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Archaeological Time Periods and Abbreviations.

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Taken out: The Archaeology of Tanzanian Coastal Landscapes in the 6th to 15th Centuries AD                        E.J.D. Pollard 2008
Century	Chittick (1974)	Horton (1996)	Chami (1999)		Mapunda (2002)	Kusimba (1999)
2nd BC			Early Iron Ware (EIW)	Limbo	Early Iron Working (EIW)
1st Bc						Period I: Earliest iron working settlements
1st AD
2nd AD		Kwale Ware
3rd AD
4th AD				Kwale		Period II	Azanian
5th AD
6th AD				Mwangia	Middle Iron Working (MIW)
			Triangular Incised Ware (TIW)
7th AD							Zanjian
8th AD		Tana Tradition: Ceramic Phase A
9th AD	Perriod Ia
10th AD		Tana Tradition: Ceramic Phase B	Plain Ware (PW)
11th AD	Period Ib					Period III: Coastal city building
12th AD		Tana Tradition: Ceramic Phase C
13th AD	Period II		Neck Punctuating or Swahili Ware (NP/SW)
14th AD	Period IIIa	Ceramic Phase D
15th AD	Period IIIb
16th AD	Period IV		Post Swahili (PS)		Later Iron Working (LIW)	Period IV: Colonial	Portuguese
17th AD
18th AD	Period V
							Omani Arabs
19th AD
							Germany & Britain
20th AD

 

Data for Imported Ceramics from Different Sources.

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Periods of Manda Ceramic Datation

I     Sassanoislamique 850-1000

IIa Sgraffiato hachure 1050-1190

IIb Celadon 1190-1290

III Black and Yellow 1290-1400

IV Monochrome 1400-1500

V Manganese violet 1550-1650

VI Porcelain tardive 1650 and +

 

Turquoise Alkaline-Glazed Ware 9^th -10th centuries

 

Sasanian blue-green glazed ware c. 8 C. AD. Mgombani

Chinese Yue Stoneware c. 9t'-12th C. AD. Mteza

Hatched Sgraffiato c. 11th C. AD. Mteza

Chinese white porcelain c. I1th C. AD. onwards Mbuyuni

Near Eastern Gudulia (water jars) c. 11t'-14th C. AD. Mbuyuni

Islamic greenish blue monochrome c. mid 14t'-17th C. AD. Mbuyuni

Islamic green monochrome c. mid 14''-17`h C. AD. Mbuyuni

 

Sgraffiato, manufactured widely in the Middle East from the 10th to 13th century and decorated by designs incised through the slip before glazing (Chittick 1970: 65).

Black on Yellow ware from Aden which reached East Africa between 1250 and 1350 (Kirkman, 1966: 26; Horton and Middleton, 2000: 81)

Glossy green and blue monochrome over a red body.

Polychrome ware with a conventional floral design in blue on white on a buff body (Kirkman, 1966: 31-2).

Porcelain named Celadon which came from SE Asia in the late 14th to 15th century (Kirkman, 1966: 26-7).

Blue on white porcelain from the 14th century.

 

Yemeni Yellow (Black on Yellow)          13th-14th centuries Yemen           

Late Sgraffiato                                       11th-13th centuries Southern Iran  

Green Monochrome Sgraffiato              11th-13th centuries Southern  Iran   

Longquan Celadon                                13th-15th centuries Southern China  

Chinese Blue and White                        15th-17th centuries Eastern China     

Stoneware-storage                                  8th -14th centuries China                    

Champlevé Sgraffiato                            11th-13th centuries Southern Iran       

Monochrome Islamic ware (c. fifteenth century).

 

Far Eastern green-glazed wares, made in south China: Longqan celadon. These appear in shipwrecks of the twelfth century, and similar wares are made even in the present day. However, on the East Afkican coast they do not appear at Kilwa (Chittick 1974) and Manda (Chittick 1984,70) until about AD 1300.

At Kilwa, Longqan ware is replaced by South-east Asian non-porcelanous green-glazed wares between 1500 and 1550 AD (Chittick 1974, 311).

Green-glazed wares of any type are rare in the well-dated sequence of Fort Jesus at Mombasa, which was built in the 1590s (Kirkman 1974: 107, pl 32.6), though Far Eastern blue-and-white porcelain is common.

 

- Kenyan archeologist Kiriama argues that the porcelains from China to Kenya has several peaks, while the first peak appeared at 9 th-10th century and the exported shards of Yue ware, Changsha ware, Canton Celadon and Northern white ware were found in Lamu Archipelago.

- Kenyan archeologist Herman Kiriama termed the second half of 13th century to the beginning of 15th century as the “Second Peak” of Chinese porcelains to Africa. During this time, Longquan wares, Jingdezhen Qingbai wares, Fujian celadon and Qingbai wares, and blue and white, copper red wares from Jingdezhen were all found in coast of Kenya. Besides, Changsha wares were found in Shanga, celadon shards produced in Guangdong found in Shanga and a Fanchang ware made in the 10th century was discovered in Manda.

- According to Kiriama, in the 14th and 15th centuries, Chinese celadon was the most popular ware exported to Kenya, its plain glazes ranging through shades of greens and greys to pure dark green. Celadon was more valued because of the belief that it would reveal the presence of poison by cracking. From the 14th century, blue and white porcelain started to appear in East Africa.

- Recent work in Mambrui of Kenya by China-Kenya archaeologists headed by Qin Dashu and Herman Kiriama has unearthed large Longquan green-glazed stoneware dishes of a quality equal to those sent to the Chinese imperial court in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

Abbreviations

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Ang.: Angular

BIEA: British Institute in Eastern Africa

EDM: Electronic Distance Measuring

EIA: Early Iron Age = EIW: Early Iron Working (EIW)

EIW: replaced the EIA term with Early Iron Working (EIW)

EIW: Early Iron Ware

ETT: Early Tana Tradition= Triangular Incised Ware

HWM: High Water Mark

IA: iron age

LIA: later iron age

LIW: Later Iron Working

LP: Line of punctuation

LSA: Late Stone Age

LWM: Low Water Mark

MIA: Middle Iron Age

MIW: Middle Iron Working

MSA: Middle stone age

MWL: Mean Water Level

N: Neolithic

NP: Neck Punctuated (NP) ware = Swahili Ware (SW)

PN: Pastoral Neolithic

PS: Post Swahili

PW: Plain Ware

Roun.: Rounded

SG: dating historical mortar through Optically Stimulated Luminescence using the « Single Grain technique » (SG-OSL) into archaeological research.

SMA: Stone to Metal Age

Subang.: Subangular

Subrou.: Subrounded

SW: Swahili Ware = Neck Punctuated (NP) Ware

TIW: =triangular incised ware

TP: Test Pit

TT: Tana tradition = early kitchen ware = TIW=triangular incised ware= Wenje ware.