Early African ports and International Maritime Trade

The 9th- 10th century-ceramic imports in Dembeni provide archaeological evidence of the strong relations between the Abbasids and East Africa, which also observed at other sites such as Manda and Shanga. Dembeni is unique because it provides evidence of the goods imported and exported with the rock crystal. 

The rock crystal trade in the Indian Ocean favoured the process of urbanisation and ‘Swahilisation’ of the Comoros Archipelago in connection with the Abbasid and subsequent Fatimid traders.  

The ample supply of gold, ivory and rock crystal objects in the countries of the ‘Islamic world’ corresponds to the beginning of urbanisation in East Africa, as the development of stone cities only began around the 11th-12th centuries with the period known as ‘Shirazi’ in many Swahili oral traditions.   

The islanders of Dembeni had a trading monopoly that yielded large profits which meant that they could acquire imported objects such as Persian and Chinese ceramics. A similar phenomenon occurred in Kilwa with the monopoly of the gold trade, and a caravanserai (Husuni Ndogo) was even built there in the early 13th century.   

An important outcome of research was to incorporate the Comoros and Madagascar in the ‘bigger picture’ of the East African trade, as rock crystal was a highly-valued product.      

The abandonment of old sites and the creation of new urban centres was linked to new trading relations. In the 13th century, stability was established with the Ayyubids and then the Mamluks in Egypt and the Rasulids in Yemen. In Kilwa, the Shirazi Dynasty was replaced at the end of the 13th century by the Mahdali Dynasty, a Hadhrami tribe from southwest Yemen.