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Kilwa
(redirected from Kilwa Island)

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Kilwa (Kisiwani)

Historical Islamic city-state, located on an island off the coast of what is now southern Tanzania. It became one of the most active commercial centres on the eastern coast of Africa by 1100, and gold coins were minted there. After being held briefly by the Portuguese in the 16th century, it declined in importance and was abandoned. Extensive ruins remain, including those of mosques, a Portuguese fort, and a 13th–14th-century palace. The town of Kilwa on the Tanzanian coast was the site of a major centre for the export of slaves in the 19th century.
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Geldof visited Tanzania where Kilwa Island, one of the African eastern seaboard's 35 coastal city kingdoms, for centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, traded luxury goods with India, China and Persia; these ports were supplied from deep in the interior with gold and ivory from Great Zimbabwe whose palaces and stone buildings were replicated in 150 sites--some built almost a millennium ago by descendants of today's Shona people.
'The ancestors are an immediate & accessible reality': poetic ... by Hordern, Nick / New African
As in the earlier sacking of Kilwa Island (see NA, fan 2003), Almeida's son, Lourenco, led the assault on the sultan's palace, and though with the Portuguese superior weaponry, this time met sterner resistance from the Swahili defenders.
Archaeology golden Gedi, Kenya's lost glory. (Feature) by Hordern, Nick / New African
Our correspondent, Nick Hordern, in a pale imitation of Ibn Battuta's travels, went to Kilwa Island to catch up with 800 years of African history.
The magic of Kilwa Island. (Feature: Tanzania) by Hordern, Nick / New African
 
 
 
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