Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T12:24:49.365Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Muslim Trading Settlements on the East African Coast: New Evidence from Shanga

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

M. C. Horton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Much archaeological and historical research has recently been devoted to the study of the early Swahili communities inhabiting the East African coast during the late first millennium a.d. The practice of Islam can be shown to date back to perhaps the beginning of the ninth century from when the first mosques have been excavated. The economic importance of East Africa for the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean world is apparent from the wealth of imports and exports found in a large number of these coastal sites. African trading systems brought to medieval society high-value commodities ranging from gold, rock crystal and ivory, to slaves and timber. The items were carried across large distances sea by traders following the seasonal monsoon system around the coasts and across the Indian Ocean. is argued that the trading settlements were African in culture and origin, but then attracted Muslims who were responsible for occasional local converts from a very early period in the history of Islam.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , September 1987 , pp. 290 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adhyatman, S. 1983. ‘Notes on early olive green wares found in Indonesia’, unpubl.Conference paper presented at the First Asian Oriental Ceramic Conference held inManila,1983.Google Scholar
Allen J. De, V. 1974. ‘Swahili culture reconsidered’, Azania, ix, 105–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen J. De, V. 1981. ‘Swahili culture and the nature of east coast settlement’, Internal. J. African Hist. Stud, xiv, 306–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, J. De V. 1982. ‘The names of the Tan Delta Sites’, Azania, xvii, 165–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, T. 1982. ‘Review of Siraf III, the Congregational Mosque’, Ars Orientalis, xiii, 188–9.Google Scholar
Allibert, C. 1983. ‘Le Site de Bagamoyo, Mayotte, Archipel des Comores’, Études Ocean Indien, ii, 5–40.Google Scholar
Allibert, C. 1987. ‘Le Sitede Dembeni, Mayotte, Archipel des Comores’, Asie du Sud-estet le Monde Insul-indien, xviii.Google Scholar
Ambrose, S. 1982. ‘Archaeology and linguistic reconstructions of history in East Africa’, in Ehret, C. and Posnansky, M. (eds.). The Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History (Berkeley), 104–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arts Council of Great Britain. 1976. The Arts of Islam, Exhibition catalogue (London).Google Scholar
Bower, J. R. F. et al. 1977. ‘Late Stone Age/pastoral “Neolithic” in Central Kenya’, Azania, xii, 119–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassanelli, L. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society (Philadelphia).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cerulli, E. 1957. Somalia: Scritti Vari Editi ed Inediti, 2 vols. (Rome).Google Scholar
Chittick, H. N. 1958–64. Annual Reports of the Department of Antiquities (Dar Es Salaam).Google Scholar
Chittick, H. N. 1961. Kisimani Mafia: Excavations at an Islamic Settlement on the East African Coast, Antiquities Division Dar es Salaam, Occ. Pap. I (Dar es Salaam).Google Scholar
Chittick, H. N. 1967. ‘Discoveries in the Lamu Archipelago’, Azania, ii, 37–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chittick, H. N. 1969. ‘An archaeological reconnaissance of the southern Somali coast’, Azania, iv, 1–14.Google Scholar
Chittick, H. N. 1974. Kilwa: An Islamic Trading City on the East African Coast, British Institute in Eastern Africa Memoir 5, 2 vols. (Nairobi).Google Scholar
Chittick, H. N. 1975. ‘An early salt-working site on the Tanzanian coast’, Azania, x, 151–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chittick, H. N. 1984. Manda: Excavations at an Island Port on the Kenya Coast, British Institute in Eastern Africa Memoir 9 (Nairobi).Google Scholar
Coupland, R. 1938. East Africa and its Invaders (London).Google Scholar
Creswell, K. A. C. 1968. A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture (repr., Beirut).Google Scholar
Cutler, A. 1985. The Craft of Ivory (Washington).Google Scholar
Denbow, J. R. and Wilmsen, E. N. 1986. ‘Advent and course of pastoralism in the Kalahari’, Science, cccxxxiv, 1509–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devic, L. M. 1883. Le Pays des Zendjs (Paris).Google Scholar
Duyvendak, J. J. L. 1949. China's Discovery of Africa (London).Google Scholar
Ehret, C. 1974. Ethiopians and East Africans (Nairobi).Google Scholar
Elliot, J. A. G. 1925–6. ‘A visit to the Bajun Islands’, J. African Soc. xxv, 10–12, 147–63, 245–63, 338–58.Google Scholar
Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. 1962. The Medieval History of the Coast of Tanganyika (London).Google Scholar
Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. 1966. The East African Coast: Select Documents from the First to the Earlier Nineteenth Century (2nd edn., London).Google Scholar
Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. and Martin, B. G. 1973. ‘A preliminary handlist of the Arabic inscriptions of the eastern African coast’, J. Royal Asiatic Soc. pt. 2, 98–122.Google Scholar
Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. 1986. ‘A find of silver pieces at Mtambwe Mkuu, Pemba Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania’, Antiq. J. lxvi, 372–4.Google Scholar
Ghaidan, U. 1976. Lamu. A Planning Report (Nairobi).Google Scholar
Grottanelli, V. L. 1955. Pescatori dell' Oceano Indiano (Rome).Google Scholar
Heine, B. 1981. ‘Some cultural evidence of the early Sam-speaking people of eastern Africa’, Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, iii, 169–200.Google Scholar
Hersi, A. A. 1977. The Arab Factor in Somali History, unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Hichens, W. 1938. ‘Lamu Chronicle (Khabari Lamu)’, Bantu Stud, xii, 3–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, M. C. 1981. Shanga, An Interim Report, National Museums of Kenya (Nairobi).Google Scholar
Horton, M.C. 1984. The Early Settlement of the Northern Swahili Coast, unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Horton, M. C. 1986a. ‘Asiatic colonization of the East African coast: the Manda evidence’, J. Royal Asiatic Soc. pt. 2, 201–13.Google Scholar
Horton, M. C. 1986b. ‘The Swahili corridor and the southern African Iron Age’, unpubl. Seminar paper presented to the Department of History, School of Oriental and African Studies, Univ. London.Google Scholar
Horton, M. C., Brown, H. and Oddy, W. 1986. ‘The Mtambwe Hoard’, Azania, xxi, 115–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, M. C. and Clark, C. M. 1985. Zanzibar Archaeological Survey 1984–5 (Zanzibar).Google Scholar
Hughes-Stanton, P. and Kerr, R. 1981. Kiln Sites of Ancient China (London).Google Scholar
Huntingford, G. W. B. 1980. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (London).Google Scholar
King, D. 1986. ‘Kibla, ii, astronomical aspects’, in Bosworth, C. E., van Donzel, E., Lewis, B. and Pellat, Ch. (eds.), The Encyclopaedia of Islam, v: Khe-Mahi (Leyden), 83–8.Google Scholar
Kirkman, J. 1957. ‘Historical archaeology in Kenya 1948–1956’, Antiq. J. xxvii, 16–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkman, J. S. 1959. ‘Excavations at Ras Mkumbuu on the Island of Pemba’, Tanganyika, Notes & Records, 1, 94–101.Google Scholar
Kirkman, J. S. 1966. Ungwana on the Tana (The Hague).Google Scholar
Lewis, B. 1974. Islam: From the Prophet Muhammed to the Capture of Constantinople, 2 vols. (London).Google Scholar
Lewis, I. M. 1955. The Peoples of the Horn of Africa (London).Google Scholar
Maggs, T. 1984. ‘The Iron Age south of the Zambezi’, in Klein, R. G. (ed.), Southern African Prehistory and Paleoenvironments (Rotterdam), 329–60.Google Scholar
Morrison, H. M. 1984. ‘The Glass’, in Chittick, H. N., Manda: Excavations at an Island Port on the Kenya Coast, British Institute in Eastern Africa Memoir 9 (Nairobi), 159–80.Google Scholar
Nurse, D. and Spear, T. 1985. The Swahili. Reconstructing the History and Language of an African Society, 800–1500 (Pennsylvania).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillipson, D. W. 1977. The Later Prehistory of Eastern and Southern Africa (London).Google Scholar
Phillipson, D. W. 1979. ‘Some Iron Age sites in the Lower Tana Valley’, Azania, xiv, 3–24.Google Scholar
Pouwels, R. L. 1987. Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast (Cambridge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prins, A. H. J. 1952. The Coastal Tribes of the North-Eastem Bantu (London).Google Scholar
Prins, A. H. J. 1967. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (London).Google Scholar
Reusch, R. 1953. ‘How the Swahili people and language came into existence’, Tanzanian Notes & Records, xxxii, 20–7.Google Scholar
Ricks, T. M. 1970. ‘Persian Gulf seafaring and East Africa: ninth-twelfth centuries’, Internal. J. African Hist. Stud, iii, 339–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sansevrino, H. C. 1983. ‘Archaeological remains on the southern Somali coast’, Azania, xviii, 151–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepherd, G. M. 1982. ‘The making of the Swahili’, Paideuma, xxviii, 129–47.Google Scholar
Siiriäinan, A. 1971. ‘The Iron Age Sites of Gatung'ang'a, Central Kenya’, Azania, vi, 199–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, P. 1982. ‘Chibuene: an early trading site in southern Mozambique’, Paideuma, xxviii, 148–64.Google Scholar
Soper, R. C. 1967a. ‘Kwale: an Early Iron Age site in south-eastern Kenya’, Azania, ii, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soper, R. C. 1967b. ‘Iron Age sites in north-eastern Tanzania’, Azania, ii, 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spear, T. 1978. The Kaya Complex (Nairobi).Google Scholar
Stigand, C. 1913. Land of Zinj (London).Google Scholar
Stiles, D. 1982. ‘A history of the hunting peoples of the northern East Africa coast’, Paideuma, xxviii, 165–74.Google Scholar
Strandes, J. 1971. The Portuguese Period in East Africa (English repr., Nairobi).Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. and Pearson, G. W. 1986. ‘High-precision calibration of the radio-carbon time scale, a.d. 1950–500 b.c.’, Radiocarbon, xxii (2B), 805–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summers, R. 1969. Ancient Mining in Rhodesia (Salisbury).Google Scholar
Trimingham, J. S. 1975. ‘The Arab geographers and the East African coast’, in Chittick, H. N. and Rotberg, R., East Africa and the Orient (New York), 115–46.Google Scholar
Vérin, P. 1975. Les Échelles anciennes du commerce sur les Côtes Nord de Madagascar (Lille).Google Scholar
Werner, A. 1914–15. ‘A Swahili history of Pate’, J. African Soc. xiv, 148–66, 278–97, 392–413.Google Scholar
Werner, A. 1915. ‘The Bantu coast tribes of the East Africa Protectorate’, J. Royal Anthropol. Inst. xlv, 326–54.Google Scholar
Wheatley, P. 1975. ‘Analecta Sino-Africana Recensa’, in Chittick, H. N. and Rotberg, R., East Africa and the Orient (Nairobi), 76–114.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, D. 1973. ‘Chinese stonewares from Siraf’, in Hammond, N. (ed.), South Asian Archaeology (London), 241–55.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, D. 1979. ‘Islamic glazed pottery in Iraq and the Persian Gulf: the ninth and tenth centuries’, Annali Instituto Orientale di Napoli, xxxix (new ser. xxix) (fasc. 1), 45–61.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, D. 1984. ‘The smaller mosques at Siraf: a footnote’, Iran, xii, 166–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehouse, D. n.d. Siraf III, the Congregational Mosque and other Mosques from the Ninth to the Twelfth Centuries (London).Google Scholar
Wilding, R. n.d. ‘Report of the archaeological fieldwork on the northern Kenyan coast 1971–3’, unpubl. report in the British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, J. C. 1975. ‘The Julanda of Oman’, J. Oman Stud, i, 97–108.Google Scholar
Wilson, T. 1978. The Monumental Architecture and Archaeology North of the Tana River (Nairobi).Google Scholar
Wilson, T. 1980. The Monumental Architecture and Archaeology of the Central and Southern Kenyan Coast (Nairobi).Google Scholar
Wilson, T. 1982. ‘Spatial analysis and settlement on the East African coast’, Paideuma, xxviii, 201–20Google Scholar
Wright, H. T. 1984. ‘Early seafarers of the Comoro Islands: the Dembeni phase of the IX-Xth centuries a.d.’, Azania, xix, 13–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ylvisaker, M. 1979. Lamu in the Nineteenth Century: Land, Trade and Politics (Boston).Google Scholar
Ylvisaker, M. 1982. ‘The ivory trade in the Lamu area’, Paideuma, xxviii, 221–32.Google Scholar