On a small island off the coast of Tanzania lies the site of Kilwa Kisiwani, also called Kilwa (and spelled in Portuguese Quiloa), the most important of about thirty-five trading sites on the Indian Ocean during the 11th through 16th centuries AD. Archaeological investigations at the site began in earnest in 1955, and the site and its sister port Songo Mnara were named
UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981.
Kilwa History
The earliest substantial occupation at Kilwa Kisiwani dates to AD 800, and the city became a major trade center from the 1100s to the early 1500s. The site was important during the Shirazi dynasty of the 11th and 12th centuries AD, and under the rule of Ali al-Hasan, a Great Mosque was built, and trade connections to southern Africa and the near and far east were established. Kilwa Kisiwani was one of the principal ports of trade on the Indian Ocean, trading gold, ivory, iron and coconuts from southern Africa, including the
Mwene Mutabe south of the Zambezi River, for cloth and jewelry from India, and porcelain from China. The first gold coins struck south of the Sahara after the decline at Aksum were minted at Kilwa Kisiwani, presumably for facilitating international trade. One of them was found at the Mwene Mutabe site of
Great Zimbabwe.
Kilwa and Ibn Battuta
The famous Moroccan trader
Ibn Battuta visited Kilwa in 1331 during the Mahdali dynasty, when he stayed at the court of al-Hasan ibn Sulaiman Abu'l-Mawahib [ruled 1310-1333]. It was during this period that the major architectural constructions were made, including elaborations of the Great Mosque and the construction of the market complexes of
Husuni Kubwa and Husuni Ndogo.
The prosperity of the port city remained intact until the last decades of the 14th century, when turmoil over the ravages of the Black Death took its toll on the international trade. By the early decades of the 15th century, new stone houses and mosques were being built up in Kilwa, but in 1500, Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral visited Kilwa, and reported seeing houses made of coral stone, including the ruler's 100-room palace, of Islamic Middle Eastern design. Vasco da Gama arrived in 1502 and exacted tribute to the King of Portugal, and afterwards the city's importance declined, except for a brief florescence during the slave trade of the late 18th century.
Archaeological Studies at Kilwa
Archaeologists became interested in Kilwa because of two 16th century histories about the site, including the now-lost Kilwa Chronicle (although remnants of this document do still exist). Excavators in the 1950s included James Kirkman and Neville Chittick, from the
British Institute in Eastern Africa. Scholars believe the Kilwa society developed into the later Swahili societies.
Sources
David Phillipson. 2005.
African Archaeology: Third Edition. Cambridge University Press, London.
Mark Horton. 1998. Kilwa. In Oxford Companion to Archaeology, edited by Brian Fagan. Oxford University Press, London.
J.E.G. Sutton. 2002. The Southern Swahili Harbour and Town on Kilwa Island, 800-1800 AD: A chronology of booms and slumps. In The Development of Urbanism from a Global Perspective, an online book available at Uppsala University.
There is also a great article on the architecture and history of Kilwa on the ArchNet site.
Google Earth Placemark for Kilwa Kisiwani
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