![]() Influence from Fatimid Egypt and the city of Daybul has been proposed for these coins, but John Perkins (in this issue) points out that these coins also have local features, including rhythmic formulae, which are found in the Fatimid realm but at a later date – furthermore, in this case, the formulae are written on both sides of the coin. Belonging to the tradition of Islamic coinage, tiny silver coins have been unearthed in Shanga, apparently in continuity with coins issued in Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafia and Kilwa. The East African coastline adopted the use of cut coral for construction – a technique originating from the Red Sea. The demand for East African products from these regions – particularly gold, but also ivory and copal – maintained activity on the Zanj coast and initiated expansion into the Comoros and Madagascar from the 9th-10th centuries. The Muslim port of Daybul (Sindh) and Gujarat acquired new importance in the Western Indian Ocean networks, whose impact on the East African coast is beginning to be better understood, as is shown in this issue by Jason Hawkes and Stephanie Wynne-Jones. , 2008.ĩ The disintegration of the Tang and Muslim empires in the 9th and 10th centuries led to a global retreat of the world-system and a reorganization of exchange networks to the benefit of Fatimid Egypt and the Red Sea in the Indian Ocean, diminishing the influence of the Persian Gulf. 12 Muslim networks transported African slaves all the way to Indonesia and China. The Arab geographer Al-Masūd ī (mid-10th century) mentions the travels of Omanis to Qanbalū (on Pemba), a place “inhabited by a mixed population of Muslims and Zanj idolaters.” He emphasizes the importance of ivory exports the slave trade also seemed to flourish there – at least until 868, the date of the “Zanj revolt” in Iraq. The Lamu archipelago (the sites of Shanga, Manda and Pate) and Pemba, acted as an interface between the oceanic networks and the interior of the continent. ![]() ![]() 12 However, despite the name “Zanj,” which first and foremost referred to the populations of East Afri (.)ĥ With the formation and interconnection of the Tang and Muslim empires, the 7th century witnessed a significant expansion of trade, by both land and sea, and a Swahili culture developed on the East African coast, where ruins of mosques dating from the 8th century 11 were revealed by archaeological excavations.It should also be noted that Parthian, Sassanid, Ptolemaic, Roman, Axumite, and Byzantine coins have been discovered on the East African coast, in number and location (Zimbabwe, notably) that seem to make sense, even if they were never found in a clear stratigraphic context. In Opone, in the Horn of Africa, the Periplus also points out that there were “slaves of the best kind,” “who were being taken to Egypt in increasing numbers,” and a “large quantity of turtle shells” – these slaves and turtles presumably came from the African coast further south, which proves that a slave trade already existed at the time. 7 On the Tanzanian coast, the city of Rhapta – still imprecisely located and mentioned as a tributary of a king of Yemen – was, according to the Periplus, frequented by Arabs who mixed with Africans, and probably by Roman ships, 8 even if archaeology does not yet provide proof of this. MUDIDA, 1996.ģ In the early Christian era, the text of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in Greek (Casson, 1989), 6 shows that a pre-Swahili culture was being established as far off as Mozambique, at a time when a trade boom in the Indian Ocean was leading to an early type of globalization as well as to the inclusion of this ocean in what can be considered a unique Afro-Eurasian world-system. 8 Claude Allibert (in this issue) even suggests a knowledge of the Comoros and Madagascar by the Roma (.).For a rereading and reinterpretation of the origins of the Periplus, see M.F.
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