An expert in Islamic archaeology, Professor Stephane Pradines is delivering new insights into the history of the Swahili, the Indian Ocean and the Muslim world.
Prior to joining AKU’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London in 2012, Pradines spent a decade at the French Institute in Cairo leading major excavations of the walls that surrounded the city during the Fatimid era. But his interest in the hundreds of ruins that dot coastal East Africa, and that date from the 11th century onwards, is longstanding. Those ruins are the remains of Swahili cities that were important nodes in a vast trading network that spanned the Indian Ocean and connected Africa to the heart of the Islamic world, as well as to India and China.
Long before the arrival of European explorers, cities such as Mombasa, Malindi and Kilwa exported gold, ivory, rock crystal and timber to the wider world. In return, they received ceramics, glass and – most consequentially – Islam. Out of these exchanges was born the Swahili civilisation, a hybrid of African, Arab and Indo-Persian influences.
The archaeologists of the Swahili coast and adjacent islands has largely been shaped by scholars who were Africanists by training. Pradines’ background gives him a different perspective, helping him to see what others have overlooked. For example, in their excavations of Dembeni, a wealthy city on the island of Mayotte that thrived from the 9th to the 12th centuries, Pradines and his team found numerous fragments of rock crystal. This translucent form of quartz was highly valued in Baghdad, Cairo and elsewhere, where craftsmen carved it into vases and decorative objects.
While other archaeologists had noted such fragments in Dembeni, they speculated they were connected to the production of iron ore. But with his knowledge of Fatimid and Abbasid material culture, Pradines quickly recognised the rock crystal as such. He argues it was brought from Madagascar to Dembeni, where it was traded for ceramics and other items before being shipped onward to the Middle East. Indeed, he suggests the rock crystal trade could be the source of much of Dembeni’s wealth.
Dembeni is far from the only African site where Pradines has conducted excavations, having worked on a number of well-known ruins in Kenya and Tanzania, including Kilwa Kisiwani, site of the largest medieval era mosque in Sub-Saharan Africa.
He has spent many days living in a tent on a beach with no running water, fending off mosquitoes and hacking away at vegetation to expose centuries-old stone ruins. Pradines’ latest project is on the Mafia archipelago off Tanzania. There, he is working with the World Monuments Fund to preserve the ruins of Kua, a medieval Swahili town, and to enable them to be safely developed as a tourist site that benefits the island’s residents. Eventually, he hopes to see Kua included on the World Heritage List.
