Taken from: Kilwa: A Preliminary Report by Neville Chittick.

(Azania: Journal of the British Insitute of History and Archaeology in East Africa, Vol. 1 (1966): 1-36.)

Period I: pre-Shirazi

Spoon shells are an interesting feature of this phase. They do not occur in later levels. Similar objects, have been found at Talaky and Vohemar in Madagascar.

The first steatite (soapstone) vessels were imported at the beginning of this phase. These objects are imported from Madagascar; they become common in the succeeding period.

Period II: Dynasty of 'Ali ibn al-Hasan (Shirazi)

He introduced coinage, believed to be locally struck. … He is probably to be identified with the traditional founder of the 'Shirazi' dynasty. …. script of this type on coins to be ascribed to the twelfth or early thirteenth centuries, and compares it in particular with coins of the Atabeg rulers of Fars, notably Muzaffar al-Din Zangi, 1162-1175.

Note: however the Stephen Album of Coins puts his coins in the 13^th century. While John Perkins (2015) (The Indian Ocean and Swahili Coast coins, international networks and local developments) has them around 1100 AD.

Kilwa: Steatite (soapstone) vessels were imported in increased numbers … with a diameter of 20-30 cm. Most with lids, and some with legs, ….. These vessels closely resemble those found at Vohemar on Madagascar. They appear to have been used for cooking.

Period III Mahdali dynasty

The second dynasty at Kilwa, c.1300 onwards. This is the period of extensive building in stone, and the construction of the great palace of Husuni Kubwa is dated near the beginning of it.

Taken from:A PRELIMINARY HANDLIST OF THE ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS OF THE EASTERN AFRICAN COAST By G. S. P. FREEMAN-GRENVILLE and B. G. MARTIN (With the assistance of H. N. Chittick, J. S. Kirkman, and H. Sassoon).

DAR ES SALAAM (NATIONAL MUSEUM)

Commemorative stone from Husuni Kubwa, Kilwa, found in the eastern courtyard of the Great House, probably the epitaph of Sultan Sulayman b. Ish'ia or Isma'il.

Bibl. Chittick, Guide, 10.

Stone excavated at Husuni Kubwa, Kilwa, with an inscription and circular motifs containing Qur'anic quotations.

Bibl. Chittick, "Kilwa", 186-7.

Inscription on six pieces of stone excavated at Husuni Kubwa, Kilwa, probably all part of the same decorated frieze, with a text consisting of two rhyming couplets in Arabic, source of quotations not known.

Bibl. Chittick, "Kilwa", 186-7.

Portion of an epitaph from the Tombs of the Sultans, top half missing.

Bibl. Museum fiir Volkerkunde, Berlin, photograph in possession of Freeman-Grenville, no. 7.

Epitaph from the Tombs of the Sultans, partly erased.

Bibl. Museum fiir Volkerkunde, Berlin, photograph in the possession of Freeman-Grenville, no. 9.

Stele, part lacking, on re-used marble block of Indian origin, with texts from Qur'an, XXXVI, 68-9, and 76-7, from the Tombs of the Sultans.

Bibl. Note by H. N. Chittick; a similar piece, perhaps part of the same stele, is in the Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin, III E 6984.

The oldest Swahili documents.

Taken from: The Portuguese and the Swahili, from foes to unlikely partners: Afro-European interface in the early modern era. (Isaac Samuel)

1711AD Swahili letters from Mfalme Fatima; queen of Kilwa; her daughter Mwana Nakisa, Fatima's brothers Muhammad Yusuf & Ibrahim Yusuf (heir). (Goa archive, SOAS London).

They were addressed to Mwinyi Juma a Swahili spy in Mombasa working for the Portuguese and are one of the earliest self-descriptions of the elites of Kilwa as "Swahili" and the Omanis as "Arabs".

This was during a time of political upheaval between the Swahili, Omanis and Portuguese the latter of whom had been expelled by a coalition of the former two, but the Swahili had grown weary of the Omanis of whom according to Yusuf: "...all the coast does not want the Arabs"; while there were promises of cordial relationships earlier between the Omanis and Swahili as stated in Fatima's letter where the Oman sultan had promised: "no Swahili will be mistreated by an Arab" the Arabs did just that, instead; briefly capturing Mwana Nakisa, accusing Fatima of harboring the Portuguese. This explains Mwana Nakisa's very low opinion of the Arabs. Nakisa: "this year, the Arabs who came from Muscat are all scabs, striplings and weaklings".

Yusuf's letter also explains the dynamics of Swahili trade: "this year all the cloth which came from Masqat is on credit and none of it is black, which to us is a deceitful omission, …send us some cloth secretly and we will give him as much in return in ivory".

Taken from: The Shirazi in Swahili Traditions, Culture, and History by Thomas Spear in History in Africa, Vol. 11 (1984)

The tradition of the Shirazi settling in Kilwa in the version of the Kilwa Chronicle tradition collected in about 1900. Here the original inhabitant of Kilwa is called Mrimba.

Then there came Sultan Ali bin Selimani the Shirazi, that is, the Persian, He came with his ship, and brought his goods and his children... They disembarked at Kilwa, that is to say, they went to the headman of the country, the Elder Mrimba, and asked for a place in which to settle at Kisiwani. This they obtained. And they gave Mrimba presents of trade goods and beads. Sultan Ali married Mrimba's daughter. He lived on good terms with the people. He gave them presents, each according to his standing. These presents were cloth and beads. Then Sultan Ali persuaded Mrimba's daughter and said: Tell your father, the Elder Mrimba, it is best for him to leave Kisiwani and live on the other side on the mainland. For it is not suitable for him to live in the same place as myself: it is not correct for he is my father-in-law. I will live here in Kisiwani: it will be enough if I manage our affairs. Whenever he wants to come to Kisiwani to see me, he can come, and likewise I can go and see him in the same way.

So Mrimba's daugher told her father what Sultan Ali had said. The Elder Mrimba agreed to what Sultan Ali wanted. But he said, and he told his daughter to say: Tell Sultan Ali, I am ready to go to the mainland, but he must spread out cloth for me all the way, so that I may walk on cloth as far as the mainland. I do not agree if it falls short. His daughter gave Sultan Ali his reply, as Mrimba had desired and Sultan Ali agreed to Mrimba's wish.

So he spread out cloth from Kisiwani to the opposite mainland, and Mrimba passed over....

Then Sultan Ali ruled in Kisiwani. And Mrimba resolved to make war, and to come to Kisiwani and strike down Sultan Ali. So Sultan Ali had the Koran read out as a spell and offered sacrifices so that Mrimba should not take the road to cross over and bring war. Then Mrimba moved his home, and went to the mainland of the Ruvuma and dwelt there.

Sultan Ali only ruled the islands; he had no power on the mainland....

Sultan Ali had a child by Mrimba's daughter, a son, who was called Sultan Mahomed bin Sultan Ali. He lived at home until he reached manhood, and then set off and went to the Ruvuma to see his grandfather, the Elder Mrimba. When he arrived, his grandfather handed over his power to him, his grandson. So Sultan Mahomed ruled.

Then he gave him all the munitions of war and permission to make war on the mainland, first on Tungi, and then as far as Pemba ya Mnazi. Then he returned and came to Kisiwani. And, on the very day he arrived, his father Sultan Ali died. So Sultan Mahomed ruled...“

Here we see clearly that the initial agreement to settle involved the Shirazi paying tribute to the Warimba in trade goods and beads, incidentally identifying the Shirazi as traders. Ali arranged a marriage alliance with Mrimba, and then sought to divide political and economic power between the island domain of trade and the agricultural mainland between them, citing rules of in-law avoidance and paying further tribute. But the Warimba refused to give up their sovereignty over the land, and so the Shirazi asserted their superior Quranic and local magic to defeat them. The conflict was eventually resolved in Mohamed, the child of both the Warimba and the Shirazi, who re-united his maternal grandfather's power over the mainland and his father's over the island. The relationship between the Shirazi and the Warimba thus proceeded from a tributary relationship through affinal and hostile ones to the union of the two lineages in a joint line, Mohamed and his successors becoming both owners of the land and rulers of the island and mainland.

The structure of Kilwa society is revealed in the tradition. The original inhabitants of Kilwa were hunters (and probably farmers) who were eventually supplanted by traders from the northern coast using their wealth and prestigious claims to Persian origins and knowledge of the Quran, but who in the end intermarried and merged with the local people to form a single indigenous ruling group. This synthesis can still be seen in nearby Mafia where the waungwana, the Mbwera, claim to be both the owners of the land and Shirazi as a result of intermarriage between the two.

Taken from : L’ile de Sanje ya Kati (Kilwa, Tanzanie): un mythe Shirazi bien réel Stéphane Pradines

(During the excavation of Sanja ya Kati very close to Kilwa)

Statistically, the proportions of local ceramics are in the majority, which confirms the African nature of a large part of the occupants of the city.

But the most common Islamic pottery in Sanje ya Kati is hatched sgraffiato. Which originates from the coastal provinces of Iran. The Persian hatched sgraffiatos of Sanje ya Kati can be subdivided into two groups, the monochrome brown or mustard yellow hatched sgraffiatos (Kennet 2004, 35-36), which are dated to the late 11th century; and cross-hatched sgraffiatos …... We discovered in the house a large cup of very original hatched sgraffiato. This object, which dates from the end of the 12th century, must have had a certain value because it had been repaired many times.

In the big house, we excavated a layer of waste which contained a lot of Chinese ceramics dated to the Song period, 960-1279. We have identified a few sherds of black and yellow Yemeni, in the level of waste of the house (Pradines 2004, 241), as well as several shards of celadon from the 13th century. Black and yellow are always found in a Mamluk context, precisely from 1250 to 1350. Yemeni black and yellow pottery was produced near Khanfur in the Aden region. This ceramic also called Mustard ware. A fine mustard yellow glaze covers the interior. The latest ceramic material therefore dates from the middle of the 13th century (1240-1250). It was at this time that the flow of ceramic imports changed, and trade with the Red Sea seemed to be preferred. It is also the end of the occupation of the site of Sanje ya Kati.

Taken from: GLASS BEADS AND INDIAN OCEAN TRADE by Marilee Wood (2018) (In the Swahili World).

It is generally accepted that Kilwa was the principal entrepot controlling trade between eastern and southern Africa between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the height of the gold trade from southern Africa. But it is notable that few of the bead types (the Mapungubwe Oblate and Zimbabwe series), found in the hundreds of thousands in southern Africa during this period, were found at Kilwa. Indeed, when Chittick was shown orange beads from Great Zimbabwe, he remarked that he had not seen similar ones on the coast (Chittick 1974: 483). The rarity at Kilwa (and on the entire coast) of bead types that were a key part of trade to southern Africa calls into question the extent of Kilwa’s control over the southern African trade, at least in terms of glass beads.

The Swahili Coast and the Indian Ocean Trade Patterns in the 7th–10th Centuries CE by Edward Pollard & Okeny Charles Kinyera 2017.

This study benefited from fieldwork at Kilwa and Bagamoyo on the Swahili coast, which did not focus solely within the chief settlements but included the surrounding coast and intertidal zone, to reveal areas of trading before large-scale urbanism appeared in the 2nd millennium CE. Furthermore, analysis involved a regional inspection of the imported pottery, glass and beads, combing the research of archaeologists working in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Comoros and Madagascar, to reveal eastern and southern Africa’s historic trade with the wider Indian Ocean. Fieldwork results thus suggest a less marine-oriented society in parts of the Swahili coast such as at Kilwa, contrasting with a fully fledged maritime society around Bagamoyo in the late 1st millennium CE. The research suggests a relative absence of imported goods in the central section of the east African coast, including Kilwa, in comparison with the more northerly sections of the Tanzanian coast, including Bagamoyo/Unguja and more southerly sections, including around the Mozambique Channel. This study offers a possible explanation of the geographical contrast in import patterns, not only in terms of environmental factors (the influence of monsoon patterns and reliability, which affected the length and safety of voyages in favour of the north; reef dangers particularly noteworthy in Tanzania around Rufiji Delta; and resource availability particularly with respect to gold and ivory, favouring the Mozambique coast), but also in terms of such societal differences as the absence of any significant influence of Islam along the coast south of Qanbalu, LSA (Late-Stone-Age) groups around Kilwa and the presence of Austronesian influences to the south. The latter area may also have been open to a more direct ocean connection with Indian and Far Eastern trading partners rather than relying on the north-western coastal route. A crucial addition to these factors, at least in the Kilwa area, is the apparent juxtaposition of Stone Age and Iron Age traditions, perhaps providing some interdependency and greater self-sufficiency and thus much less integration into the maritime trade system, which influenced areas both further north and at the southern extremity of the east African coast. Much would change in the first part of the 2nd millennium, as Kilwa blossomed into a major city-state founded in part on its entrepot status.