Zanzibar: A Nineteenth-Century Landscape of the Omani Elite

Abstract

This article examines the historical architecture and elite palace sites of the nineteenth-century Sultanate of Zanzibar. Archaeological coastal survey and historical research is used to discuss the way in which these built structures demonstrate the changing forces of mercantile control in the Western Indian Ocean. On moving his court to Zanzibar from Oman in 1828, Seyyid Said bin Sultan set about consolidating his authority. This consolidation and subsequent demise is reflected, it is argued, in the structural remains along Zanzibar’s western coast.