Unguja Ukuu (Mji wa Kale wa Unguja Ukuu in Swahili) is a historic Swahili

settlement on Unguja island (Zanzibar Island), in Zanzibar, Tanzania.[2]

Background
Unguja Ukuu is an archaeological site on the island of Zanzibar. This site has
yielded abundant artifacts and evidence that play out the long history of
Unguja Ukuu. Artifacts found at Unguja Ukuu came from all over the world:
pottery from the Far East, Near East, India, and the Southern Mediterranean
region.[3] Other items such as rings, glass, coins, iron artifacts and ivory have
also been found along with a variety of animal remains. Visitors to Unguja
Ukuu, centrally located off the east coast of Africa and at the edge of the
Indian Ocean, left behind evidence that this place was a central trading port.
Unlike the mainland this site was in uenced by foreign merchants from
around the world, and each left a mark on this site. Due to the trade activity
here early urbanism is evident in one of the rst east African trading posts.
Unguja Ukuu’s location was key to pursue an unconventional settlement
strategy by which its inhabitants survived mostly on foods and goods that
came from elsewhere since agriculture was not a main source of subsistence.
As excavations continue a more diverse collection of artifacts emerge adding
to the complex history of this place.

Importance
The artifacts recovered show evidence that this place had experienced a long
history of trade along the east coast of Africa and the Indian Ocean. Unguja
Ukuu was the oldest of the earliest Swahili trading posts along the coast.[4]
Unguja Ukuu has the oldest artifacts of all of the islands in this region dating
back to the sixth century.[3] It is also a site where early Islamic in uence came
ashore as evident by the ruins of a mosque.[3] There is evidence of early
urbanism and international trade taking place.[4] As its name implies, Unguja
Ukuu is a Bantu phrase for “central place” recognizing its importance in trade.
[3] This site also is able to provide insight to the early contact between the

Swahili and the Indian Ocean world.[4]

Location
Unguja Ukuu is an archeological site on the island of Zanzibar. Zanzibar is
located south of the equator, central along the east coast of the African
continent. It is positioned 25 miles from land and separated from the African
continent by the Zanzibar channel (30–40 m deep). Zanzibar is the largest
island of the Zanzibar archipelago. The site of Unguja Ukuu covers 16
hectares [3] and is located between a village and a creek.[5] It lies on the
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 southwestern side of the island. The coordinates for this site are: -6.3172° N,
39.3744° E.

History of research and account of excavations

Unguja Ukuu is one of two sites that had evidence of early coastal pottery,
Sassanian-Islamic pottery, and ceramic bead grinders recovered from the 9th
century.[6] Unguja Ukuu takes it place along with Koma, Kwale, and Ma a as
having a presence of Early Iron Working pottery.[7] This predates Traditional
Tana Ware. In addition, this site provided artifacts that date back to 500 to
700 A.D.,[7] including items imported from India, the Middle East, and the
Roman state.[7] In 1920 Pearce wrote of his observations and noted a mosque
ruin at Unguja Ukuu.[3] In addition to what he found he also conducted
informant interviews and was told of 500 pieces of gold that had been
discovered and taken many years earlier by Arabs.[5] These coins had a Cu c
inscription and dated to 798-9 AD minted in Baghdad.[5] This was the rst
de nable date that was attached to any artifact in this area. A stone well is
one of the handful of monuments along the eastern African coast that have
survived. Some scholars attribute Arab decedents from India for the
architecture here.[3] In 1966 Neville Chittick made his second visit (1965) to
Unguja Ukuu. He recounts that he was able to collect artifacts from the
surface, no digging was required. Most of what was recovered were pottery
sherds. Among the sherds one stood out which was Chinese stoneware with
a green glaze and ornamentation.[5] Much of what he found was Sassanian-
Islamic pottery most coming from Iran (Nishapur and Ctesiphon) form the
eighth and ninth century. In 1984 Mark Horton and Kate Clark surveyed the
site, 15 hectares across. Over two meters of middens were discovered
providing evidence of animal bones, iron slag, daub, glass, and bead-grinders
along with domestic and imported pottery.[6] While imported pottery only
constituted under ve percent of the sherds recovered, they did include
Sasanian-Islamic & unglazed wares, Chinese Chansha stoneware, Zhejiang
Zueh Yao greenwares and Dusun jars from Guangdong. In addition to these,
they also recovered one piece of Islamic white-glazed ware.[6] They estimated
that the settlement was occupied from the 8th-10th century through the 16th
century.[3] Juma and Syse recovered Islamic pottery, Chinese stoneware, two
shell middens, and a possible stone fort on the east of the site.[8] In 1991
Chami was able to excavate deep enough to reach a level that revealed the
presence of Early Iron Age sherds at this site.[9] Dating is consistent with the
5th or 6th century. Items included pottery from Egypt and African Red Slip
ware from the late Roman Empire.[9] Jeffrey Fleisher & Stephanie Wynne-
Jones (2011) complied radiocarbon data on sherds found at Unguja Ukuu and
other surrounding islands (8). Based on their ndings the ceramic wares date
back to the beginning of the 6th century (8). This new dating has pushed
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original dates back and give Unguja Ukuu a deeper and longer history than
previously considered.

Stratigraphy and dating

This area of the island’s landscape comprises coral limestone but there are
some areas that have very deep soft soil which is where most of the
settlement artifacts were unearthed.[3] The site is surrounded by eclectic
landscape features such as ridges, a creek, the peninsula point, and at
areas.[3] As time and technology roll on more aggressive recovery methods
were used like coring, but core drilling is in some cases considered
questionable due to irregularities in topography to suggest general chrono-
stratigraphy of the site on soil coloration.[4] A large excavation project was
initiated and yielded a great many artifacts and structural details that gave a
clearer picture of the social mapping of Unguja Ukuu.[3]

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