The Bankers of Surat and the Letters of Credit
In the 1600s a Gujarati merchant could write a note in Surat and have it honoured in Mocha, Basra or Malacca. Said explains the hundi system and the families who ran it.
Kilwa, the Richest City You Have Never Heard Of
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Show notes
Coral stone and Zimbabwe gold
Kilwa Kisiwani, a small island off southern Tanzania, controlled the gold trade from the Zimbabwe plateau for two hundred years and minted its own coins. Its Great Mosque was the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. This episode walks the ruins with Said and reconstructs the city at its height, around 1330.
- Where the gold came from and how Kilwa took its cut
- The Kilwa Chronicle and what it says about the sultans
- Ibn Battuta's visit and his surprise at the city's elegance
- Coins from Kilwa found in northern Australia, and the arguments about them
- How the Portuguese ended it in 1505
Field audio recorded on the island with permission of the Tanzanian antiquities department.
Transcript
Welcome to Monsoon Kingdoms. My name is Said Al Harthi, I am from Sur in Oman, and I grew up on a coast where the winds told you when to leave and when to come home. This series is about the ocean those winds ruled, and the kingdoms that grew rich on it, long before any European ship rounded the Cape. We start on a small island off Tanzania called Kilwa. In 1331 the traveller Ibn Battuta called it one of the most beautiful and well-built cities in the world. It minted its own coins, its mosque was the largest south of the Sahara, and its wealth came from gold mined a thousand kilometres inland. I walked the coral ruins with a recorder, and in this episode we rebuild the city at its height, and then watch the Portuguese burn it. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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