Songo Mnara is the ruin of a Swahili stone town on a small island off the southern coast of Tanzania, near the larger island of Kilwa Kisiwani. It flourished in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, as part of the network of trading towns on the East African coast that exchanged gold, ivory and other goods with Arabia, India and China. Its coral-stone buildings include a mosque, several dozen houses and tombs, laid out around a central plaza, and they show how wealthy merchant families lived. The town was abandoned in the sixteenth century. Together with Kilwa Kisiwani, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981, and it is one of the best-preserved examples of Swahili architecture.
Before and after
- 1398Construction of Ferapontov Monastery
- 12 August 1399Battle of the Vorskla River
- c. 1400sConstruction of Town Hall of Bremen
- 1400Rise of Renaissance music
- 14th centuryOrigins of Songo Mnara
- 14th centuryConstruction of Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi
- from 14th century to 17th centuryRenaissance
- 14th centuryPublication of Water Margin
- from 14th century to 16th centuryRise of Devotio Moderna
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The era
This moment belongs to the Medieval world (500 CE to 1500 CE), kingdoms, faiths and trade routes.