Royal Palaces of Abomey

Start with the ground under your feet. It is red earth, packed hard and fine as powder, and it clings to your shoes. Look at the walls around you. They are made from the same soil. In the heat of the day, the clay gives off a dry, warm smell, like a pot just taken from a kiln. You are standing inside what was once the heart of one of West Africa's most powerful kingdoms.

This is Abomey, in the south of present-day Benin. From the seventeenth century until the end of the nineteenth century, this town was the royal capital of Dahomey. Dahomey was a kingdom of the Fon people. It grew from a small inland state into a regional power with an army, a tax system, and a court full of ritual. The palaces you see here were the centre of that world.

Here is the first thing most visitors miss. This is not one palace. It is a whole collection of them. Each new king traditionally built his own palace beside the palace of his predecessor, rather than moving into it. So the royal compound grew outward, generation by generation, like rings in a tree. The result is a large walled area of courtyards, gateways, and buildings. Each king left his own layer.

The kingdom counted a line of twelve kings, and their names still carry weight here. Among the best known are Ghezo, Glele, and Behanzin, who ruled in the nineteenth century. The palaces of Ghezo and Glele are the best preserved. Today they house the Historical Museum of Abomey, which is the part you will most likely walk through with a guide.

Now move closer to the walls and look for the panels set into the clay. These are bas-reliefs, which means low carvings that stand out slightly from a flat surface. They are moulded in earth and painted in strong colours. Here you will see reds, blacks, whites, and blues. To a first-time visitor, they can look like decoration. In fact, they work more like a written record. They are a way of telling history without words.

Each king chose symbols and sayings that described his reign. The images on these walls refer to those symbols. King Glele is linked with the lion, a sign of strength and courage. King Ghezo is often linked with the buffalo. King Behanzin is associated with the shark, an image of a ruler who would resist the invaders coming from the sea. Once you know a few of these animals, the walls start to make sense. You begin to read them as you walk.

Inside the museum, you will see objects that belonged to the court. They include thrones, ceremonial staffs, fabrics, and weapons. The most talked-about object is a throne associated with King Ghezo. According to the museum's account, it rests on the skulls of defeated enemies. It is a hard thing to look at. But it tells you plainly how this kingdom saw power, war, and the memory of victory.

That memory includes a part of Dahomey's history that is difficult to talk about. The kingdom was deeply involved in the Atlantic slave trade. Wars against neighbouring peoples produced captives. Many of those captives were sold to European traders on the coast. A good guide here will not avoid this subject, and neither should we. The wealth and the military strength that built these palaces were connected to that trade.

Dahomey is also remembered for its regiments of women soldiers. European visitors called them the Amazons, after the female warriors of Greek legend. In the Fon language, they are often called the Agojie. They were a real and disciplined fighting force, and they served the king for generations. Today their story draws many visitors to Abomey. It reached a much wider audience through films and books in recent years.

The end of the kingdom came with French colonial expansion in the 1890s. King Behanzin fought the French for several years. When defeat became certain in 1892, Behanzin and his people set fire to parts of Abomey rather than surrender it intact. French troops took the town. They also took many royal objects from the palaces back to France, including statues, thrones, and doors. For more than a century, those treasures were kept in Paris.

Here is the second surprise. In 2021, France returned twenty-six of those objects to Benin. They included royal statues and carved palace doors that had left Abomey in 1892. For many people in Benin, this was a moment of real emotion. Families lined the streets when the objects came home. It also started a wider debate across Europe and Africa about who should keep the heritage taken during colonial rule.

The palaces themselves have had a fragile modern life. Earth buildings need constant care. Rain softens them, and storms can bring them down. In 1984, a tornado caused serious damage across the site. The following year, in 1985, UNESCO listed the Royal Palaces of Abomey as a World Heritage Site. It also placed them on its list of sites in danger. Years of restoration followed, and the palaces were later removed from that danger list.

As you walk, notice the details of that repair work. Some walls look freshly smoothed. Others show cracks and older layers of clay. Some roofs are thatched, and others are covered with metal sheets. Listen, too. You may hear motorbikes from the town, voices from the market streets, and birds in the trees above the courtyards. Life in Abomey continues right up to these walls. Royal ceremonies connected to the old dynasty still take place in the town today.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment and look again at the red walls around you. They were shaped by hand, from the earth of this place, and they have been rebuilt by hand many times. Look for one last animal in the painted panels — a lion, a shark, a buffalo. Each one is a king's name, still on the wall. And as you step back into the street, notice the same red dust on your shoes. You are carrying a little of Abomey with you.