ABSTRACT

Kilwa Kisiwani occupies a special place in coastal history. The stonetown at Kilwa is one of the grandest on the coast; its architecture, particularly the domed Great Mosque and the palace of Husuni Kubwa, is unparalleled in its elegance and ambition. The nearby ruins at Songo Mnara, which can be considered part of the same urban configuration, contain mosques and domestic architecture of similar beauty. Kilwa is also the site linked to the earliest historical traditions, with the indigenous Kilwa Chronicle having been transcribed first by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century (Freeman-Grenville 1962: 89–93). A combination of these factors made Kilwa the candidate for one of the earliest large-scale archaeological excavations on the coast, which in turn meant that the chronology and development of Kilwa became paradigmatic for understandings of precolonial coastal urbanism. Although Kilwa may no longer stand as the prototypical stonetown, excavations carried out during the 1960s remain the source for our understanding of this particular regional story (Chittick 1974). This chapter therefore will review the information available from excavations at Kilwa, interpreted alongside historical sources. It will then outline some of the ways that more recent research has augmented our understanding of Kilwa Kisiwani, notably through research elsewhere in the archipelago.