site, where Christians and Muslims dey go together for annual pilgrimage . Some pilgrims identify am as di Queen of Sheba. Dat identification no get historical basis and make dem report am as devotional tradition instead of claim about di past. Wetin di tradition record, and record accurately, na say na single authority commission di works and say dem understand am as woman own.
Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé get three principal documented concentric circuits: inner wall wey surround di ààfin wey get 7.5 kilometres circumference, main outer wall of eighteen kilometres and outermost wall of twenty-eight kilometres . Survey wey wider identify five wall systems in total, built between sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries and spanning about fifty square kilometres . One account from 1829 describe di walls as about twenty feet high with accompanying ditches .
Five circuits over two centuries na record of repeated expansion. Each new wall mark di moment wey di city outgrow di one before am, wey make di wall sequence be growth curve for di imperial capital.
Ilé-Ifẹ̀ get inner bank-and-ditch system of approximately seven kilometres circumference and outer ditch of sixteen kilometres, with di latter enclosing over two hundred square kilometres .
Di dating na di interesting part and e dey counterintuitive. Dem date di Ifẹ̀ outer system to mid-nineteenth century, for di reign of Ọ̀ọ̀ni Abẹ̀wẹ́ilà, 1848 or 1849 . Dat is to say di largest Ifẹ̀ earthwork no be monument of di classical period at all but na response to nineteenth-century wars, built by town wey Ìbàdàn sack for 1859 or wey dey anticipate say dem go sack am.
Another separate and older tradition dey about perimeter wall for Ifẹ̀ wey dem build between tenth and eleventh century and associate with Odùduwà , wey belong to the classical city instead of the nineteenth century. Make person separate the two.
Some parts of the defensive wall for Ìbàdàn still dey . The Ìbàdàn circuit na nineteenth-century construction, wey dem build and rebuild as the war camp expand become city of pass one hundred thousand people and later pass two hundred thousand, and e dey among the biggest of the late Yoruba walls precisely because the town wey e cover na im big pass.
The wall of Ìbàdàn na the clearest example of wetin this kind work cost politically. Town wey im promotion ladder depend on war fit gather people to work for very large circuit; town wey no get that kind structure no fit do am. The wall record the same military organisation wey the chieftaincy ladder record.
Ilésà measure about three kilometres across inside mud-built walls and ditch . Abẹ́òkúta get multiple defensive walls . Mud-brick wall round Kétou with only one gate wey dem call Akaba Idena, with trenches wey dem report say deep reach fifteen to twenty feet; Dahomey destroy am for 1886 and dem rebuild am for 1894 . One visitor for 1854 to 1855 observe say the Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde walls high pass other places and get support for the outside . Triple walls surround Ìgbòho, wey tradition talk say na wetin help the Ọ̀yọ́ stand strong against the Nupe from there during the interregnum .
The 1505 Portuguese account of one very big city wey dem call Geebuu wey big moat round na the earliest written notice of any of these works, and na notice of the Eredo or of an inner Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde circuit .
Three things, and e make sense to separate them from wetin dem no establish.
Dem establish the scale of labour mobilisation. Three and a half million cubic metres no be village project. E need authority wey fit command large workforce over long period, feed them, and direct them with one single plan.
Dem establish duration. Circuits wey dem build one after the other over two centuries for Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé, and how dem maintain the Eredo over whatever period dem take maintain am, show say political authority continue for long time instead of just one single burst.
Dem establish defensive logic wey be territorial instead of just urban. The Eredo no round town; e round whole kingdom, and na so the Ifẹ̀ outer ditch do at two hundred square kilometres. These na frontier works.
Wetin dem no establish na which dynasty build them, or when dem build them for many important cases. The dating spread for the Eredo wey pass two thousand years between the outer proposals na the honest state of the evidence, and the current condition of most of these features, as dem no protect them, dem no map them except for small small parts, as road and settlement cut through them and people dig ground comot from there, mean say the evidence dey spoil faster pass how dem dey record am. The 2024 LiDAR project for the Eredo na the kind work wey dem go need do for Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé, Ifẹ̀ and Ìbàdàn before many more things go lost.
Guide to the gazetteer, what each file covers, the argument that runs through the section, and how to read it in order or by interest.
What a Yoruba town is made of, the palace at the centre, the market before it, the wards and compounds around it, and the wall and ditch that closed it in.
The kingdom whose courts outranked its king, the Awùjalẹ̀ and the Ọ̀ṣùgbó, Sungbo's Eredo, the trade monopoly that provoked the 1892 British expedition, and Ojúde Ọba.
The imperial capital in both its forms, the archaeology of the ruined city at Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé, the palace and wall systems, the Aláàfin institution and the constitutional check the Ọ̀yọ́ Mèsì exercised over it.
The city the Yoruba world treats as its origin point, its Ọ̀ọ̀ni institution and ruling houses, its quarters, its groves and sacred sites, the Ọ̀rànmíyàn staff, and the Modáké̩ké̩ question.
How a nineteenth-century military camp grew into the largest indigenous city in tropical Africa, and how the Olúbàdàn rotational ladder works, which is the most unusual succession system in Yorubaland.