In pre-colonial Benin, there was no written language, but an original system of storing and transmitting information was developed through conventional symbols and drawings, which were phraseograms. The development of this system was not conditioned by public needs associated with the growth of economic and commercial activity or the emergence of clear ideas about public and private property. Phraseography owed its origin to the desire of the supreme power both under the First Dynasty (ogiso) and under the Second (oba) to strengthen their ideological foundations. The official treatment of the country's history and the introduction of an ideologeme about the connection of rulers with ancestral spirits and deities were the most important means of achieving this goal. As a result, almost all the information that the Beninese conventional icons and drawings carried was not narrowly practical, but historical and cultural (religious and mythological) in nature.

In the mid-eighteenth century, a Danish merchant named Ludwig Ferdinand Roemer recorded an Englishman's account of the kingdom of Benin, long before it was founded by the Bini people (now part of Nigeria): "The Beninese blacks are very smart and intelligent. They are also, in a sense, learned. Their scholarship stems from numerous hieroglyphic icons and stone portraits, as they are able to tell their personal history, as well as the history of the whole country" (Romer, 1769, p. 16; for details, see Roese et al., 2001).

The content of this fragment is not entirely clear. By" numerous hieroglyphic icons", Remer's informant may have meant carvings on elephant tusks that were inserted into holes on the tops of metal heads (uhuv-elao) placed on altars (aro) of the ancestors of the supreme ruler (oba). At the same time, no Beninese "stone portraits"are known. Probably, the Englishman took for them memorial heads made of metal. This might well be the case, considering that he had almost certainly only heard rumors about Uhuv-elao: neither a foreigner nor a simple Beninese could freely visit the sacred altars of the Oba's ancestors. The now world-famous masterpieces of the so-called Benin bronze became easily accessible to Europeans only after the destruction and looting of the royal altars during the British "punitive expedition" of 1897, which put an end to the independent existence of Benin.

However, the passage quoted may also indicate that the Beninese court chroniclers (ihogbe) used not only tusks depicting historical scenes from the reign of the deceased Oba (for example, his meetings with Europeans), but also some other objects that were also on the royal altars before their destruction and served as a basis for their work. commemorative functions.

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Of course, on the one hand, questions remain: why, unlike tusks, are there no more specific references to these objects in pre-colonial sources and they have not survived to this day? On the other hand, in any case, the most important means of storing and transmitting the memory of historical events from generation to generation for bini has always been oral tradition. Now it serves researchers as an important historical source, albeit extremely difficult in terms of verification, and often interpretation of its messages.

The altars were created from red laterite clay, which is widely used in Benin. The shape of the altar was a semicircle with a diameter of 120-150 cm and a height of 40-80 cm, from the" cut " side leaning against the wall of the sanctuary (corner). On the altar itself and on both sides of it, along the wall, were numerous metal heads of uhuv-elao with carved tusks inserted in their "tops" - narratives of the deeds of the one to whose spirit this sanctuary and altar were dedicated. It was the head that the Beninese considered the receptacle of the sacred power of the ruler.

Ritual wands (uhurkhe) and bells (egogo) were also placed on the altar. In the center of the altar was a sculptural composition, the key place in which was occupied by the image of oba. Stone axes were placed on the altar and in front of it-Celts (Ughavan), according to legend, once dropped to earth from heaven.

The Beninese leader Akitola Akpata revealed the semantics of objects on or near the altar in this way: "Bust with coral cap and collar representing the deceased oba. Elephant tusks symbolizing the wealth of oba. Several wooden busts depicting leaders... Bells made of copper and bronze, with the help of which spells are performed. Long carved poles, known as uhurhe, with which priests offer prayers, symbolizing the soul. Ada (sword) and eben (symbols of power), etc." (Akpata, 1937, pp. 5-6).

Ihogbe court historians appeared very early; it is possible that the first of them came to Benin from the city of Ife, together with the founder of the Oba dynasty, Prince Oranmian, in the late XII-first half of the XIII century. They are divided into two groups: ihogbe proper and ugboka. Among the former, the highest status was held by the holder of the title ihama, followed by letema. Among the ugbok, ezehurhe and legema were the eldest. As far as sources allow, the only hereditary title among them was ihama, which was held by members of the Oba clan (umogun). The Ihogbe were not only chroniclers, but also priests of the head cult (uhunmwun) a living ruler and an ancestral cult, both. Due to the latter circumstance, they played an important role in the funeral rites of the supreme rulers and were considered the guardians of their sanctuaries [Egharevba, 1949, p. 30; 1960, p.79].

So, in the time of Oba (XIII-XIX centuries) there was a special category of court historians-chroniclers. But they were known even in the era of the first Ogiso dynasty (X-XII centuries). Then they were called ughoron. They lived near the Ogiso Palace and left Benin after the overthrow of the last ruler of the dynasty, Owodo. Nothing is known about the further fate of this category of courtiers [Egharevba, 1956, p. 2]. F. A. Igbafe reconstructed the ughoron method of work as follows: "Using clay models of figures of various ogiso and marking on them with symbolic icons the milestones of their reigns, they created a rather extensive record." The time intervals were recorded as follows: "The period between one and the other age class was approximately 20-25 years, i.e. a generation or more. This encouraged ughoron to measure ogiso's rule by years and generations" (Igbafe, 1974, p. 6). Unfortunately, F. A. Igbafe does not indicate the sources that allowed him to come to such conclusions.

Some researchers have tried to present the Beninese conventional symbols as a full-fledged syllabic hieroglyphic script and even dated them to ancient times.-

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the oldest surviving icons, and hence the emergence of writing, date back to the first appearance of Europeans in Benin, i.e., to the last decades of the 15th century [see, for example: Olderogge, 1953, p. 375-376; 1957(2), p. 72; Hau, 1959; 1967; Kobishchanov, 1967, p. 179-185; Falola et al., 1989, vol. I, p. 4]. In reality, as N. B. Kochakova points out, the Beninese conventional symbols were not hieroglyphs, but phraseograms: "Each such sign conveyed a whole message, it was used in isolation, without connection with other similar signs. Such signs did not form a writing system: moreover, unlike pictograms, they rarely served as a source material for the formation of logographic writing systems higher than phraseography, i.e., those in which signs (logograms) convey individual words" [Kochakova, 1986(2), p.164]. For example, B. W. Blackman analyzed each drawing on carved tusks from the altars of Beninese rulers as a separate "motif" (Blackmun, 1984, vol. II]. Much earlier, B. I. Sharevskaya considered the symbolism of images on the ritual rod and on the bases of the uhuv-elao [Sharevskaya 1947; 1957, p. 199].

Thus, although the Bini did not develop their own writing system in the strict sense of the word, they nevertheless had an effective system for preserving and transmitting information, primarily of a historical nature. History itself, in Bini's mind, was inseparable from the history of the ruling dynasty (Bradbury 1973, p.19; Afolayan, 1986; Picton, 1997). As noted above, the Kingdom of Benin has had a tradition of preserving and transmitting historical information through the efforts of court chroniclers almost since its inception. It is very likely that the mastery of "literacy" was available only to representatives of narrow social strata, primarily court "historians", as well as carvers and foundry workers who were at the court. It is in this circumstance, as it seems, that the correct answer is laid. Isichei, who contradicts researchers who tend to see tusk badges as inscriptions in the full sense of the word, notes that if this was actually the case, then "... it is strange that the memory of them in Benin has completely disappeared" (Isichei, 1983, p.335).

Historical information was preserved and transmitted by court chroniclers in an official interpretation, including through conventional icons and images on objects located in the shrines of deceased rulers. But were these items the only historical "reference books" and "encyclopedias" for more and more generations of Beninese chroniclers? After all, there are a large number of bronze reliefs (ama), examples of carvings on wood, ivory, coconut shells, etc., depicting scenes of battles and hunting, rulers and their courtiers, Europeans, animals and much more.

Bronze reliefs from the 17th century decorated the walls of the palace complex (ogbe), which occupied the western part of the city of Benin and included the shrines of deceased rulers. After its destruction in 1897, unfortunately, it is not possible to restore the sequence of reliefs on the walls. Nevertheless, the images on many now disparate reliefs do not allow us to doubt that they also served a historical and commemorative function. For example, there are several reliefs that depict Europeans either holding in their hands or surrounded by manillas - metal bars of a curved shape that were used as an exchange equivalent. Obviously, these reliefs were intended to reflect and perpetuate the history of Bini's trade relations with Europeans.

Another typical example is the "Maltese" and straight crosses that accompany the images of some close relatives. There can hardly be any doubt that this is a story about the same things that Europeans wrote about: in the XVI century - Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Joao De Barros [Pacheco Pereira, 1956 [1505-1508], p. 139; De Barros, 1988

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[1552], p. 83-84], and at the beginning of the XVII century - Manuel de Figueiredo, Diric Ruyters and Alonso de Sandoval [see: Bascom, 1973, p. 34, f. 4]. They also reported that not far from Benin there was a country ruled by a great ruler who bore the title hooguane, or ogane. (The overwhelming majority of scientists are convinced that we are talking about the supreme ruler - Oni Ife [see: Bondarenko 2001, p. 158-160].) Ohane was revered throughout the region. In accordance with a very ancient tradition, immediately after the accession to the throne, the "king of Benin" sent envoys to ogane. Their task was to deliver expensive gifts from Oba to Oganeh, inform him of the demise of the previous Beninese monarch, and request confirmation of the new sovereign's succession rights. In recognition of these rights, ogane gave oba through his messengers, among other symbols of power, a copper cross, which the ruler of Benin was obliged to wear around his neck. Without it (as well as without other symbols of power), he could not be considered a legitimate ruler. It is obvious that Oba's entourage with crosses are his messengers to ogana, who returned with confirmation of their patron's rights to the throne.

At the same time, abstract icons can also be seen on some reliefs from the Benin Palace, which, unfortunately, cannot be deciphered, at least not yet [Hagen, 1918, II, p. 12, Tafel 1, Fig.1].

Interestingly, although the reliefs were placed on the walls of the Oba palace and their reverse side was not visible to the viewer, conventional icons and drawings were sometimes applied on it. One of the authors of this article managed to find them on the reverse sides of two reliefs, now stored in the British Museum in London. One image could not be identified, while the other is easily recognizable as the ceremonial sword of hell. In general, it should be noted that only a very small part of the Beninese reliefs was studied for the presence of conventional icons and drawings on them (in particular, the authors of this work - from landscape publications and the collection of the British Museum). It is likely that a larger study of reliefs can provide scientists with abundant and extremely interesting material for further analysis of the problem of information storage and transmission in pre-colonial Benin.

In the 1950s, K. Howe examined 11 objects from Benin (elephant tusks, bronze reliefs, figurine, ritual knife, cup and bracelet) and found on them a total of 51 icons and drawings, which she did not define exclusively as "art forms". K. Howe suggested that in the future the number of icons discovered would be the number of drawings of this kind may increase, but only slightly [Hau, 1959, p. 126-130, 141-142 (table 1)]. In the same years, D. A. Olderogge studied the images on the bases of uhuv-elao and the carved tusks inserted into them [Olderogge, 1953; 1955; 1957(1)In the early 1980s, B. U. Blackman [Blackmun, 1984] carried out a unique review of the latter in terms of the scope of the material. Our research allowed us to identify a number of other objects on which the Beninese people applied icons and drawings, which, as we believe, carry, among others, a historical and commemorative load. Analysis of the cultural and symbolic context in which these objects were inscribed makes it possible to understand the semantics of the images applied to them.

In this regard, the group of objects on which icons were applied with chalk is particularly significant. By the way, it is clear that the chalked icons could not be preserved to this day, and therefore were not studied by modern researchers. At the beginning of the 20th century R. I. Dennett wrote: "Ake. Pieces of bark supported on one side by two sticks, forming a kind of canopy, under which there is a pot of water, bananas and yams. Usually [ake] they are built under trees, and various icons are drawn in front of them with chalk" [Dennett, 1906, p. 221]. R. I. Dennett also reports about the chalk-drawn icons on the ground in front of the ake in another fragment of his book (Dennett, 1906, p. 215). It is obvious that we are talking about the shrines of Ake, the deity of archery [Melzian, 1937, p. 6].

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Indeed, chalk (orhue) plays a large role in the bini symbol system. The symbolic meaning of chalk is associated with its white color. Thus, when the future Oba Obanos sent his father, Oba Akengbuda, who had ruled for more than half a century, a lock of his gray hair, hinting that it was time to give up the throne to him, Akengbuda sent back a mixture of chalk and salt. Such a message should have meant that the old oba has not yet lost interest in this world and is not ready to leave it [Egharevba, 1960, p. 43-44].

In bini, the white color symbolizes peace, joy, health, good luck, fertility, purity, etc. [Omijeh, 1971, p. 118; Blackmun, 1984, I, p. 31]. Therefore, the chalk is the most important object associated with the cult of Olokun, "responsible" for fertility and wealth. Olokun was by far the most popular and in fact the most powerful deity in the Beninese pantheon. Its ritual color is white. The same R. I. Dennett wrote: "In Evezi (a locality south of the city of Benin - D. B., P. R.) ... stands the temple of Olokuna... In the middle of the open space in this temple were three cows 'heads surrounded by chalked icons" [Dennett, 1906, p. 223-224].R. I. Dennett also mentioned another altar of Olokun, in front of which icons were chalked on the ground [Dennett, 1906, p. 225].

R. I. Dennett also saw icons chalked on the ground in a semicircle at the entrance (omei) to the sacred grove of Arovia, dedicated to Ovia, the deity of the river of the same name (Dennett 1906, p. 192). The omei itself consisted of palm leaves that were entwined around the gate. The umayyah was renewed every year during the performance of sacrifices to the deity (Melzian, 1937, p. 144). Obviously, the icons in front of him were also being re-chalked at the same time. Chalked icons were also used in the rites of the supreme deity Osa (or Osanobua) and ancestral worship, since more generally orhue represents the presence of a transcendent, divine principle in the world [Talbot, 1926, II, fig. 1 [facing p. 20], p. 35, 37, 55; Omijeh, 1971, p. 118- 119; Rosen, 1989].

Another celestial figure whose cult is associated with the use of conventional icons, even if not chalked, is Osun, the deity of medicine (or rather, medicine). In former times, an altar dedicated to him was in every Beninese home (Melzian, 1937, p. 149). On one of the altars of Osun, R. I. Dennett saw a metal plate with icons engraved on it (Dennett, 1903, p. 202). Judging by the fact that the slab was made of an expensive metal material, the altar mentioned by R. I. Dennett was not ordinary. It is also logical that the icons were applied to metal ritual objects (for example, on special wands) associated with the cult of Ogun - the deity of iron and war, the patron saint of blacksmiths, warriors, and in general all those whose work is related to metal [Lippmann, 1939, pl. 26].

In the previous part of our article, we talked about images in shrines and on altars of various deities. However, they were also directly related to the preservation and transmission of historical information, since in Benin the ideology of royal power, and therefore the official history of the dynasty and the country, was closely connected with religious cults. It is no coincidence that the main sanctuaries of many of them were located on the territory of ogbe (Boisragon, 1898, p. 186-187; Ben-Amos, 1980, p.70-93; Picton, 1997, p. 24). The Beninese chieftain Akitola Akpata, who we have already mentioned, wrote in this connection: "The benefits of (accommodation - D. B., P. R.) such... The use of altars in the palace is revealed in their influence on loyal leaders and oba people during the administration" [Akpata, 1937, p. 7]. Historical information was thus inextricably intertwined with cultural information.

The close relationship that existed in Benin between conventional symbols, supreme power, history, religion and symbolism is well reflected in the testimony of C. Howe, dating back to the late 1950s of the last century. Once, in her presence, the old man told young beany that "traditionally, in the distant past, medicine men "wrote"

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large black crayons of a conical shape on plates made of ivory or wood. They not only wrote down the commands of the deities, important events related to wars, and the names of preventive and curative medical devices, but also read these documents from time to time to the kings and the chiefs of the guard (okakuo). These readings were an important ceremonial event" (Hau, 1959, p. 110).

The connection between Oba and Olokun was particularly strong and significant for the Beninese. The most widely known story about Olokun is related to Oba Ewuare the Great, who ruled in the mid-15th century. It is said that he stole coral necklaces, one of the most important attributes of power in Benin, from the underwater palace of Olokuna, the deity of not only wealth and fertility, but also the water element. It is noteworthy that at the end of the XIX century S. Punch wrote that the center of the cult of Olokun ("Malaku", as he calls it) Guato (see Roth, 1968 [1903], p. 53, 55) is a coastal settlement that was founded as a port in Evouare and played a major role in the history of trade relations between Beninese and Europeans.

However, another tradition connects Olokun with another oba, Ezigie (first half of the 16th century). It tells that the coral necklaces were found by Ezigie in a battle with Olokun in one of the tributaries of the Niger. In any case, the cult of Olokun was strongly connected by numerous threads with the institution of the supreme ruler and the cults that served him [see, for example, Kochakova, 1986(1), p. 355]. It is no coincidence that the iconography of their images is so similar that it can be extremely difficult for art historians to determine who - Olokun or both - is depicted on a particular Beninese art monument.

The cult of Osun was also associated with the supreme ruler [Sharevskaya, 1947], since in Benin, which was archaic in terms of culture, including political culture, only a physically full-fledged person had the right to wield power [Egharevba, 1951, p. 18; 1960, p. 26; also see Kochakova, 1986(2), p. 204, 210]. For the Beninese, the physical fortress of the ruler was a guarantee not so much of his real legal capacity, but of his endowment with sacred power. It was also necessary for him to act as a guarantee and symbol of the power of the country and the welfare of the people.

It is also natural and logical that the symbolism of sacred supreme power and religious cults was to a large extent common. In particular, chalk was ritually associated not only with many deities, but also with oba. People believed that chalk served the supreme ruler as food. When oba died, one of the biggest dignitaries, iyase, declared that " oba's chalk was broken." As he spoke, he was hitting a large piece of chalk on the ground. Immediately after this, mourning for the deceased sovereign began. The main initiator of mourning rituals, Crown Prince Edayken, was covered with chalk from the shoulders to the chest, and his right arm and feet were also painted with chalk [Nevadomsky, 1984, p. 41, 44]. After ascending to the throne, the new ruler sent a piece of chalk to all the leaders under his supreme authority as a symbol of peace. Those who accepted the gift of oba expressed their loyalty to him. Those who rejected the chalk sent to them were declared rebels with all the ensuing consequences [Omijeh, 1971, p. 118].

It is not without reason that some of the icons on the tusks represent royal tamgas - signs of belonging to these objects both [Roth, 1968 [1903], p.96, fig. 96; Olderogge, 1957(1), p. 345-346]. However, this view needs to be significantly clarified: in this case, it should be about property-not in the political and economic sense, but in the socio-cultural sense. It is noteworthy that these tamgas were placed on tusks located in the shrines of the ancestors of the rulers, i.e. on objects that were of social and cult, but not directly of material value. The signs of their possession were both intended to symbolize the strength of the current sovereign's ties with the transcendent

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the world, and above all - with the spirits of his ancestors; it was the cult of the ancestors of the Oba that lay at the heart of the official ideology.

In addition to objects that can be safely said to have been placed on the altars of deities, the ancestors of the supreme ruler, or in the palace, conventional icons and drawings can also be seen on objects whose connection with the ideology of sacred supreme power - in its historical or religious refraction - is not so self-evident. On some objects (for example, on a clay bench from the British Museum), in particular, icons made in a peculiar geometric style are found. In the same style, icons were carved on the lid of the vessel described by S. H. Reed, made of ivory (according to his assumption, at the beginning of the XVII century). On it, the icons were separated by images of European heads. Noting that geometric ornamentation is generally atypical of Beninese art and is found only on objects associated with the highest social strata, S. H. Reed further writes about the icons forming it on the lid of the vessel he examined: "It is undoubtedly associated with the wicker ornament common to Beninese carved and cast products, and, of course, it is closely related to the nodular ornament of the same general appearance on the bench from the collection of General Pitt-Rivers " [Read, 1918, p. 129 - 130].

To what S. H. Reed wrote, you can add a message from N. W. Thomas. Eight years before S. H. Reed, he wrote that in Benin, private houses were usually decorated with geometric ornaments (Thomas, 1910). This message is not entirely clear, since, on the one hand, each Beninese house was "private" in the sense that it could only be inhabited by one large family, but, on the other hand, most of the houses were components of architectural complexes that formed walled compounds. In addition, private property in the New European sense of the word was not known to bini at all [see, for example, Bondarenko, 1995, p. 149-152]. It can be assumed that by" private houses " the Englishman meant detached dwellings, or rather palaces, of high-ranking aristocrats. If our assumption is correct, then S. H. Reed's statement that geometric ornaments, including stylized symbols, distinguished objects and objects associated with the upper strata of Beninese society, receives additional confirmation.

The semantics of the icons found on another bench, this time a brass one, is also interesting. On it you can see icons that clearly symbolize the moon and the sun, as well as the" Maltese " cross [Ben-Amos, 1980, p. 30-31, pl. 30, 31]. The very presence of the cross indicates the connection of the footstool with the institution of the supreme ruler (see above). It is no accident that the oral tradition attributes the order for its production to Oba Eresoyen (first half of the XVIII century). But the cosmic symbolism of the moon and sun is also directly related to the ideology of the sacred power of the Beninese supreme rulers. One of its cornerstones was the postulate that both embodies, combines and consistently unites opposites, which in their totality encompass everything that exists in the world. The supreme ruler was seen by his subjects as simultaneously "for and against, right and left, man and deity; he united opposites in himself, he existed in the name of this union" (Palau Marti, 1964, p. 218). The icons representing the sun and moon were intended to express the ideologeme of the sacral monarch's incarnation of day and night (Dark, 1973, p. 105).

In the broad context of the semantics of the images of the sun and moon as ideologemes of sacred power, both were inscribed and their more private and unrelated meanings. So, apparently, the sun was supposed to symbolize the inevitability of the ruling dynasty, the naturalness and inevitability of its existence, like the inevitability and regularity of sunrise, since the following saying is popular among Bini: "The sun never misses a day" [Ben-Amos, 1980, p. 28]. The semantics of the image of the moon in connection with the ideology of the sacred power of oba is revealed in one of the reliefs from dvor-

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ca of the supreme ruler. It shows two cow heads placed one on top of the other, and next to them - six crescents [Dark, 1973, pi. 56, ill. 119]. It seems that in this case, the archaic thinking of bini produced the same associations that are well known to historians of religions and cultures of the Ancient world: both cow horns and the crescent-shaped crescent were associated with the cult of fertility. Ritual provision of fertility was considered one of the most important tasks of the rulers of archaic agricultural societies, including the Beninese one [see, for example, Bondarenko, 1995, p.213].

Thus, although it is not necessary to speak about the existence of writing in pre-colonial Benin, it should certainly be recognized that it developed an original system for storing and transmitting information through conventional symbols and drawings that were phraseograms. The development of this system was not conditioned by social needs associated with the growth of economic and commercial activity in the country, the emergence of clear ideas about public and private property as political and economic categories, as it usually happened when writing was created in the Ancient world. In Benin, the emergence of phraseography was predetermined by the constant concern of the supreme authorities - both under the First Dynasty (ogiso) and under the Second (both) - to strengthen their ideological foundations. The official treatment of the history of the ruling house and the entire people, on the one hand, and the promotion of the ideology of the connection of rulers with their ancestors and deities, on the other, were the most important means for the authorities to achieve this goal.

It is precisely because of the above that almost all the information contained in the Beninese conventional icons and drawings (both in themselves and as fragments of the socio-cultural environment in which the objects that bore them were inscribed) was of a historical and cultural (religious and mythological) nature. History and mythology, which are inseparable in the mind of bini and are called upon by the authorities to serve her, fulfilling a single - ideological - task, are intertwined here: the myth is historicized and politicized, real historical figures (the rulers of the country) are introduced into it, and history is mythologized and simultaneously manipulated to please the same supreme power. If we proceed from the specific prerequisites and conditions for the emergence and existence of phraseography in Benin, it seems logical that the layer of "literates" in the country was very narrow, as well as the fact that it consisted of court chroniclers and masters of artistic crafts, as well as priests of cults of a number of deities.

While a lot of conventional icons and drawings, especially on bronze reliefs, are still waiting for their researcher, it is quite obvious that most of them have been lost irrevocably. After all, most of the icons were chalked on earth, ivory or wood. Such "inscriptions" required frequent updating, and in the colonial period this tradition was stopped. This circumstance suggests certain thoughts: maybe conventional icons and drawings were used more widely? After all, it is well known that in addition to the now world-famous court fine art, there was also a developed folk art in pre-colonial Benin. However, since the latter's works were most often made of less expensive and durable materials (such as wood), there are very few monuments of pre-colonial Bini folk art; so few that the overall picture of the artistic process in Benin has been completely distorted. Couldn't a similar situation have developed with phraseography? Maybe the Beninese people who were not part of the palace and the main sanctuaries also knew the conventional icons and drawings, but they put them on short-lived objects that could not be preserved to this day?

Most likely, for the Oba era, such an assumption would still turn out to be not only speculative, but also erroneous. Bearing in mind that phraseography in Benin does not exist in all countries of the world.-

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It is necessary in the economic and commercial sphere, but could only be used in the ideological sphere, let us ask the question of Roman jurists: "who benefits from this?", i.e., who, other than the supreme rulers, could try to use phraseography to strengthen their own power? In the Kingdom of Benin, power was exercised at four levels: large families, communities (most often united by several families), chiefdoms, and the entire polity. Heads of families and communities could hardly resort to phraseology, including because their power was not hereditary. The situation is more complicated with the Onogye, the hereditary heads of chiefdoms, larger entities within the Kingdom of Benin.

They clearly had to be interested in ideologically consolidating their power over the chiefdoms that made up their chiefdoms. But if the monuments of folk art, even if they are not numerous, even if only of a late period, are still preserved, then no objects with conventional icons or drawings applied to them that would not originate from behind the walls of the Oba palace or shrines can be found. Direct indications of familiarity with the "literacy" of ordinary Beninese people are absent in local folklore, mythology, oral historical tradition, etc.Archeology does not provide any evidence. There is also no evidence in ethnographic sources of the spread of" literacy " among the Beanies, except for the report given at the very beginning of this article by an unknown Englishman, given in the work of L. F. Roemer. However, the anonymous informant did not directly indicate which of the Beninese he was referring to when referring to their "scholarship". Judging by the fact that he visited the city of Benin-the capital, and judging by his description, we are all talking about the same court chroniclers and at the same time priests of the cults of the ancestors of the oba and the head of the living sovereign.

Why do we not have evidence of the use of conventional drawings and icons in the Bini chiefdoms? The answer to this question should be sought in the history of the emergence and strengthening of the institution of supreme judicial power in Benin. The designation of Ogiso as a dynasty is conditional and basically incorrect. The fact is that only a few of the first (about four) and last (about eight) rulers who bore this title formed dynastic lines (and not connected with each other). In the interval between them lay the reign of about two dozen Ogiso, each of whom was the head of the strongest chiefdom at that particular time and came to power without being related to his predecessor. The Ogiso era was a period of struggle between the various Bini chiefdoms for hegemony throughout the country, and none of them managed to establish effective supranational power. In general, the Beninese polity of that time can be described as a complex chiefdom (see Bondarenko, 2001, pp. 72-135). It is likely that at this time the chiefdoms, or at least some of them, resorted to phraseology in an "ideological war" with rivals, while the Ughoron served the supreme power as such, "rewriting" history and political mythology depending on who was currently personifying it.

The fact that in a complex chiefdom there can be conditional means of storing and transmitting information, as well as the fact that in such cases the information stored is mainly of a complete historical, mythological and genealogical nature, is confirmed, in particular, by the examples of many societies of pre-colonial Polynesia. There, however, such evidence is much later than the Ogiso period in Benin. Just as no samples of Ughoron "writing" were preserved, it is even more likely that there would be no traces of the creative work of the ideologists of the rulers of the numerous Bini chiefdoms of the X-XII centuries. At that time, Bini did not yet know the technique of bronze casting, but rather phraseograms applied on wood, ivory, etc.,

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They may have died both from time and during the wars and coups that accompanied the history of Benin during the Ogiso period and the change of dynasties.

By the middle of the thirteenth century, however, Oba had succeeded in establishing an effective, rather rigid supranational power and forming a dynasty in the true sense of the word. The victory over separatism and the throne ambitions of individual chiefdoms could not but be expressed in the suppression of the" independent activity "of their heads in the sphere of ideology, i.e. in the" monopolization"," appropriation " of the official history of the country and the political mythology of the people (and, consequently, the means of storing and transmitting information of this nature) by the supreme power. Thus, the fact that the phraseographic icons and drawings that have come down to us (directly or in descriptions) invariably turn out to be associated with the historical and mythological aspects of the official ideology testifies to the strength of the central government in Benin during the reign of the Oba dynasty.

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