So no, not 'lost without a trace'.
I was born and grew up in Benin City!!
In summary, the city definitely exist but we have refused to maintain our historical artifacts. Although it is easy to blame the "evil British" , I think we back home can do better to preserve historical stuff.
But the British really messed up a lot of places. But after a while we have to take responsibility.
It's really cool to discuss where I grew up in a global platform though.
But I'm not Bini though. I'm Igbo, from Anambra.
https://www.google.com/maps/@6.3474921,5.747339,27322m/data=...
https://www.google.com/maps/@6.3105913,5.595516,407m/data=!3...
Dammit :(
From Wikipedia's article on the Benin Massacre:
But the way Benin treated its slaves and the public display of large quantities of human remains hardened British attitudes towards Benin's rulers. The trader James Pinnock wrote that he saw 'a large number of men all handcuffed and chained' there, with 'their ears cut off with a razor'. T.B Auchterlonie described the approach to the capital through an avenue of trees hung with decomposing human remains. After the 'lane of horrors' came a grass common 'thickly stewn with the skulls and bones of sacrificed human beings.'
But the number of times something from the 18th-20th centuries like this comes up and you find out it was our ancestors...
I sometimes wonder whether this'll be the same reaction Americans will have in 200 years time. Things always look better when justified in the moral context of their time.
Remember, this occurred in an era of "Social Darwinism" and "noble savages", etc.
That's not to say that these accounts aren't correct, but you can't just accept them at face value without some archaeological evidence to back them up.
History always has multiple points of view, our most recent struggles reflect only one.
Also "Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms" is out.
Hm ... so after reading Wikipedia, I knew, it is not lost without trace, but the great Kingdom of Benin was also the great capital of slave trade, with human sacrifices(in the end about 23 a day) and all in all a deep despotic society, etc.
But the artists are indeed great.
And the mathematics mentioned in this article are definitely 'tenuous' at best. I clicked on the 'African Fractals' and didn't really see anything that I would consider mathematics, although I did see some organizing principals I guess.
However the claim that mathematics is either 'theorems' or bust is not really valid standpoint in general... seeking one must by a practical definition of mathematics include at least Egyptians (at least in practical geometry), early South American (at least in practical geometry). Neither of which had any strong belief in the necessity or ideal of 'proving' theorems. Further one should include without doubt early Indian contributions which covered both practical and theoretical mathematics and early Chinese contributions although they seem grounded in theorem based approach
The theorems of mathematics are what distinguishes it from other enterprises and provides us with a degree of certainty of the correctness of our conclusions that would otherwise be unavailable. No number of (Euclidean) triangles measured, however great, would convince us equally well that their interior angles always sum to 180 degrees, nor would any exhaustive search of pairs of integers convince us equally well that the square root of two really is irrational.
By exaggerating the accomplishments of Africans to a lay audience, the article is minimizing the accomplishments of Europeans.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(%CE%B5,_%CE%B4)-definition_of...
That is an extremely narrow definition [1]. It is acceptable to me as someone who works in the intersection of technology and mathematics -- but for the general public the word implies a wide field of study, exploration and usage.
For example, on Wikipedia "Mathematics (from Greek μάθημα máthēma, “knowledge, study, learning”) is the study of topics such as quantity (numbers), structure, space, and change."
So all the author is saying that the residents of Benin City seem to have studied fractal patterns in some form and used them in art.
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[1] Although, reading your comment more carefully, you did qualify it with "mathematics proper". I guess my comment's whole point is that it's often "mathematics improper" when used by a popular columnist.
