Kingdom of Benin: The Truth Behind the Lost City

Long before Britain ever set foot in West Africa, the Kingdom of Benin dug a wall system longer than the most famous stretch of the Great Wall of China, by hand, over the course of centuries. This episode traces the kingdom from its founding as Igodomigodo through Oba Ewuare's empire-building era, the 1897 British Punitive Expedition that burned Benin City to the ground, and the fight still happening right now over the thousands of bronzes Britain looted and never fully returned. TerraVox is about African history, the empires, the kingdoms, the uprisings most people never got taught. | Episode 20 Subscribe and turn on your notifications for the next episode — A NOTE ON THIS VIDEO — This channel is built on real, verified research, but no single video can hold the full complexity of any history. Some details are necessarily condensed to fit the format. Treat this as a starting point, not the final word. If something here grips you, go dig further. That's the whole point.