a clay-like substance that dries hard. Cham architecture in Vietnam also follows a similar style. Sub-Saharan Africa Traditional Sub-Saharan African architecture is diverse, varying significantly across regions. Included among traditional house types, are huts, sometimes consisting of one or two rooms, as well as various larger and more complex structures. West African and Bantu styles In much of West Africa, rectangular houses with peaked roofs and courtyards, sometimes consisting of several rooms and courtyards, are also traditionally found (sometimes decorated, with adobe reliefs as among the Ashanti of Ghana, or carved pillars as among the Yoruba people of Nigeria, especially in palaces and the dwellings of the wealthy) Besides the regular rectangular type of dwelling with a sharp roof, widespread in West Africa and Madagascar, there also other types of houses: beehive houses made from a circle of stones topped with a domed roof, and the round one, with a cone-shaped roof. The first type, which also existed in America, is characteristic especially for Southern Africa. These were used by Bantu-speaking groups in southern and parts of east Africa, which was made with mud, poles, thatch, and cow dung (rectangular houses were more common among the Bantu-speaking peoples of the greater Congo region and central Africa). The round hut with a cone-shaped roof is widespread especially in Sudan and Eastern Africa, but is also present in Colombia and New Caledonia, as well as in the Western Sudan and Sahel regions of west Africa, where they are sometimes arranged into compounds. A distinct style of traditional wooden architecture exists among the Grassland peoples of Cameroon, such as the Bamileke. In several West African societies, including the kingdom of Benin (and of other Edo peoples), and the kingdoms of the Yoruba, Hausa, at sites like Jenne-Jeno (a pre-Islamic city in Mali), and elsewhere, towns and cities were surrounded by large walls of mud brick or adobe, and sometimes by monumental moats and earthworks, such as Sungbo's Eredo (in the Nigerian Yoruba kingdom of Ijebu) and the Walls of Benin (of the Nigerian Kingdom of Benin). In medieval southern Africa, a tradition existed of fortified stone settlements such as Great Zimbabwe and Khami. The famed Benin City of southwest Nigeria (capital of the Kingdom of Benin) destroyed by the Punitive Expedition, was a large complex of homes in coursed clay, with hipped roofs of shingles or palm leaves. The Palace had a sequence