Ras al-Hamam.
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Tumbatu is an island just offshore of Zanzibar island. Ras al-Hamam is its northern cape.
- Yakut 1220 mentions it: Leikhouna, (or Bandjouya or Lendjouya (Unguja), Landschuja) is a big island and the seat of the elected kings in the land of the Zendj where the king lives. Ships from all countries come there for careening and repair. People of the island of Tumbat were Muslim and the people of Lenguja have been forced to flee to Tumbat to escape from their enemies. You find their vines that have fruit three times a year. Each time when a fruit is ripe another one is being formed.
-Al Firuzabadi (1414): Al Nisbatu (=Tumbatu): an island (=Tumbatu) and the great island (=Zanzibar) in Bilad al Zinj where the sultans do not interfere with one another.
-The only author to mention its northern cape is Ibn Majid (1470).
Taken from: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Tumbatu
This significant archaeological site contains a large number of collapsed stone structures including private houses and several mosques, the largest of which is located on the shore (in Jongowe village) facing the village of Mkokotoni on Unguja. It was inhabited between the 12th and 15th centuries CE. Larger towns such as Tumbatu developed as a result of extensive trade in the early second millennium CE, and archaeological investigations have uncovered large amounts of imported ceramics and glass beads at the site, attesting to the extensive trade networks. Various local production activities also took place within Tumbatu, such as iron and pottery production, and spinning. There are currently no other known archaeological sites on the island, although some older structures of unknown date are known within the village of Jongowe. The late medieval city (13th century) was described in a chronicle known as the "Tumbatu Manuscript". This unique manuscript was apparently burned in a big fire in the village circa 1938.
The remains of a mosque on Tumbatu.
Mkokotoni
Taken from: Swahili Social Landscapes: Material expressions of identity, agency, and labour in Zanzibar, 1000‐1400 CE Henriette Rødland 2021
Tumbatu and Mkokotoni are two neighbouring Swahili sites in the Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania, which are dated to the 11th to 15th centuries CE.
Tumbatu was a trading settlement with links to regional and long-distance networks, while Mkokotoni functioned as a productive area. Crucially, the sites yielded little material evidence for status distinction, indicating that trade wealth and imported material culture were not monopolised by a small group of elites or integral to maintaining social hierarchies.
About 150 buildings were recorded in Tumbatu, while only one structure in Mkokotoni, barely visible due to vegetation and built-up deposits.
In Mkokotoni, two stone structures were excavated, probably mortared with daub. The excavations
at Mkokotoni seem instead to have revealed the walls of a bead workshop or production area,
producing or processing a hitherto unknown bead series. The main evidence for this is the remarkably large number of beads recovered from all trenches and contexts. One structure may have been the indoor workshop area, although a number of activities seem to have been carried out here, as evidenced by the recovery of bead grinders, grinding stones, a spindle whorl, and local as well as imported pottery. The circular structure in Mkokotoni may have been a furnace used to melt glass or heat-treat glass beads. Other finds from wall 1 included a quartz pebble, copper coin, and a possible fingo pot. The pottery indicates between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries CE, with the main period of occupation occurring in the thirteenth century. Workshop area in Mkokotoni also seem to fit well within the dates obtained from the ceramic assemblages, and suggests this area was in use from around the eleventh or twelfth century.
The beads of Henriette Rødland
Dating and origin of imported ceramics in Mkokotoni.
Yemeni Yellow (Black on Yellow) (19) 13th-14th centuries
Yemen
Late Sgraffiato (11)
11th-13th centuries Southern Iran
Green Monochrome Sgraffiato (10) 11th-13th centuries Southern Iran
Longquan Celadon (13) 13th-15th
centuries Southern China
Chinese Blue and White (2) 15th-17th centuries Eastern China
Stoneware-storage (4)
8th -14th centuries China
Champlevé Sgraffiato (4) 11th-13th centuries Southern
Iran
Note: Mkokotoni has 2.5 m of cultural deposits and a range of pottery suggesting its occupation up to the 16th century AD (Abdurahman Juma).
Mkokotoni, seems to have supported a substantial bead industry, as evidenced by the presence of a probable glass bead workshop there. The vast majority of the beads were of glass, at 99% of the total bead assemblage. A large number of Indo-Pacific beads were also recovered, however, believed to have been traded from India, providing an important indication of significant trade with south Asia that is otherwise missing from the imported pottery material.
Relatively few pieces of metal artefacts and iron slag were recovered from both sites, suggesting only limited production of iron locally.
Only one spindle whorl was found in Mkokotoni, while three were recovered from Tumbatu, indicating small-scale production for private use rather than trade.
A small number of flakes and pieces of rock crystal (quartz) indicate that this semi-precious stone was being worked in Tumbatu and Mkokotoni, perhaps in the production of quartz beads, which were also found.
There seems to have been little involvement from any centralized authorities and many labor activities seem to have been organized on a relatively small scale and at the household level.
This type of non-centralized production would have awarded laborers with certain freedoms in terms of how they organized themselves and profited from their work. Centralized or administrative production did occur elsewhere on the coast, however, as evidenced by the minting of coins, leading to different types of social structures.
Taken from: Zanzibar: its history and its people by Ingrams, W.H. 1967
Shangani (a different one from the Old Stonetown one) is really an eastward extension of Mkokotoni, beyond a wide mangrove creek, and sherds can be found spread along about 3km of beach between the two points. Shangani ("where the beads are ") where large quantities of beads may still be picked up, and which was probably a bead depot, or trading treasury.
Note: Ceramics and a number of Chinese coins found at this site date the occupation to the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries (Horton forthcoming).