Zanzibar
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The name Zanzibar comes from the Arabic Zanjibār (زنجبار), which in turn comes from the Persian Zang-bār (زنگبار), a compound of Zang (زنگ, “Black“) + bār (بار, “coast, land, country“). So, Zanzibar means the “land of the Blacks”. The Arabs in medieval times used: ‘Bilad al Zanj’ (Land of the Zanj).
Many authors mention Zanzibar. They however mention than not the island with this name but instead the whole of East Africa. The few who mention it as an island are: al-Zayyat (d1058); Marco Polo (1295). Martin Behaim (1492) copies Marco Polo. Fra Mauro (1459) on his world-map using as sources several Ethiopians he spoke too has on the mainland Xegibar and in the ocean the island of Chasibar. But by the time of Ibn Majid (1470) the island really had the name of Zanzibar. Ibn Majid mentions it as: Zanzibar. The seventh island is that of Zanzibar, (followed by a detailed description of its society.) That we are unable to follow the change of the island being called Unguja (the local name) into becoming Zanzibar. This must be due to the fact that the Arab geographers of the 15th century were mostly copying parts of old geographies over and over again.
The island of Zanzibar as Tsong-pa is also mentioned by Chao ju-kua(1226).
Yakut (1220) mentions it as Leikhouna (Unguja).
Many important places on Zanzibar have been treated on separate webpages (see on map mentioned in red). So, under only Shangani is mentioned.
Carved mihrab block reused.
Plastered column base.
Shangani (Old town underneath Zanzibar Stone town)
Taken from: Excavations at the Old Fort of Stone Town, Zanzibar: new evidence of historic interactions between the Swahili Coast and Arabian Gulf. By Timothy Power, Mark Horton et al.
The first phase of occupation consists of nothing more than pottery sherds. These may be interpreted as middens associated with settlement further inland. The only imported class was hatched sgraffiato, thought to have been produced in the Makran from the eleventh century. This date is important because it broadly corresponds to the abandonment of Unguja Ukuu, located in the southern part of the island which served as the main trading post connecting East Africa with the Arabian Gulf between the late seventh and tenth centuries (Juma 2004). The origin of Stone Town may be associated with a reconfiguration of trade networks and settlement patterns in the eleventh century. The second occupational phase is associated with the construction of a Mosque. The layer also produced monochrome sgraffiati and champlevé suggesting a twelfth- to thirteenth-century date. A mosque of which a correctly oriented wall survives and a plaster column base set in clean white sand. This Mosque interpretation is strengthened by the discovery of a carved stone mihrab block found reused in a Portuguese wall. Second phase to a close: This period of decline was halted by the construction of a building, associated with a 40 cm-wide wall of coral rag, marking the beginning of the third phase of settlement. The relatively humble building quality and the discovery of a complete but undecorated local cooking vessel, used as a bread oven, from the final occupation suggest we are dealing with a Swahili house. Ceramics from the final occupation and subsequent collapse deposits include monochrome glazed earthenwares from Persia (Horton 1996: 293) and Longquan wares from China (1996: 307), which together provide a fourteenth- to fifteenth-century date for the third phase.