Precolonial soundscapes of Swahili coastal towns in East Africa

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to open the discussion on the characteristics of the acoustic landscapes in precolonial Swahili towns on the East African coast, where this theme to date remains unstudied. The paper focuses on assessing some aspects of the acoustic experience in the precolonial period of AD 1200–1600 respective to the towns and to coral-rag houses, which represent one type of building recorded on Swahili archaeological sites. Due to the limited preservation of buildings on the East African coast, and the fact that many of them have been deserted under the growing influence of Omani and European colonialism, both experimental and ethnoarchaeological studies could provide only limited information on any aspect of past sensory experience in these towns. Therefore, this paper defines some major characteristics of soundscapes in this region using analyses of the acoustic capacities and spatial dimensions of the Swahili built environment, while reflecting on selected themes that played a strong part in Swahili social environment, such as trade and Islam. The presented case study from sub-Saharan Africa aims to contribute to the global discussions on sensory experience in urban societies, where examples from coastal tropics are acutely needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Archaeoacoustics
• soundscape
• sensory environment
• Swahili
• urbanism
• coral rag architecture

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Heinz Ruther, University of Cape Town, for sharing the Zamani Project survey data on Kua, Tanzania.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR) [grant number 20-02725Y] awarded to the author.

Notes on contributors

Monika Baumanova

Monika Baumanova is a Lecturer at the Center for African Studies of the University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic. She is an archaeologist specialising in the built environment and urbanism of sub-Saharan Africa of the last millennium, and on approaches derived from urban studies and sensory archaeology. She is a former Marie Curie Fellow and current Principal Investigator on a comparative urban morphology project funded by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic.