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The thing about Kilwa Kisiwani is that it shows an early African civilisation, that existed long before the Europeans arrives. Today all that remains are crumbling ruins which have been scarcely excavated since the British archeological work from late 1950s to early 1970s. There may well still be a lot to recover from the ground
When the Portuguese arrived, there was already a city here. Gaspar Correia, 16th century Portuguese soldier and historian, wrote about the island of Kilwa ‘The city comes down to the shore, and is entirely surrounded by a wall and towers, within which there are maybe 12,000 inhabitants. The county all round is very luxurious with many trees and gardens of all sorts of vegetables, citrons, lemons, the best sweet oranges that were ever seen…’ .
Only a few years before, circa 1502, his countryman Vasco de Gama – the first European to reach India by sea – had forced Kilwa’s Sultan to pay tribute in gold. So much gold, in fact, that some of it can still be seen in Lisbon where it was forged into an ornate pyx for the Erroneous Monastery.
In 1505, a Portuguese force led by Francisco de Almeida built a fortress on the isle, and its prosperous city began a protracted decline. Although recaptured by an Arab prince in 1512, growing Western dominance of the trade routes ignited the island’s wealth, while successive conquests by Omani, French and German forces clipped its power. By the dawn of the 20th century, Kilwa was virtually uninhabited and almost completely forgotten. Locals and foreigners alike had little interest in the haunted ruins off the Tanzanian coast. Then, in the 1950s, two 16th century chronicles, Arabic and Portuguese, were consulted. Both outlined a dynasty of sultans, so British archaeologists excavated the site to find objects that could prove their authenticity. They succeeded, bringing back coins stamped with sultans and dates that matched those found in the manuscripts. Kilwa, now with a verified history unique in East Africa, became a subject of scholarship recognized as the greatest treasure of Swahili maritime history.
The remains of Kilwa Kisiwani cover much of the island with many parts of the city still unexcavated. The substantial standing ruins, built of coral and lime mortar, include the Great Mosque constructed in the 11th century and considerably enlarged in the 13th century, and roofed entirely with domes and vaults, some decorated with embedded Chinese porcelain; the palace Husuni Kubwa built between c1310 and 1333 with its large octagonal bathing pool; Husuni Ndogo, numerous mosques, the Gereza (prison) constructed on the ruins of the Portuguese fort and an entire urban complex with houses, public squares, burial grounds, etc.
Historically, it was the centre of the Kilwa Sultanate, a medieval sultanate whose authority at its height in the 13th-15th centuries AD stretched the entire length of the Swahili Coast. Kilwa Kisiwani was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. There is a serious rapid deterioration of the archaeological and monumental heritage due to various agents like erosion and vegetation. The eastern section of the Palace of Husuni Kubwa, for example, is progressively disappearing. The damage to the soil caused by rainwater wash is accentuating the risks of the collapse of the remaining structures on the edge of the cliff. The vegetation that proliferates on the cliff has limited the progression of the rain-wash effect but causes the break-up of the masonry structures. The World Monuments Fund included Kilwa on its 2008 Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites, and since 2008 has been supporting conservation work on various buildings.
An important city for trade, around the 13th century there were increased fortifications and a greater flow of goods. For these to take place, there would need to be a form of political administration overseeing the city, controlling the movement of goods. Much of the trade networks were with the Arabian peninsula. Kilwa Kisiwani reached its highest point in wealth and commerce between 13th and 15th centuries AD. Evidence of growth in wealth can be seen with the appearance of stone buildings around the 13th century CE, before which all of the buildings were wattle-and-daub. The socio-economic status of the individuals residing there could be clearly seen in the type of structure they were living in.
Among Kilwa's exports were spices, tortoiseshell, coconut oil, ivory, and aromatic gums, as well as gold. At around this time, Kilwa had seized control over the trade of gold at Sofala. For approximately 500 years, Kilwa was minting coins. This lasted from about A.D 1100-1600 and the coins have been found across the region, including Great Zimbabwe.
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Great Mosque
The Great Mosque of Kilwa is a congregational mosque. It was likely founded in the tenth century, but the two major stages of construction date to the eleventh or twelfth and thirteenth century, respectively. It is one of the earliest surviving mosques on the Swahili Coast.
The smaller northern prayer hall dates to the first phase of construction. It contained a total of 16 bays supported by nine pillars, which were originally carved from coral but later replaced by timber. The structure was entirely roofed, and was perhaps one of the first mosques in the area to have been built without a courtyard. In the early fourteenth century, Sultan al-Hasan ibn Sulaiman, who also built the nearby Palace of Husuni Kubwa, added a southern extension which included a great dome. This dome was described by Ibn Battuta after he visited Kilwa in 1331.
The British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) has been digitising their collection of field notes and images from excavations at Kilwa Kisiwani in southern Tanzania. These excavations were carried out by Neville Chittick, the first Director of the BIEA, during the 1960s and early 1970s. Chittick specialized in the stonetowns of the Swahili coast, and his excavations at Kilwa were a flagship project for BIEA, executed on a grand scale. The materials digitised are a mixture of site photographs, records of monuments and remains, images of the various artifacts recovered through excavation, and a record of the excavations themselves, showing the sheer quantity of the work undertaken and giving an idea of the surrounding landscape. Chittick's field notebooks have been digitised as well, allowing viewers to follow his interpretative reasoning. The result is a unique record of the site of Kilwa Kisiwani and the excavations that remain among the most important and thorough conducted on the Swahili coast.
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Small Domed Mosque
To the southwest of the Great Mosque of Kilwa was the nine bay Small Domed Mosque, which was built in the mid-fifteenth century and is now only partially standing. Though built two-hundred years later, the Small Domed Mosque mimics the Great Mosque's thirteenth century vault and dome addition.
The nine bays are arranged in a square, three bays long and three aisles wide. The central bay is larger than the rest through a lengthening of the middle bays and a widening of the central aisle. The striking central dome appears wider than it is -due to four tiers of stepped cornicing of dressed coral. The interior of the dome is decorated with three concentric circles of inlaid glazed ceramic bowls.
Externally the dome is accentuated by a twelve-sided octagonal pillar surmounting it. Barrel vaults, each decorated with five rows of ceramic bowls and fine cornicing, extend from this central dome north to the mihrab and to its opposite entrance in the south, emphasizing the north-south axis.
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Palace of Husuni Kubwa
The Palace of Husuni Kubwa ("Great Fort") is a completely ruined structure. The majority of the palace was erected in the 14th century by Sultan al-Hasan ibn Sulaiman, who also built an extension to the nearby Great Mosque of Kilwa.
The palace was inhabited only for a brief period of time, and abandoned before its completion. The structure was built out of coral stone on a high bluff overlooking the Indian Ocean. It consists of three major elements: a south court, used primarily for commerce; a residential complex including over one hundred individual rooms; and a wide stairway leading down to a mosque that was situated on the beach. Other notable features include a pavilion, which likely served as a reception hall, and an octagonal swimming pool.
All of Husuni Kubwa spans across approximately two acres. The rooms were about 3 meters tall. The roof was made from cut limestone blocks laid across cut timbers and the floors were white plaster. The main entrance to Husuni Kubwa is from the shore. Most of the imported glazed pottery recovered at the site was Chinese celadon, though there were a few Ying Ch'ing stoneware shards present. A Yuan dynasty flask dated to about AD 1300. Neither the Kilwa Chronicle nor any Portuguese accounts describe a building comparable to Husuni Kubwa.
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