Modelling the Swahili past: the archaeology of Mikindani in southern coastal Tanzania

Pawlowicz, Matthew

doi:10.1080/0067270x.2012.723510

Cited by 18 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Archaeologists have documented diversity among the eastern African coast’s 50-plus stonetowns (Abungu, 1998; Chami, 2002; Chittick, 1974, 1984; Fleisher, 2010a; Horton, 1996; LaViolette, 2008; Pawlowicz, 2012; Wynne-Jones, 2007), which are nonetheless united by shared cultural practices and visual tropes. While the individual town identities may have been associated with their showpiece stone architecture demonstrating variations on shared traditions, residents built most of the town in wattle and daub with thatched roofs (Wynne-Jones and Fleisher, 2014).…”

Section: Chwaka and Swahili Townsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assembling Islamic practice in a Swahili urban landscape, 11th–16th centuries

LaViolette

Fleisher

Horton

2023

Journal of Social Archaeology

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Spanning c. 1050–1500 CE, a burgeoning Swahili community called Chwaka built a sequence of four mortared coral mosques in their town of wattle-and-daub houses on Pemba Island, Tanzania. The mosques’ placement, construction, and use played an active role in creating and strengthening an Islamic community and help us define changes in social practice within the town and the larger polity in which it existed. It is argued that the construction of each mosque was an act of assembling, drawing people, other-than-human things and affective social practices together in ways that help tell an urban story. This research provides insights into the residents’ socioeconomic and cultural priorities and the town’s changing relationship with villagers from the surrounding region, contributing to understandings of Swahili urbanism and urban practice.

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Section: Chwaka and Swahili Townsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assembling Islamic practice in a Swahili urban landscape, 11th–16th centuries

LaViolette

Fleisher

Horton

2023

Journal of Social Archaeology

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“…Yet, the presence of grand houses, rich material culture and craft production indicates the presence of a diverse population, which must have included labourers, builders and artisans, as well as enslaved domestic workers. Despite a number of efforts to broaden the scope of research to emphasise the more socio-economically complex populations of pre-colonial Swahili towns and villages (Pawlowicz 2012(Pawlowicz , 2019; LaViolette and Fleisher 2018; Wynne-Jones 2018), these populations remain difficult to identify in the archaeological record in the absence of distinct houses and settlements. Here, we explore the distribution of non-glass beads alongside the glass ones, including those made of shell (cone shells ground into discs) and terracotta, on the assumption that these were more likely to have been worn by those nonélite members of society.…”

Section: Aim Of Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

No such thing as invisible people: toward an archaeology of slavery at the fifteenth-century Swahili site of Songo Mnara

Rødland

Wynne‐Jones

Wood

et al. 2020

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

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“…Swahili urban culture, and the built environment as its most visually dominating material testament, developed around Indian Ocean trade networks that linked the coast economically and culturally with the Mediterranean, Arabia, the Middle East, India and China (Pearson 1998;Beaujard 2012). Merchant activities on the coast also flourished within a broader web of wellestablished trade routes along the East coast of Africa and to the interior of the African continent (Spear 1981: 95;Pearson 1998: 67;Walz 2010;Pawlowicz 2012). It is beyond doubt that thanks to their far-reaching trade networks, the Swahili were growing both rich and well-informed about lifeways in faraway lands and becoming cosmopolitan in outlook and orientation (LaViolette 2008).…”

Section: The Urban Dead and Tombs In The Swahili Urban Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pillar Tombs and the City: Creating a Sense of Shared Identity in Swahili Urban Space

Baumanová

2018

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This paper reviews published research on Swahili pillar tombs, as a specific type of tombs built of stone, by summarising records on almost fifty sites on the east coast of Africa. Dated to the 13th-16th centuries AD, the pillar tombs represented a core component of Swahili urban space. By considering their spatial setting, characteristics and comparative case studies from Africa and the Indian Ocean world, the paper reconsiders how pillar tombs might have functioned as a type of material infrastructure for creating social ties and notions of shared identity in a society that has never formally united. ________________________________________________________________ Résumé: Le présent article revoit des données de recherche publiées sur les tombes à pilier swahili, un type de tombes en pierre précis, en dressant un résumé des registres portant sur près de 50 sites de la cô te Est de l'Afrique. Datant du 13 e au 16 e siècle de notre ère, les tombes à pilier représentaient un élément fondamental de l'espace urbain de la culture swahili. En tenant compte de leur environnement spatial, leurs caractéristiques et d'études de cas comparatives provenant d'Afrique et de l'Océan Indien, l'article revoit comment ces tombes auraient pu jouer le rô le d'infrastructure matérielle permettant de créer des liens sociaux et des notions d'identité commune dans une société jamais formellement unifiée. ________________________________________________________________ Resumen: Este artículo revisa investigaciones publicadas sobre las tumbas suajili en forma de pilar, como un tipo específico de tumbas construidas de piedra, resumiendo los registros de casi cincuenta sitios de la costa oriental de Á frica. Fechadas de los siglos XIII al XVI, las tumbas en forma de pilar representaban un componente central del espacio urbano suajili. Al considerar su arreglo espacial, sus características y estudios comparativos de casos de Á frica y del mundo del Océano I´ndico, el artículo reconsidera có mo las tumbas en forma de pilar podrían haber funcionado como un tipo RESEARCH

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Modelling the Swahili past: the archaeology of Mikindani in southern coastal Tanzania

Cited by 18 publications

References 38 publications

Assembling Islamic practice in a Swahili urban landscape, 11th–16th centuries

Assembling Islamic practice in a Swahili urban landscape, 11th–16th centuries

No such thing as invisible people: toward an archaeology of slavery at the fifteenth-century Swahili site of Songo Mnara

Pillar Tombs and the City: Creating a Sense of Shared Identity in Swahili Urban Space

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