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Stone Town
or Mji Mkongwe, in
Swahili, is the old part of
Zanzibar City, the capital of the island of
Zanzibar, a part of
Tanzania.
The old town is built on a triangular peninsula
of land on the western coast of the island. It
consists of a warren of narrow alleys to
houses,
shops
bazaars and
mosques. Transport around town is by foot,
bicycle or
motorbike: cars are too wide to drive down
many of the inner streets.
Its
Swahili architecture incorporates elements
of
Arab,
Persian,
Indian,
European and
African styles. The Arab houses are
particularly noticeable because they have large
and ornately carved wooden doors and other
unusual features such as enclosed wooden
verandas.
The site has probably been occupied for around
three centuries with buildings only being
constructed with stone since the
1830s.
Two large buildings dominate the main front of
Stone Town. One is Beit-El-Ajaib or the House of
Wonders, which was built by Sultan Seyyid
Barghash as a grand palace for ceremonial
purposes. The other is the Arab Fort which
stands on the site of a former Portuguese
settlement and was converted to a fort during
the 18th Century.
The town was the centre of
trade on the
East African coast between
Asia and
Africa before the
colonization of the mainland in the late
1800s after which the focus moved to
Mombasa and
Dar es Salaam. The main export was
spices and particularly
cloves. For many years Stone Town was a
major centre for the
slave trade,
Slaves were obtained from mainland
Africa and traded with the
Middle East. The
Anglican
Cathedral is built on the site of a former
slave market. Some of the holding cells still
exist at the site.
The town also became a base for many
European explorers, particularly the
Portuguese, and colonizers from the late
1800s.
David Livingstone used Stone Town as his
base for preparing for his final expedition in
1866, a house, now bearing his name, was lent by
Sultan Seyyid Said. Immigrant communities from
Oman,
Persia and
India lived here. These were often engaged
in trade or in the case of the Omanis were
rulers of the island and its dependent
territories. |
