Sociocultural and Economic Aspects of the Ancient Roman Reported Metropolis of Rhapta on the Coast of Tanzania: Some Archaeological and Historical Perspectives

Abstract

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.