![]() ![]() Kilwa’s rise to power dawned with the founding of the Kilwa sultanate. The first mosque on Kilwa has been dated to around A.D. As Muslim traders began to flow in and out of the region, Islam began to gain a foothold. Small-time Swahili traders started to see possibilities for more grandiose trade operations. In the eighth century the blended Swahili culture began to take shape and united the African coast from Somalia in the north to Mozambique in the south. The island of Kilwa was settled as early as the fourth century. The country all round is very luxurious with many trees and gardens of all sorts of vegetables, citrons, lemons, and the best sweet oranges that were ever seen.” Rise of the Swahili Portuguese chronicler Gaspar Correia, writing in the early 16th century, described Kilwa as a large city encircled by walls: “Within these there are perhaps 12,000 inhabitants. This text, together with the site’s material culture such as coins, pottery, and other artifacts, enabled Chittick and later scholars to piece together Kilwa’s rich and complex history. They belonged to Afro-Arabian families established for generations in Africa.Īs an aid to dating the various phases of Kilwa’s history, Chittick relied heavily on the Kilwa Chronicle, a medieval genealogy of the city state’s kings. Some of the elite often had origins in the Islamic lands on the other side of the Indian Ocean, but Chittick found evidence to suggest that the island’s rulers did not hail directly from those lands. It was directed by British archaeologist Neville Chittick, who revealed a history that overturned the colonialist “outsider” theory.Ĭhittick concluded that the majority of Kilwa’s population was African. ![]() The first significant archaeological excavation in Kilwa lasted from 1958 to 1965. Kilwa and other trading cities of the Swahili coast grew out of a complex mix of influences, starting on a strong foundation of local East African tradition. Recent archaeological discoveries have shown that the reality was more complex. ![]()
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