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Minchar (Nungwi Mnarani

and Fukuchani site)

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Taken from: The Swahili World. Chapter 22 Zanzibar by Tom Fitton

Around the sixth century CE, Zanzibar, was settled by iron-working agriculturalists. Two harbour sites with timber and daub architecture at Fukuchani and Unguja Ukuu represent the earliest evidence for this settlement on Zanzibar. Fukuchani is only 15km south of Nungwi and (by sea) 7km from Tumbatu island. Finds of imported Persian Gulf Sasanian Islamic wares, western Indian glass and ceramics, attest to early long-distance connections.

Between the tenth and eleventh centuries CE, Zanzibar appears to have gone through a period of settlement discontinuity. (Related to the disruption of Indian Ocean trade in the period following the Zanj revolt in Mesopotamia in 869–883 CE). In the Zanzibar Archipelago the subsequent movement was towards more isolated sites, (to Tumbatu). And sherds of thirteenth-century ceramics and a burnt daub structure on the northern headland of Fukuchani, demonstrate limited reoccupation of Zanzibar Island. Two stone houses with loop-holed enclosures, one at Fukuchani and one a short distance away at Mvuleni, date to the sixteenth century. The unusual plan of these buildings suggests that they may have been fortified Portuguese farms but the materials and construction methods indicate that they were built by Swahili craftsmen.

Note: At the 5ha site of Fukuchani, fragments of Mediterranean pottery, in this case amphorae, probably dating to the fifth century, have been unearthed (Horton and Middleton 2000, p. 32). And also two Chinese coins of the fourteenth century.

Fukuchani ruins.