Taken from: SIX EARLY COINS FROM NEAR TANGA by NEVILLE CHITTICK Azania Volume 1, 1966

 

Ingenieur Joseph Friedrich living in German East Africa sent a goup of six coins from sites on the coast to the Berlin Museum. Among them was, which included two of Roman Imperial issues. Mr. R. A. G. Carson, of the Department of Coins and Medals of the British Museum, has kindly identified them as follows:

Toten Island

Taken from: https://huyai.com/place/toten-island

 

Directly offshore from Tanga is small, mangrove-ringed island Toten Island ('Island of the Dead'), with the overgrown ruins of a mosque dating from at least the 17th century and some 18th- and 19th-century gravestones. Pottery fragments from the 15th century have also been found, indicating that the island may have been settled during the Shirazi era. Toten Island’s apparently long history ended in the late 19th century, when its inhabitants moved to the mainland.

 

Yambe Island

Taken from: Annual Report of the Department of Antiquities for the Year 1958 Tanganyika. Department of Antiquities · 1959

 

YAMBE ISLAND (so spelled on the maps; Jambe is probably better). To the east of Ndumi lies Yambe island, on the western side of which, about one mile from the northern tip, is a plain walled grave and also a pillar tomb. The latter is of some interest in that the large panels at the east end are enclosed by a border of stones decorated with a herring - bone pattern. This is a rare feature though such borders are sometimes found as ornaments to the mihrabs of mosques. Above is the usual frieze of small panels which is repeated at the west end of the grave. In Baumann's time there was a village in the middle of this island with a population of about a hundred souls, mostly Wagunya.

 

Ndumi

Situated between Tanga and Tongoni on the tidal flats to reach it two graves are found. The Ndumi Seguju-tribe enclosure was built on the site of an earlier Swahili settlement, for the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century walls there enclose a mosque which Chittick estimated was built in the fourteenth or fifteenth century on the site of a still earlier one.

 

Taken from: Zanzibar: city, island, and coast by Burton, Richard (1872)

 

At last, we traversed a Khor, or lagoon drained by the receding tide, and insulating the ruins: then, after a walk of five miles over crab-mounds, we sighted our destination. From afar it resembled an ancient castle. Entering by a gap in the enceinte, I found a parallelogram some 200 yards long, of solid coral-line or lime, in places rent by the roots of sturdy trees, well bastioned and loop-holed for bows and muskets. The site is raised considerably above the mean level of the country, attesting its antiquity: it is concealed from the seaside by a screen of trees and by the winding creek, that leaves the canoes high during the ebb-tide; full water makes it an island. In the center, also split by huge coiling creepers, and in the last stage of dilapidation, are the remains of a Mosque showing signs of a rude art. ………. The ruins of houses are scattered over the enceinte, and a masonry revetted and chumam'd well, sunk 8 feet deep in the coral-line, yields a sufficiency of water with an earthy taste.

 

Tongoni

Taken from: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Tongoni Ruins are 15th century Swahili ruins of a mosque and forty tombs located in Tongoni. It was a prosperous and a respected Swahili trading center during the 15th century. Most of the ruins are still not yet been uncovered. The site is a registered National Historic Site.

Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese sailor, first visited Tongoni in April 1498. He had the opportunity to eat the local oranges, which he said were better than those available in Portugal. He made a second visit the following year, and spent fifteen days in Tongoni.

Decades ago, a small test excavation was conducted at the site and a site plan was drawn. The site was dated 13 to 15^th century.