the kingdom of the Santee once ruled supreme in West Africa he was a kingdom that became an empire it played a pivotal role in commerce linking three continents and it was built on slaves and gold this is just a selection of the essential crown jewels it gives a real sense of the power and the sophistication of this kingdom Africa's history isn't always revealed in written records it's found instead in artefacts culture and the traditions of the people we know less about Africa's distant past than almost anywhere else on earth but the history of this continent is as important and valuable as any other in this series I'm exploring some of the richest and most vibrant histories in the world and I've come to Ghana in West Africa to explore the kingdom of a sample it's just one of the continents many historic and often overlooked kingdoms the Santee was among the most impressive there was found deep in the tropical forest which raises some questions how did a sophisticated society emerge from some of the toughest conditions on the planet how is the Asante kingdom created what happened to it Kumasi Ghana second city today it's home to one and a half million people in the 18th and 19th centuries Kumasi was the central power of the 'santa king British visitor named Thomas Bowditch came here in 1817 he wrote a remarkable account of the Royal Court he encountered the King his tributaries and captains were resplendent in the distance surrounded by attendants of every description at least a hundred umbrellas or canopies which could shelter 30 persons were sprung up and down by the bearers with brilliant effect being made in the most showy cloths and silks and crowned on top with crescents pelicans elephants barrels and arms and swords of gold wow it sounded it sounds quite something yes and if there's a pictorial depiction of the scene in in this book itself so I could show that to you historian Mary Wilson is an expert in the essenti king of haters luckily it's in color it's truly spectacular I know when one talks about kings and courts you have a kind of certain idea of the extravagance and and bright cloths and everything and this fulfills all of that you can see this figure here that would be their King yes you see and he has a lot more gold on him and then the people but that's also what power is about it's about human beings the number of people you control as well as having the wealth to go with that control there's a real Display of power and I guess that the most significant sign of that is just how much gold is in evidence just everywhere that's pretty obvious looking at these Mary that they're trying to send a message the Fantini is right at the center though the British you've come to visit the all of the these different subjects music you are see and we're not seeing proper impressive see these people here yes they're holding skulls human skulls skulls of important individuals who have been overpowered to show how much control they came had this illustration shows a wealthy state with an uncompromising grip on the Kingdom fascinating though the account is Bowditch only really got a snapshot of the ascent and it doesn't reflect one of the most remarkable things about this kingdom how it came into being in the first place Asante emerged a little over 300 years ago in territory now occupied by the Republic of Ghana in the heart of West Africa's forests own dense forest is an unusual place for large civilizations to establish the heat and humidity are relentless despite the conditions a complex and sophisticated kingdom emerged here that dominated a vast area for more than 200 years the vegetation seems so impenetrable that the scale of the achievement is hard to comprehend discovering how they did it and where they started has preoccupied historians for decades in 2010 archeology carried out by the university of garmin made some important new discoveries about a treat life in this part of Africa these are fire clay figurines will cover it from a site in northern Ghana dating to the 9th and 10th centuries dr. Benjamin Campion and his colleagues found some 80 terracotta figures perhaps a thousand years old in Savannah north of the forest depicting animals and humans he believes they were part of a shrine what this points to is a very complex culture I mean even if you look at these as depictions of the world that surrounded the people who made them but you can see that they're wearing jewelry body a dorm earnings only that this is obviously a very very complex culture yeah for sure as far as we know one of the markets of civilized society ah original complexity possibility marked by these artistic figures quality ones the figurines indicates sophistication among the people's who've lived in this region of West Africa but so far archeologists haven't proven any link between these objects and a Sunday in fact conclusive evidence has yet to be found of the precise origins of the Asante people the good reason it's challenging for archaeologists looking for ancient sites in this thick vegetation that thrives in heat and humidity they simply don't know where the earliest santi came from the forest is yet to give up the physical evidence that might reveal what happened many centuries ago as Santa's history isn't as elusive as it might seem however evidence does exist but it appears in different forms which is still incredibly valuable merit all history stories of the past they all important here and knowing why is essential in understanding how the 'santa kingdom came about and what held it together these people heading to the most hallowed spot in a Santy territory this is oral history in action their destination is a sacred site within the forest called a Santa mansur where a seldom held ceremony is taking place it celebrates the seven plans who first established communities in the forest but in so doing laid the foundations of this Santa Kingdom according to legend they emerge from holes in the ground within the forest sacrifice emphasizes the significance and rarity of the ritual I may find it uncomfortable viewing but it's an important part of the ceremony celebrating the origin it doesn't matter whether we believe that the Asante came from these myths today many things decayed in the heat and humidity of the forest but folk memory lasts archaeologists can't be certain that a Santa's ancestors came from exactly this spot but the belief in forests origins does child with what historians have established the ancestors of Asante Burak and people whose language is still spoken they can hunted and forage for food around 600 years ago but 300 years later a sophisticated Kingdom and emerged in between the akan people and their environment went through a significant and rapid transformation before a community could establish itself in one place a major obstacle had to be overcome the forest just unbelievable you think the original Asante but they cleared this forest trees of that size by hand during the peak of the forest clearance 500 years ago you can used access to weaken the trunks then hold the trees down to try clearing the forest was a vital precondition for settled society before that a can people were part of a hunter-gatherer society with the forest cleared agriculture could happen only with the space to cultivate land and grow food crops good groups of the can people expand their populations today in a forest in the west of Ghana machinery makes short work of ancient trees hardwood timber such as mahogany and teak is among Ghana's most important exports licensing regulations attempt to protect the environment but there's an understanding among forestry workers that Ghana's history is worth safeguarding to the forest it's important to to the people to the akan the forests are important are they in yes use something to the people y'all some areas would not enter he named the place maybe this is the place where Sonny people come from yes so the forest is a very important to us we can people in the 15th and 16th centuries forest clearance was mind-boggling work researchers have calculated that for one man declare one hectare it would take him 500 days to remove more than 1,200 tons of vegetation and since the fertility of the soil deteriorates so quickly you would have to rotate his crops meaning you would need to clear six hectares to feed his family faced with such an enormous task they can people needed additional labor there weren't enough of their own people to do the job so they used slaves an expert in the earlier kin societies that were the foundation of the 'santa kingdom is dr. Wilhemina donk oh yes I mean important people from outside was a really useful venture for them traders from outside coming in at different times they must have brought in people even from possibly as far afield as maybe Nigeria the Senegambia areas and and so on how did this early kind of slavery differ from transatlantic slavery which comes slightly later the system that operated here was quite different in the sense that on three people or people upon free descent could marry have offspring of their own could accumulate property and all that and sometimes they could even marry into the lineages of the air shall I say the via masters or the people who had initially procured them so it wasn't very hostile it did not remove the basic humanity of those who had lost their freedom but still it's a loss of freedom in the sense that you were removed from your own to join a different set of people with the help of unfree labor the akan made clearances in the forests on an unprecedented scale for the first time the forest was a viable place to have organized settled societies it was still two or three hundred years before the Asante kingdom but this achievement had a long-lasting effect the act of clearing the forest shaped a can identity there was a great sense of pride that this effort against the forest had been successful but that only drove the imperative to do more farmers settled in the cleared areas and grew crops needed to support an expanding population today cultivation still happens among the dense undergrowth this is your farm and can you tell me and what sort of produce to youth farm here yeah I do produce them this type of food which is fine team concept dish and in six one years to harvest this is Costas am and I planted kuku iam it's like a potato too starchy yeah it's fatty like potatoes yes how do you keep back all of the the weeds and the big trees that seem to be growing so voracious Lee on the edge of your phone you use this catalyst so all of them will come once and read everything having cleared space for agriculture the ancestors of Asante would determine to make the most of it the pursuit of abundance quickly became ingrained in their kin cycle the productiveness of the forest required a lot of hard work much of it carried out by slaves but none of that could have happened without a commodity that the economist leaves in the first place still found deep within the forest is the precious resource that paid for labor and transformed the akan people I'm on my way to one of the ten largest gold mines in the world this is a plastic old line today gold-bearing draw is extracted from shots that beat 1500 meters underground a chemical process separates the precious metal of Remiel and smelting results in gold blue gold worth over six billion pounds at today's prices has been extracted from here since the end of the 19th century but it's been mined in this region but a lot longer than that no one now knows when the accountant people discovered gold but it is clear that they were mining it when they were clearing the forest in the 15th century in those days the gold was found much nearer the surface but it was smelted by the account using Iron Age technology the precious resource was critical to the transformation of the forest and to the foundations of this Santa kingdom and gold provided by the forest gave the people a significant place in a much wider economy a can gold found its way to North Africa and beyond via trans-saharan trade routes and gold paid for not just slaves but textiles brass copper and salt from the 14th 17th a can gold had a direct route to Europe via Portuguese merchants on the coast in exchange for gold they sold guns a map made by ad merchants in the 16th century shows who the Portuguese were dealing with the most successful a can were amassing power the developing entrepreneurial spirit would have a major impact on culture in the kingdom of the Santa they can businessman had accumulated gold slaves and land and they were known as per my big men and they shared one thing in common one ultimate symbol of authority it wasn't a crown or even gold regalia it was a spoon stew the beautiful wheel is a center of store craftsmanship every stone is carved from a single piece of sesame oil the finest stools made here are used by senior figures in Ghanaian society less ornate stools but for everyday use and tourist souvenirs according to leading a Santa scholar professor Kwame are him the stool was more than a seat to the akan big men there's a single of sitters sit on solar sails own authority and standing in society it begins with the the eldest had to have a symbol of a tie to everybody so Jenny had this unique fortune and why is the stool the symbol I suppose the the material used for it was durable durable because she you wanted it to last now as trees and we have remembered the means or remember so in a way that these the stools actually became symbols of the history yes and also yeah at the same time the symbols of office symbols of authority symbols of a power and also reminders of deer particular achievements the experience of literally King their culture out of the forest was bound up in a can stools they helped to emphasize the roots of their organized society and much more it's not just about rootedness it's also about power about lineage about family they actually had in the center of them an empty space where people could put things that they treasure that work this object to life made it more than just the seat it became in a way a vessel that carried history the stools Authority translated into political power first cheap as the communities around each store grew they became less a collection of farmers and workers are more like highly centralized states by the mid sixteen hundreds dozens of independent village communities were turned into a patchwork of the canned stakes the most powerful was D'Oench era had controlled some of the richest gold mines in the forest for decades its neighbors sent tribute by way of slaves and other gifts to keep the peace but then tiras position as the most powerful of the akan states was not to last I'm on my way to the birthplace of the man who challenged entera and in the process found the Asante kingdom their tiras demands on its neighbors left it with few friends and many enemies in 1701 an alliance of states defeated then Shira in battle the leader of the Alliance was aside to to the first the Santa heaney Bakke of ascent according to legend the village of Amina is where it all started I've been offered a guided tour by the chief of the nearby town this place is particularly special very special Tiki has assaulted Beth what did it do which I became so sr22 was born here let us boot allows us I - - is thought to be born sometime during the 1640s there are very few certainties known about him I find it peculiar but they aren't even many artistic impressions of what he might have looked like the chief is taking me to see one of the very few I'm just where the woman was always sitting now he take over the chair after washing this little shrine shows an infant or situ - in his mother's arms it isn't given much of an idea of what the man is what kind of person was it was a mysterious man a builder was it would establish a kingdom but if you will not be blasphemy he was our Christ who give us the freedom give us the atoms kinship and he managed to put us together the sculptures strikingly Western in its appearance and I think the use of Christian iconography is deliberate if a site you choose to be remembered as a messiah it makes sense in this now very Christian country to remind people of Marian Jesus I was keen to see the place where according to legend whilst I to to his mother gave birth qualified it's in a wooded area just outside the village these are good too in sports I'd love to but before where as soon as we get to this plane I have to take my shoes yeah I'm not sure it's a good unfortunately the site is regarded as so sacred not even the chief has the authority to cross its boundary there's genuine reverence for the stories of the past whether provable or not can I ask you about the importance of history to the essenti people people one would don't know their history just move about like Audrina chaff we had been blown by the wind but those who knew really try to keep the pride that the great ancestors created for them if we want to maintain our status maintain our such a we need to have began what happened in the past and try not to go away from it maintain it maybe be modified to suit conditions as very recently the notion of modifying history to suit the present is an intriguing idea but not a new one it's exactly what happened when the Asante kingdom was created over 300 years ago an event commemorated in its capital kumis this was a seat of acai tutus power it's where a particular reading of the history is displayed this modern statute commemorates the most significant and legendary moment in the creation of a sentiment the figure isn't a sight tutor but his advisor to confer an Archie he seemed summoning a golden stool down from the heavens according to folklore the golden stool it's the spirit of the Asante nation when a compound not chained summoned it from the sky it's settled gently on a side to to sleaze anointing him the great leader of the Asante kingdom account for not chained was Merlin - aw sight - to his King Arthur historians aren't even certainly he ever existed but by promoting the myth the Assante estate deliberately mixed belief with fact the golden stool gave us i-22 spiritual power to bolster the military leadership he'd already shown the golden stool was displayed periodically to reinforce the legend the rarity of his public appearances adds to his mystique the faith in the stools supernatural origins gave its own authority beauty and gave their Santa people a strong sense of belonging nothing lasts forever in the forest even kings but if the golden stool contained the spirit of the Asante nation then the kingdom could last forever the Santa royalty followed the ancient began tradition of succession on the mother's life with a spiritual authority of the golden storm and with the help of European firearms si - - and his successors embarked on campaigns of expansion brands were vital to the kingdom's ambitions long-distance communication meant to Santa's imperialism to be fast and effective these are the accent Panthro the talking drums of a Santa there are means of communication that perhaps not in the way you might imagine these drums don't just beat outta rhythm they speak and if you know the language you can hear words and phrases just to hit you don't just hear it you feel it it's absolutely wonderful so each one of these drums they have a different sound the different function to get an idea of drum language I've come to speak to drum maker came chompin and these drums speak is that right yes actually communicate and fascinated there are certain basic drum language which is very familiar to anybody within the community such like maybe we are going to walk some one have lost at the forest and yeah we are going to communion our liebe that ken is calling everyone has to come report at the police that does add a basic than everyone within community knows that drum language is possible because it does not simply imitate the syllables of spoken words but their tone as well thanks to the combinations of sounds the drums computers I see so together yes very did I call you you can call me my name my name is Gus how would you do that I can't see the relationship do come to guess again please do Gus Gus the talking drum in the wood in this was the only means to communicate from a village to other village so there was no telephone then so normally the community used the talking drum to to send messages from Villa to other village that's the great so that one saying when you kill a thousand the common language of the region made this form of communication extremely effective a Santa had no standing army instead every village was expected to contribute soldiers to campaigns ordered by the Santa the reservists responded to the drummer's call to war and the kingdom expanded rapidly in the first half of the 18th century a Santee soon dominated territory that stretched beyond the borders of modern garnet previously independent states were coerced into a federation that power centralized in Kumasi states were either forcibly conquered or submitted to a santa's power there became provinces of the kingdom the Chiefs became vassals of the Asante King is Santa him as the kingdom expanded santa cruz rich from the proceeds of warfare the Wars of expansion resulted in the accumulation of vast numbers of slaves far more than they could possibly use but this also raised an opportunity 110 miles south of Kumasi is Ghana's coast and the poignant reminder of African history after the Portuguese began trading in the 1470s other Europeans followed to what became known as the Gold Coast cape coast castle was originally a base for Swedish merchants but by the mid 16th 16th they've been taken over by the British as a Santy rose to prominence the white men were less interested in gold than in another valuable commodity labour they're salty captured slaves in the interior and sold them to the British and other European powers Gold had once connected the account to the economies of Europe now slavery entwined West Africa in a system that linked it to Europe and the Americas more than a million Africans were sold off of this coast to a life of slavery in the New World and they were captured and sold by their fellow Africans the institution of slavery had been part of the economic normality of West Africa for hundreds of years selling slaves to Europeans for use in the Americas was a lucrative new business not exclusive to the essenti but used by them for their own advantage dr. Covino a de boiling is an expert on the essenti and the slave trade after it had been established as a kingdom no for economic reasons and for other reasons Asante began to expand beyond the boundaries of the core kingdom and that is where the issue of acquiring slaves for sale came in under normal circumstances you know when you are fighting you kill your enemies you see but the slave trade had already emerged as an economic system so a society was expanding it was it was getting a lot of work at captives and constant warfare meant constant production of war captives and while there was a market existence on the course you know logically and rationally Nisar to be this was going to make them rich so it's a formidable model that they expand they capture more people those people are then sold as slaves which then feeds the economy allows them to expand even that's one even more acquired the instruments for the explosion that is firearms and can I ask you a very 21st century question how did this ante deal with the morality of slavery of selling human beings we in the 21st century look back and look at it from the moral perspective but then morality was not was not to import it was business it was business of the day and the resources were organized you know and invested in that business so yes in our time it was immoral it will it's a terrible kind of situation in our thinking and in our - mission but at that time I don't think morality was was a potato it didn't work the many years in Africa and Europe slavery was simply a means to an end just as there are cow ancestors a Jews done free labor to make clearings in the forest the Asante Kings used the proceeds of slavery to create the powerful Kingdom but having created an empire of provinces the 'santa Healy's all faced a major challenge how to keep them together the Sante Keim's recognize the value of a traditional culture a storytelling they understood that the old ways of recording history could be made to work for them in the heart of the historic kingdom is evidence to show how the essenti state deliberately created a sense of nationalism surrounding Kumasi communities developed a range of skills and crimes places like this one weary they may not been big or powerful but they play the crucial role in binding the kingdom of a Santa together I've come here to seek ending Garner's famous patent clock too many people this is simply brightly colored material used to make clothes but there's a lot more to it than that what's amazing about Kente cloth is every single one of these patterns has a different meaning and these are meanings of the use to weave the 'santa community together even the textile itself is symbolic made by joining individual strips of material the word campaign means whatever happens to it it will not tear and each puppy that presents a problem we call this my heart to desire my heart's desire one of the weavers of the workshop it showing me how messages can be found in the material maybe even reinforcing a single basic idea with better together this is JT you know our last hunter people occasionally shoes unite together is that who's united we stand divided we fall so he named this particular curve that firmness unity so there's a kind of a sense of narrative yes that sense of people we see you later Guerra so that we can't fighting our enemies yes yeah and is there a particular reason to the colors which they have particular meanings in particular configuration did you see Africa we have cool so the yellow color over here isn't gold that to have that much love resources case we have gold and the blood isn't our color and the focus to that you have a before she is blue is the sky so all the colors motion there's something nice I mean I can understand how those tones that they weave together a sense of community but also as you say that each one of these they represent something something within the environment Kenting rich with symbolism was promoted by this Santa Hina's by wearing the cloth of bomb wearing the Manik recognized the contribution of bomb we raise craftsmen to this Santa kingdom while also advertising the kingdom's benefits I know these objects but only from a distance really but to see them up close you can see why the Santini wanted to invest in them he wanted them to be a metaphor for this Santa nation and he chose alongside them drums he chose gold he chose a variety of different kinds of crafts that were buying this tanta together the people were proud to see their traditions being used by the king but the state's appropriation of local customs revealed how determined it was to shape the kingdom as it's not faked the Asante nation wasn't just about weaving peoples together whilst there was consent it was also control in a hundred years the kingdom had grown significantly at its largest extent in the early 1800s it included outlying provinces as far as 16 day's journey from Kumasi its population was over 2 million 20 times more than South Africa in the same period the kingdom of this size acquired careful government I've been given permission to enter the royal palace in Kumasi and to see some of the instruments of control used by the state at the height of its power the original pants was the center of a Santa cover me from Kumasi civil servants were sent all over the kingdom to implement its policies and to apply its laws I've arrived just as the palace numbers have come to remove historic weapons from the museum so you carry the guns during ceremonies yeah and during the sitting of the of the King anytime the King City stick the girls and the sword has to come out to signify the adjust the King so who who did that belong to that is the defeat the first king of Ashanti to 462 the first sight it's come amazing European firearms have been instrumental in creating and expanding the Santi Kingdom during the 1700s threat of force was one way the kingdom maintained control with other methods were just as effective the Royal Palace once housed the most important part of the kingdom's bureaucracy the Treasury since gold was first mined in the forest the currency of this area of West Africa was gold dust scales and counter weights were used for precise measurements even gold nuggets and Engels was melted down and turned into gold dust so they could be accurately measured every transaction was in gold dust including taxation exquisite little object tiny little store it's actually a gold weight can imagine them weighing gold against something like this it's an indication of just how important taxation and financial control actually was and the Treasury it was a mechanism for administering all of the essenti bureaucracy it's just another one of those institutions that was call to consolidating Asante power taxation didn't simply fund the government it ensured that no individual could become significantly wealthy gold was not just money it was power there was vital that power was held by the state the regalia of this Santa heaney had to be the very best and the quality is just mind-blowing exquisite work ostentatious demonstrations of wealth by the King reminded everyone of their history of how the gold found in the forest had been instrumental in creating the kingdom the Santee people had long accepted that the kingdom was safeguarded if the state was rich but those assumptions would be severely challenged ass and he had become wealthy and powerful in part because of the trade in slaves with Europeans on the coast a trade controlled by the state but in 1807 the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire with far-reaching consequences for this Sante the economy shifted and the state's control over it weakened people began to trade in new things with the British on the coast and we traders from across the desert the people of the Santee had always believed in the states control over wealth but now they're increasingly in contact with people from beyond the kingdom who are making money for themselves many abandoned Kumasi are migrated to the southern provinces for a piece of the action their ancestral entrepreneurial spirit reawakened at the same time sudden drop in European demand for slaves meant that all goods had to be paid for in gold dust it rapidly became scarce these new influences had a profound effect people started hoarding gold they buried it to avoid paying tax this was a direct assault on the power of the Assante estate these internal problems plagued the kingdom in the first half of the 19th century and they were made worse by a fractious relationship with an international trading partner the military museum in Kumasi was built as a fort by the British this collection of photographs is testament to British involvement here from the late 19th century but the British influence on the coast have been growing steadily for many decades before them there were disagreements and outbreaks of hostilities between the British in Asante but for the most part relations between them were of two cooperative trading States but then in the late 1860's everything changed Asante wanted to restore its domination over its southern provinces to tighten its grip on coastal trade but some of those provinces had turned to the British for protection and then a santi trade monopoly was not in British commercial interests the two powers were on a collision course as tempers flared this Santa took a number of Europeans as prisoners an act to the British would cite as a justification for war a war that would allow the British to consolidate their trading position on the coast in February 1874 British forces marched into Kumasi the first foreign troops to do so they burned it to the ground then returned to their base of the custom the destruction of Kumasi was a shock that is previously undefeated kingdom but the impact was more than psychological as Kumasi lane ruins Asante was forced to accept the loss of its southern provinces in august 1874 they became the British Gold Coast a hundred years after Santee's empire built the Europeans were gaining foreign hands the authority of this Santa kingdom had failed to withstand the challenges of the British or the changing economic realities affecting its people the kingdom's other provinces began asserting their power and in the 1880s civil war threatened to tear a Santee apart the violence ended in 1888 when the factions agreed to a newest Santini a 16-year old named Prem pay the first professor Irena Doulton has explored his effect on a kingdom on the verge of destruction so here was this young man having come to power the question was how was he going to manage money to bring all these forces the insiders who defected and all these other people bringing them together to build a strong Asante nation once more that was his challenge peaceful Asante nation so what he did was to reestablish the importance of the goldens - as a unifying factor for the asan teas so the golden stool it's it's the rallying point for the whole nation yes but at that time we are talking about the British - also saying hey we're a MINIX this man succeeds in really lighting Asante to make a strong Asante nation we would be in trouble because back the last thing we want because the British were determined now to get hold of Asante and make Asante a colony so the governor comes to Kumasi and when he came to Kumasi died he made demands on prepare the first I think by the time the British came to make their demands he had decided that I'm not going to fight let me see if I can compromise if I compromise one I will save my nation my nation and also probably I'll save myself so that was the thing but the British were so determined so in spite of all that they decided that hey we are taking you and your mother and some of the Chiefs and I'll send them to Sir alone for three years and from there send them to this issue on the enforced exile of primping in 1896 stop the kingdom's resurgence in his tracks six years later Asante was formally incorporated into the British Gold Coast Colony the 'santa kingdom had been the result of centuries of a can state building in the forest the Santa's pivotal position in an international economy a brought it wealth and power in the final years of the 19th century weakness and instability had allowed Britain to add a Santee to its African possessions the Santa kingdom was crushed the British sought out the last symbols of Independence to be destroyed but something something subtle survived the British had failed to destroy the spirit of the Asante nation all its physical embodiment the governor still it was a significant error as Palace historian or psyche one will explain our spirit our everything is in the golden stool so that when even the British tried to take the golden two away we did our best to hide it and they never saw it so they later found that it was not an occupant of this new who mattered because he fought so that they could not take the golden stool away and the universe or the world instant so to us I say we were victorious in 1924 Prem Pegg was allowed to return from exile the Goldi stool reappeared at the Royal Palace the kingdom was restored after Ghana gained independence in 1957 and the Santa's traditional festivals were revived the Aqua seed a festivals held every 42 days it remembers the ancestors and celebrates the history of the kingdom the same things that we use to bind the kingdom together 300 years ago are everywhere the gold that was once mine deep in the forests the drums that beat out the Proverbs of a Santa the Kente cloth that carries the slogans of unity all in stunning display provincial cheese gather to pay homage the currents of santorini aside to to the second he may not command an army a wield the power of his own systems there's no doubt about his importance this is a celebration of history but its history with a purpose we dwell upon our history to improve upon our future that's why our history is very important for us and so for the future D field the kingdom is in good health yes one thing I see is that our people are proud to keep their culture and we are a scientist because of our casa de santa state once used mythology and traditions to assert its origins reinterpret history and forge a kingdom now these festivals use history to maintain the Santa's identity and its people's sense of belonging within the public of God I came in search of a Lost Kingdom but I found a kingdom which is very much alive which still finds a coherence around those central core things that were set up but also to to with the foundation of this Empire Gold Kent a drumming the stool they still work for the Assante people as much today as they ever did and brand-new lost kingdoms of Africa continues here on BBC four at the same time next Monday next tonight though back to the wall with only connect