Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T08:47:54.493Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

East African Coin Finds and Their Historical Significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

No historian of Africa can be indifferent to the fact that alone in Africa south of the Sahara the East African coast possesses a link between history and archaeology in its own medieval mints and also in coins imported from other lands during the past two thousand years. Its history is poorly documented, and its archaeology is still to a great extent in the stage of record and survey; the numerous finds of Chinese porcelain and other imported ceramics can at present only be assigned within a bracket of at smallest fifty years: but in the coin finds there is a key for the future establishment of a precise chronology for all of these.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , January 1960 , pp. 31 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Stuhlmann, F., Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte von Ostafrika, Berlin (1909), 860, also mentions 1700 pieces in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, which have not yet been published.Google Scholar

2 Walker, John, ‘The History and Coinage of the Sultans of Kilwa’, Numismatic Chronicle (1936)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Some New Coins from Kilwa’, Numismatic Chronicle (1939); text of the Kilwa History in Arabic apud Strong, S. A., ‘A History of Kilwa’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1895)Google Scholar, and, in Portuguese, apud de Barros, J., Da Asia, 1522Google Scholar, ed. Baiao, A., Coimbra (1931), 1, 308–11, 381–2.Google Scholar

3 Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P., ‘A New Hoard and Some Unpublished Variants of the Sultans of Kilwa’, Numismatic Chronicle (1954).Google Scholar

4 Idem, ‘Coinage in East Africa before Portuguese Times’, Numismatic Chronicle (1957).

5 This gentleman wishes to remain anonymous, but I am none the less most grateful to him.Google Scholar

6 Charlesworth, M. P., ‘A Roman Imperial Coin from Nairobi’, Numismatic Chronici (1949).Google Scholar

7 Museo della Garesa, Catalogo, ed. Caroselli, F. S., Mogadiscio (1934), 167.Google Scholar

8 Schoff, W. H., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, New York (1911)Google Scholar; Mattingly, H., ‘Coins from a Find-Site in British East Africa’, Numismatic Chronicle (1932)Google Scholar; Sir Wheeler, R. E. M., Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers (1954), 139–40Google Scholar; idem, ‘In Search of East Africa's Past’, The Times, 24 Sept. 1955; Grotanelli, V. L., Pescatori dell' Oceano Indiano, Rome (1955), 385–7Google Scholar; Hayward, C. W., Towards the Mysterious Lorian Swamp (1927), 45.Google Scholar

9 Freeman-Grenville, art. cit. (1957), 172–3Google Scholar; Kirkman, J. S., ‘The Excavations at Ras Mkumbuu’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, no. 53 (1959).Google Scholar

10 Stuhhnann, op. cit. 843Google Scholar; Ingrams, W. H., Zanzibar, Its History and Its People (1931), 55Google Scholar; Baxter, H. C., ‘Pangani, The Trade Centre of Ancient History’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, no. 17 (06 1944), 16.Google Scholar

11 Schoff, op. cit.Google Scholar; C. Ptolemaei Geographia, 2 vols., ed. Muller, C., Paris (1883, 1901)Google Scholar; cp. Allen, J. W. T., ‘Rhapta’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, no. 27 (1949).Google Scholar

12 Duyvendak, J. J. L., China's Discovery of Africa (1949), 26ff., 12ff.Google Scholar; Freeman-Grenville (1958), 164–5 (n. 14 infra), summarizing the site-finds to dateGoogle Scholar; Grotanelli, op. cit. 63–70 and fig. 235Google Scholar; Kirkman, J. S., ‘Historical Archaeology in Kenya’, Antiquaries Journal (1957), 18, 22Google Scholar; The First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, ed. Ravenstein, E. G., Hakluyt Society (1898)Google Scholar; Pires, Tomé, Suma Oriental, ed. Cortesão, A., 2 vols., Hakluyt Society (1944), 1, 14, 43, 46.Google Scholar

13 Les Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah, ed. Defrémery, C. and Sanguinetti, B. R., 4 vols. (Paris, 1861ff.), 11, 179ff.Google Scholar; Khurdhadhbih, Ibn, al-Masalik wa' l-Mamalik, c. 846, ed. de Goeje, , Leyden (1889)Google Scholar; Strong, op. cit. 419, 424Google Scholar; Sir Coupland, R., East Africa and Its Invaders (1938), 46.Google Scholar

14 For the system of dates see Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P., ‘The Chronology of the Sultans of Kilwa’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, no. 50 (1958)Google Scholar, revising that of Walker, J., op. cit. (1936)Google Scholar; for details of the coins mentioned in this section, see references to Walker and to Freeman-Grenville, nn. 2, 3, 4 supra; Axelson, E., South-East Africa, 1484–1530 (1940), 62ff.Google Scholar; Powell-Price, J. C., History of India (1955), 193ff.Google Scholar; Balog, P., ‘Études numismatiques de l'Egypte musulmane’, Bulletin de l'Institut d'Egypte, tome XXXIII (Cairo, 1951), 7, 8, 9, 12, 15–17.Google Scholar

15 Battuta, Ibn, loc. cit.Google Scholar; Freeman-Grenville, art. Cit. (1958), 174Google Scholar; Fr Monclaro, ‘Account of the Journey made by Fathers of the Company of Jesus with Francis Barreto in the Conquest of Monomotapa in the year 1569’, apud Theal, G. M., Records of South-Eastern Africa (1899), IIIGoogle Scholar, ignored by Coupland, op. cit. 58ff.Google Scholar

16 Anonymous description of the voyage of Francisco d'Almeida, apud Axelson, op. cit., 234Google Scholar: F. L. de Castanheda, apud Theal, op. cit. III; I am grateful to Dr Walker for a copy of a fragment of the Eustace diary in his possession; The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, from the Lendas da India of Gaspar Correa, ed. and trans. Hon. Stanley, H. E. J., Hakluyt Society (1869), 142–5Google Scholar; Monclaro, loc. cit.Google Scholar; ‘A Journall of severall voyages made by mee, William Alley, begun 1665’: I am grateful to Sir John Gray for a transcript of the manuscript; Stride, H. G., ‘The Maria Theresa Thaler’, Numismatic Chronicle (1956)Google Scholar; Allan, J., ‘The Coinage of the Maldive Islands with some Notes on the Cowrie and the Latin’, Numismatic Chronicle (1912)Google Scholar; Wood, H., ‘The Gampola Larin Hoard’, Numismatic Notes and Monographs, no. 61, The American Numismatic Society, New York (1934).Google Scholar

17 Rhodes House Ms. Afr. r. 6; cf. Dallons, P., Mauritius Archives GA 11, 119 (1804)Google Scholar; I am grateful to Mr H. N. Chittick and to Miss Pelham-Johnson for their information; Guillain, M., Documents sur l'histoire, la géographie et le commerce de l'Afrique orientale, Paris (1856), II, 269Google Scholar; Harries, Lyndon, ‘Supplementary Vocabulary, Swahili-English’, Journal of the East African Swahili Committee, no. 28–2 (07 1958), 55Google Scholar, is incorrect in ascribing these coins to the sixteenth century: I am grateful to him for a note correcting the printer's error of burubuku (for buruzuku) in that article, and for information on the derivation; Sir Burton, R., Zanzibar, City, Island and Coast, II, 405–6Google Scholar; General Rigby, ‘Report on the Zanzibar Dominions’, apud MrsRussell, C. E. B., General Rigby, Zanzibar and the Slave Trade (1935), 346–7Google Scholar; Coupland, op. cit. 343–4Google Scholar; the Mombasa, Lamu and Zanzibar issues are illustrated in Valentine, W. H., Modern Copper Coins of the Muhammadan Dynasties (1911), 83Google Scholar; the modern issues are illustrated in Raymond, Wayte, Coins of the World, Twentieth Century Issues, 4th ed., New York (1951)Google Scholar, and Nineteenth Century Issues, 2nd ed., New York (1953)Google Scholar; Harries's statement, op. cit. 55Google Scholar, that there was a Pate issue is based on Hichens, W., al-Inkishafi (1939), 119, which can hardly be correct since all the coins named by him have been found in Zanzibar, with a few in Kilwa, and not one in Pate.Google Scholar