• Leventis Foundation, 2000: per diems and in country expenses of wider environmental programme
• Bournemouth University Department of Archaeology, 2000: air-fare, use of facilities and UK expenses
• African Legacy has met some living expenses by its own marketing activities

• To map all Africa's visible archaeology, beginning with Nigeria and West Africa
• To photograph, measure profiles and determine construction techniques of selected sites
• To obtain ancillary oral histories and other cultural data associated with the features

	Typical rectilinear town wall, probably C19th.  Note enigmatic linear feature to north-east.
	Bifossate rectilinear town wall; and circular enclosure to north.
	Karai-Karai: ovoid and circular enclosures - univallate, bifossate and multivallate
	Distribution of mapped Karai-Karai enclosures: a process of colonisation several centuries ago, in which middle-belt 'shoulder-carriers' moved north during a humid phase.
	In 1903, Kano's city walls (above) were regarded as West Africa's most impressive monument. They were 25km long and up to 18m high with narrow fortified gateways. In the mid-C19th, Barth could not get his laden camels through most of the gates; and the above reconstruction has been widened to cater for motor traffic.

Background: Between Lake Chad and the Atlantic Ocean, there are about 10,000 town walls, 25% or more of them on deserted sites. They represent the largest concentration of past urban civilization in black Africa; yet only a handful have been surveyed. There are also about 250,000 unsurveyed tumuli, several million un-charted iron-smelting sites, and an unknown number of ancient terracotta sites, most of which now may have been looted (see main menu for details). Old aerial photographs and other more modern remote-sensing methodologies offer an opportunity to record much of what will otherwise soon be lost altogether.

Kofar Kabuga Old gateway in the south-west of Kano city walls, still has its old gate of riveted iron strips which were once mounted on borassus palm doors

Kano City walls: Above - in situ ruins in the early 1990's. The Kano City walls were considered the most impressive monument in West Africa in 1903; but they have become severely eroded today, with borrow-pits for housing encroaching from both sides, and the nouveaux riches building ostentatious houses right across the old wall.  Most gateways have had to be modified to allow modern traffic; but at least one gateway may now be restored authentically with some sections of the wall alongside.             Below:  Reconstruction of the Kano City wall at the Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture in Jos, where higher rainfall conditions have meant constant repair work.  The upper parapet was manned by archers and riflemen using loopholes in the wall; whilst cavalry moved rapidly around inside the walls to ensure protection at the weakest spots.  The walls were built entirely of tubali - pear-shaped, sun-dried mud blocks to create a 24 km long, 20m high perimeter.

Results: Over 2,500 different past walled sites have been listed in a growing gazeteer. These have been culled from:

• historical sources: local records (e.g.: Kano Chronicle, Song of Bagauda); C19th explorers (e.g.:Barth, Rolf, Clapperton, Lander brothers); C20 observers (e.g.: military route maps, Talbot, Falconer, May, Moody, Babayemi, Willett, Connah, Soper, Darling, Gilliland, Mabongunge, Achi & Bityong, Hourou)
• map archives: Nigeria's early maps were based on more detailed ground surveys than later maps based on aerial photos and some sheets provide an excellent record of past settlement walls - other sheets being most unsatisfactory
• aerial photographs: 1:40,000 and 1:25,000 aerial photographs reveal that, in overall terms, the cartographers making the above maps only recorded about 10% of the walled settlements: 25% or so of the walled sites identified to date are deserted, and a major cluster of over 120 deserted cirular/ovoid enclosures have been identified just west of Potiskum (below)
• fieldwork surveys and inspections: this includes over 1,600 km of the 16,000 km long Benin earthwork complex (see menu); the 160 km long Sungbo's Eredo (see menu); the 45 km long Orile Owu walls (see menu); the walls of Old Oyo (see menu); Old Egbe, Kwiambana, Old Ningi (see below), Gogoram, Pauwa, Old Rano, Old Sumaila and several other northern towns.
• e-mail and other correspondence: this has received data on other linear earthworks in West and East Africa.

Old Ningi was a nineteenth century cult settlement (ruins above) opposing Kano, Zaria and Bauchi from its hill fortress base using up to 4,000 cavalary. Its mud walls (below) were built on stone-based parapets and presented a complex defence strategy, which the larger kingdoms were unable to breach. It was captured by the British using a local traitor to show a secret way in near the beginning of the C20th.

Goats, supposedly the harbingers of environmental destruction, provide the key to environmental enhancement in the Kano close-settled zone - an extensive, densely populated area in the semi-arid zone of northern Nigeria. Tethered (above) during the rainy season when crops are growing, their dung is gathered to make taki (manure), which is then placed on the fields under permanent cultivation. Over the centuries, more people has resulted in more goats, more taki, better soils, higher crop yields and more trees - the last being mainly gawo (Faidherbia albida), as this ovides browse for the goats when it leafs during the dry season. This is just one of many examples, which qualify many of the negative arguments about the population/environment interface.

Survey plans and photographs are being scanned so that they can be related to 16-bit grey scale images of Federal Survey base maps, as well as other cultural and environmental data. African Legacy will supply plan details for educational purposes only: other forms of data dispersal await copyright clearances.

For those wishing to inspect the gazeteer listing, copies can be obtained from:

 

Legacy, 27 Boyle Street, Onikan, Lagos, Nigeria.

African Legacy explore@africanlegacy.info

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