We have an article claiming that the Walls of Benin are the world's largest structure. The main sources are two, work by Patrick Darling and an article by the British science writer Fred Pearce which was in the New Scientist - [www.newscientist.com]

I suspect our article has confused the defensive walls of the city of Benin with another related series of earthworks, as the World Monuments fund gives a shorter length of the Benin wals - [www.wmf.org] .

A dictionary of archaeology By Ian Shaw, Robert Jameson [books.google.co.uk] says Connah contrasted the city wall with a network of linear earthworks surrounding it: the former had a defensive purpose, whereas the latter - the result of many different events spread over a long period of time - did not. This interpretation has been con- firmed by Patrick Darling, who has surveyed about 1500 km of the network, which he estimates to have a total length of >16,000 km and an average total vertical height of nearly 3 m. The network stretches in an ellipse for about 100 km to the northeast of licnin, which is in fact on its periphery.

The Benin Moat Foundation also says 2nd to the Great Wall - [www.beninmoatfoundation.org]

I'm trying to straighten this out as identical claims with a quote by Pearce are in various articles, so it would be useful to see exactly what Pearce says if anyone can get the New Scientist article. He might also be making a distinction between two sets of earthworks which has been lost in our articles, but I don't know.

Thanks

Doug Weller

Director The Hall of Ma'at
Doug's Skeptical Archaeology site::
[www.ramtops.co.uk]