Royal Palaces of Abomey
Key Points
- The Royal Palaces of Abomey are a collection of 12 palaces spread over an area of 40 hectares (100 acres) at the heart of the Abomey town in Benin. The King's palace included a two-story building known as the "cowrie house" or akuehue. At its peak the palaces could accommodate for up to 8000 people. The palaces were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985.
- Abomey is the former capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey (c. 1600–1904), which would later become a French colony, then the Republic of Dahomey (1960–1975), and is the modern-day Republic of Benin.
- The Kingdom of Dahomey was founded in 1625 by the Fon people who developed it into a powerful military and commercial empire, which dominated trade with European slave traders on the Slave Coast until the late 19th century, to whom they sold their prisoners of war.
- The first ruler to initiate the building of palaces was King Houegbadja who had founded the city. Under the twelve kings who succeeded from 1625 to 1900, the kingdom established itself as one of the most powerful of the western coast of Africa. The opulent palaces built by the 12 rulers of the kingdom within the cloistered site of Abomey, functioned between 1695 and 1900, as the traditional cultural hub of the empire.
- The town where the palaces were built was surrounded by a mud wall with a circumference estimated at 10 kilometres (6 mi), pierced by six gates, and protected by a ditch 1.5 m (5 ft) deep, filled with a dense growth of prickly acacia, the usual defence of West African strongholds. Within the walls were villages separated by fields, several royal palaces, a market-place and a large square containing the barracks. The average thickness of the walls was about 0.5 m (1 1⁄2 ft), which maintained cool temperatures inside the palace rooms.
- Each palace had a distinct design to suit the whims of the kings. The Kpododji through the Honnouwa formed the first interior courtyard of the palace while the second interior courtyard Jalalahènnou was by the Logodo. The Ajalala, a unique building, which has many types of openings, is in the second courtyard; the walls have decorations of suggestive images in bas-relief. The palaces of Glèlè and Guézo, which survived the intentional fire of 1894 set by Béhanzin, were restored and they are now part of the museum.
- The materials used for construction consisted of earth for the foundations, floors and raised structures. The wood work was made with palm, bamboo, iroko and mahogany species. Roof was made of straw and sheet-metal.
- Bas reliefs functioned as a record book (in the absence of written documents) to record the significant events in the evolution of the Fon people and their empire, relating the military victories and power of each king and documenting the Fon people's myths, customs and rituals. However, in 1892, in defiance of French occupation, King Behanzin (1889–1894) ordered that the city and the palaces be burned. Providentially, most monuments survived the fire and many palaces have been since restored. Copper and brass plaques adorned the walls.
- The bas-reliefs were inlaid in walls and pillars. They were made out of earth from ant-hills mixed with palm oil and dyed with vegetable and mineral pigments. They represent one of the most impressive highlights of the palaces, which are now on display in the museum and replaced by replicas.
- Many of the objects exhibited in the museum, which were part of the religious ceremonies conducted by the kings in the past, are used even now by the royal family of Dahome in their religious rites.
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References