considerable influence. The council governed the region and had representatives of further devolved councils who no longer have any power. Since the invasion of Lord Lugard, these councils have continued to meet and advise the Obanta kings, their power, however, is largely ceremonial since the establishment of the colonial administration in their protectorate. The elders were known to represent their various villages and the will of the people, and are now not such a significant part in the ceremonial process. The elders were all given individual titles and the lead elder was given the title prince, although he was only ever to inherit the kingship in special circumstances. The traditional belief that governed the monarchy was similar to that of the Chinese Mandate of Heaven. Early history The Ijebu Kingdom is estimated to be one of the earliest kingdoms founded in the African rain forest. Ijebu-Ode was originally a city founded by a leader from Ife. Like most other early states in the Yoruba region, they began to build a series of walls and ditches around the city, construction of these walls began in 800–1000 AD when the walls were called Sungbo’s Eredo. The walls extended to eventually cover the entirety of the Ijebu kingdom. It was massive with an estimated 3.5 million cubic meters of moved earth and sand and is among the largest man-made monuments in Africa. The evidence found is not linked to an isolated townbut to a kingdom’s large dike, a kingdom which was once functional and had at its disposal a high level of agricultural practice, an established pottery-making tradition, and possibly an army that triggered the construction of the Eredo. Further archeological works show the advancement of the Ijebu kingdom, the palace of the capital, Ijebu-Ode was shown to have the floors paved with ceramic pavements. People at the palace also seemed to practice astronomy with triangular pavements facing a true eastern direction; it extreme aligns to the movement of the sun from one solar solstice to the other one and worked as a sundial. Europeans also had a first hand account of Ijebu and wrote about it. Portuguese sailors and traders on the West African coast encountered the Ijebu kingdom first in which they called Geebu in the 1508 writing: "and twelve or thirteen leagues above by this river is a great city, called Geebu, surrounded by a great ditch; and the ruler