Caesar Bita

Communities of the East African coast have had a long history of international interaction. Swahili maritime networks linked African port towns across the Indian Ocean seaboard, thus enabling merchandise to reach the hinterlands of the continent. One of these Swahili towns is the ancient city of Gedi, located on the central Kenyan coast near the medieval town of Malindi. Located inshore, 6 km from the main ocean to the southeast and 3 km from Mida Creek to the southwest, Gedi’s lack of seaward connectivity has perplexed scholars. To effectively function within the vibrant Indian Ocean maritime trade networks of the 10th to 16th centuries CE, Gedi needed access to the sea. Inevitably goods had to be transported overland from a port or landing place. The ‘MUCH to Discover in Mida Creek’ project carried out an archaeological survey around the Creek to form a broader understanding of the region’s maritime past. The study identified a range of sites that evidence past coastal activity. In particular, a concentration of contemporary house sites at Chafisi near the closest point on the Creek to Gedi would suggest it may have acted as an outport for the stone town.

Two thousand years ago, the Romans had knowledge of the western Indian Ocean seaboard. The East African seaboard was then known as Azania. The capital of Azania was recognized by the Romans as Rhapta. The unknown author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea seems to have visited the region himself and reported about the territory and its main settlements. However, Claudia Ptolemy, the geographer, got his information about the territory from skippers some who had been to Rhapta several times. After his third century report no more is heard about Rhapta. The search for the Azania settlements and particularly of Rhapta began from about 1950s in the colonial times. It is the research endeavor of the third author of this paper from the mid 1990s in the region of the Rufiji delta and the Mafia Island in south east Tanzanian coast that provided some clue to the location of Rhapta. With more recent research in Mafia archipelago, it is now apprehended that Rhapta got submerged on the northern side of the archipelago offshore of the Rufiji delta. With collected data from recent underwater and terrestrial archaeological surveys and available Roman historical reports, we can discuss socio cultural and economic aspects of Rhapta.

This paper presents the key contributions of marine cultural heritage to the survival of coastal ecosystems and the communities that rely on them in East Africa. Marine cultural heritage (MCH) describes the evidence of past human interactions with coastal and marine space, encompassing tangible material culture remains and associated intangible cultural expressions within coastal communities. By incorporating the protection of MCH into local and regional environmental frameworks, we gain an essential indicator to monitor change dynamics in natural habitats, the cumulative impacts of climate change, and the development of social adaptation strategies. An essential aspect of this development is the move away from global sustainability strategies towards community-centric management and stewardship. Such processes utilise a combination of traditional knowledge systems and scientific approaches designed to harness targeted economic, ecological, and social sustainable development. To argue for the incorporation of MCH into local and regional environmental frameworks in the area, this paper presents four case studies from the Rising from the Depths Network, a challenge-led research network focusing on harnessing the potential of MCH to bring sustainable development strategies to East Africa.