c. 1500 AD–c. 1600 AD
Firearms and artillery in the Kingdom of Benin
War & military technology · Armas de fuego · Artillería · Transferencia tecnológica · Especialistas militares
Objects and sources on Benin document contacts with Portuguese weapons, mercenaries, and artillery from the late fifteenth century; they also show uncertainty over the provenance and precise use of surviving pieces. Research cautions against exaggerating a supposed military superiority based on a firearms monopoly: decisions about use depended on institutions, trade, specialists, and local forms of warfare.
Precision, calendar, and review
- Start
- year · approximate
- End
- year · approximate
- Calendar and convention
- Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
- Year zero
- The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
- Documentary review
- Date not recorded
Reading the date: duration of a process.
Sources
- www.cambridge.org (opens in a new tab)
Source provenance and scope
- Publication date
- 1971-04
- What this date describes
- The cited source or edition; it may postdate the historical event.
- Bibliographic date checked
- 2026-09-23
- Date evidence
- Declared in the cited source’s publisher metadata.
The correspondence between this reference and individual claims has not yet been itemized.
This record is an editorial synthesis. Consult the sources to check claims and their limits. Chronological relationships alone do not establish causation.