Vamizi (Songo Mnara).
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Taken from: A history of the ancient Swahili town with a guide to the monuments of Kilwa Kisiwani and adjacent islands. John E. G. Sutton.
Songo Mnara:
This island to the south of Kilwa - originally called simply Songo, the addition of mnara, ‘the tower’, being apparently quite recent - boasts the finest masonry remains of an ancient town on the Tanzanian coast. They appear to be largely of the fifteenth century (in total 14th to 16th), the settlement being presumably related to Kilwa and forming part of the sultan’s domain (for, had it been separate or a rival of Kilwa, there would doubtless have been allusions in the film Chronicle). Songo Mnara contains a remarkable number of large stone-built houses set out in a manner which gives an impression (perhaps partly accidental) of town planning. Garlake, who made a special study of this site in the 1960ties produced a detailed and very useful plan.
The sizes and complexity of the houses and the quality of the stonework are a measure of the wealth of this community of the Kilwa archipelago - or at least of its elite class. While most of the buildings in Songo Mnara belong to the fifteenth century - and presumably fit with the main period of domestic stone architecture at Kilwa itself, that is following the restoration of the Great Mosque extension - there are numerous signs of renewed activity, with some rebuilding, alterations and additions, in the eighteenth century. This suggests that when fortunes revived at Kilwa then, the memory of Songo Mnara and its spacious villas was similarly recalled. The largest house or house complex - that towards the south-west which contains a central stepped court surrounded by arches, domes, vaults and delicately cut lamp-niches - has been called ‘the palace’. It is not known whether this description is strictly correct; if so, it presumes the presence of the sultan’s representative, or the sultan himself taking up occasional residence on this site. Of the two mosques in the main town area, that to the north-east is the more remarkable, especially for its transverse arches and fluted mihrab, the latter with its pilasters and niches of cut coral. There are traces of a town wall, probably of the eighteenth century, mainly on the north and west sides, towards the mangroves. Along the latter side are remains of three mosques. That at the south-west was roofed with transverse barrel-vaults; inset bowls are of the fifteenth century and a relationship to the ruined mosque of similar date in Makutani on Kilwa is suggested. The more northerly of these three mosques is not generally recognised as such, especially as the mihrab has collapsed (although its position may be discerned from the wall bases and cut stonework). This mosque is usually explained as the mnara or ‘tower’. It may be that its position, being raised on a solid base above the beach, rendered it visible from the sea at a period when this town was occupied and when the mangroves, now so thick, were kept back.
Sanje Majoma:
This site, some three kilometres to the south of Songo Mnara, also possesses stone remains of a fifteenth-century town, but they are very overgrown. The two mosques which were domed and vaulted - are largely destroyed.
Sanje ya Kati:
This island in the middle of the bay may be the site of ‘Shanga’, which is mentioned in an early chapter of the Kilwa Chronicle as a base of rivals to Kilwa or its rulers, those who succeeded Ali bin al-Hasan in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The community of this site may have adhered to a different Islamic sect. The mosque has been excavated; its roof was supported by wooden pillars in two rows. The mihrab does not project through the north wall, a feature which may indicate allegiance to the Ibadhi sect. The occupied area is quite extensive, but little is visible above ground.
Taken from: The Chronology of Kilwa Kisiwani, AD 800–1500 Mark Horton · Jesper Olsen · Jeffrey Fleisher · Stephanie Wynne‑Jones 2022
Yet the development of Kilwa Kisiwani was not completely continuous. Two breaks in the sequence can be seen—throughout much of the twelfth century, and then again in the late fourteenth century. This latter break coincides with a period of disruption described in the histories, with the breakdown of the ruling family’s authority and a period of economic stagnation. The rebuilding that can be seen from the early fifteenth century likewise coincides with the expansion of the coral building at Kilwa and the construction of the town on neighboring Songo Mnara.
Taken from: Coins in Context: Local Economy, Value and Practice on the East African Swahili Coast by Stephanie Wynne-Jones & Jefrey Fleisher 2011
Songo Mnara is an enigmatic site, and its relationship to Kilwa Kisiwani is little understood. It has been suggested (Chitick 1961; Mathew 1959; Suton 1998) that the grand stone town found here was an offshoot of Kilwa, perhaps housing particularly wealthy merchants who wanted some degree of independence from the Kilwa dynasty. If so, we might suppose that the town would have been the focus of international trade, and its grandeur certainly suggests a source of significant wealth. The archaeology of the site, however, reveals little in the way of evidence for imported goods; indeed, the majority of the artefacts are of local manufacture and use (Fleisher & Wynne-Jones 2010a; Pradines & Blanchard 2005; Wynne-Jones & Fleisher 2010). A significant proportion of the urban space is given over to commemorative and ritual architecture, with hundreds of graves and five mosques testifying to the centrality of Islamic practice in the life of the town. The overall sense, then, is of a town that is part of the world of Indian Ocean trade, but in which daily life is oriented around local practices and interactions.
Taken from: KILWA KISIWANI AND SONGO MNARA Stephanie Wynne-Jones 2017.
The fourteenth–sixteenth-century stonetown of Songo Mnara has been the subject of extensive multi-scalar archaeological investigations aimed at exploring daily practice in and around the structures of the town. Songo Mnara itself is an enigmatic settlement, with an apparent emphasis on the spiritual life; there are six mosques and large numbers of graves and tombs throughout the site and clustered in the central spaces. It was also a busy urban place, and excavations combined with geoarchaeological sampling and survey have shown evidence for a range of craftworking, agricultural and productive activities both inside the houses and in the surrounding spaces (Wynne-Jones 2013; Fleisher 2014). For example, geochemical signatures combined with shovel test pitting have recovered evidence for a significant shell and stone bead industry in the western open area immediately within the town gates (Fleisher and Sulas 2015). Full-scale excavation of both coral and wattle-and-daub houses within the city walls, combined with geochemical and phytolith sampling, have shown that crop processing was occurring within the houses, along with spinning of cotton and other economic activities. Spaces outside the houses might have been linked to tanning or to pigment use (Wynne-Jones 2013). By these means, it has been possible to build up a picture of the economic life of the town, which reflects back on contemporary practices at Kilwa. Analysis of faunal and plant remains has shown a mixed diet of fishing and farming, and a predominance of local crops such as millet. This knowledge of the local economy has been combined with a contextual approach to the artefact record, incorporating objects such as Kilwa-type coins in a consideration of value and use (Wynne-Jones and Fleisher 2012), and exploring the record of imported ceramics as part of the overall assemblage of ceramics rather than as an indication of the direction and volume of trade.
It is clear that Songo Mnara was occupied for only a relatively short period of time between the fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The artefacts, dated through associated imports, all come from this tightly delineated period, and are clearly stratified, with the earliest fourteenth-century deposits distinguishable from the later through the development of the structures and associated middens. Second, it is possible to link all finds to particular domestic or ritual activities occurring during the period of this occupation as defined through other means.