A Panorama Tour of the Kua Ruins archaeological site

The Kua ruins are all that remains of a medieval Swahili town located on Juani Island in the Mafia Archipelago. The ruins offer insights into an island civilization that saw Portuguese and Omani control as well as independence, enslavement, and eventual abandonment. Indicators of early settlement and trade—including Islamic and Chinese ceramics dating to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and currency from mainland Tanzania—have been found in the ruins, while Portuguese accounts from the sixteenth century note the great wealth of the Kua people. The Zamani Project spatially documented some of the Kua ruins in 2018.


This text has been adapted from the World Monuments Fund website (https://www.wmf.org/project/kua-ruins).

All work was carried out as part of the Kua Conservation Project:
Co-Directors: Stephane Pradines (ISMC-AKU) and Pierre Blanchard (WMF).
Partner institutions: Aga Khan University (AKU); Tanzanian Antiquities; World Monument Fund (WMF), Zamani Project (University of Cape Town)

Then Zamani Project contributed accurate 3D models and maps of the site and structures to the Kua Conservation Program.