Search Results: Swahili Coast

The Swahili Coast on the shores of East Africa was a region where Africans and Arabs mixed to create a unique identity from the 8th century called Swahili Culture. Swahili is the name of their language and means 'people of the coast.' The...

Kilwa, an island located off the coast of East Africa in modern-day southern Tanzania, was the most southern of the major Swahili Coast trading cities that dominated goods coming into and out of Africa from and to Arabia, Persia, and India...

The Portuguese first took an interest in East Africa from the beginning of the 16th century as their empire spread eastwards across the Indian Ocean. Trade in the region was already well-established and carried out by Africans, Indians, and...

The Kikuyu people (aka Gikuyu or Agikuyu) are a Bantu-speaking people who occupied territory in what is today central Kenya in East Africa from the 17th century onwards. They established themselves primarily as agriculturalists around Mount...

Following the conquest of North Africa by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century CE, Islam spread throughout West Africa via merchants, traders, scholars, and missionaries, that is largely through peaceful means whereby African rulers either tolerated...

A carved wooden doorway typical of Swahili Coast architecture (12th - 15th century CE). Mombasa old town, Kenya.

A map of the east coast of Africa showing, amongst others, the key trade ports of the Swahili Coast during the medieval period, 12th to 15th century CE.

Artist's impression of the house of a rich Swahili merchant whose trade along the Swahili Coast brought wealth to the family. Created by Amplitude Studios for the video game Humankind.

In this gallery, we present reconstructions of seven famous palaces through history. The palaces, presented here in the chronological order of their construction, are: Palace of Knossos, Crete Qal'eh Dokhtar Palace, Fizurabad Dungur...

Peoples, cities and states have traded since antiquity but in the medieval period, things escalated so that goods travelled ever greater distances by land, river and sea. Great cities arose thanks to commerce and international trade such...