The Big Read: Is this the lost city of Rhapta?

20 July 2016 - 10:08 By SHAUN SMILLIE

For 1,600 years Rhapta was a myth, a fabled maritime African city that traded with the Roman and Chinese empires.Richard Burton, who co-discovered the source of the Nile, was said to have looked for traces of the city when he visited the island of Zanzibar in 1857.Later archaeologists and scuba divers scoured the Tanzanian coastline, searching for clues as to where this African Atlantis once stood.Now Rhapta might have been found, thanks to a South African expat who happened to notice something strange while flying over a remote part of Mafia Island, a horn-shaped piece of land that lies about 50km from the Tanzanian coast.Eighteen months ago Alan Sutton saw what he believed was a wall, just off the coast of Mafia. On his birthday, March 21, Sutton visited the site by boat.He found giant man-made blocks that appeared to have been part of a sea wall that stretched for 3.7km . Another section of wall stretches for about a kilometre. Some of the blocks are big, five by five metres and about 40cm thick.More of these blocks lie adjacent to one another, the lines of mortar binding them clearly visible.Judging from the thick coral growth, Sutton believes parts of the wall have been under water for at least 550 years."Most of these blocks are under water, some have holes in them that were probably used to put things in," he said.Sutton also found pottery shards, some of which have been identified as being of local origin and dated between the second and fifth centuries AD.But other pottery found at the site is foreign and attempts are being made to identify where it came from.Maps of Mafia Island, dating to 1820, don't show any settlements where the ruins were found.Archaeologist Felix Chami, of Dar es Salaam University, believes Sutton's discovery has a good chance of being Rhapta.Chami has been looking for the ancient city for the past 15 years. The size of the site, he said, suggests it was a large settlement.Historical records begin mentioning Rhapta at about the time of Christ.The ancient text Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, believed to have been written in 50AD, described Rhapta as being the southernmost trading post of Azania.About a hundred years later the Greco-Egyptian writer Claudius Ptolemy, in his work Geography, told the tale of Diogenes, a seaman who was blown off course and ended up visiting Rhapta.Periplus of the Erythraean Sea said Rhapta was known for its trade in tortoiseshell and ivory. Over the years there has been speculation over the location of the city. Many have placed it somewhere along the Tanzanian coast.Diogenes described it as being close to a main river and opposite the island of Manouthias, which has been identified as either Pemba or Mafia island.Sutton's site happens to be close to the mouth of the Rufiji River that lies opposite Mafia Island.Archaeologists have found traces of Roman trade in the vicinity. Roman beads have been discovered in the Rufiji River delta and Roman pottery has been found in the area.The Romans got so far south, Chami believes, by using the monsoon winds."By looking at the pottery, we might be able to say that this is Rhapta," said Chami.Sutton believes that the settlement slipped under the waves when sea levels rose. He also suspects that seismic activity may also have contributed to the maritime city's demise.But proving that this is the forgotten city is going to be difficult and costly."We are going to need underwater archaeology to see if we can discover what we are looking for. But that is going to be expensive," he said.The area is remote and requires a boat to get there.Sutton has asked local fishermen to be on the lookout for artefacts from the area. They have their own lore about how these ruins, that snag their fishing nets, ended up on their island. They told Sutton of how, long ago before the sea came in, people used to live there...

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