Performance, monumentality and the ‘built exterior’ on the eastern African Swahili coast

This paper explores the way that open spaces in ancient Swahili towns were part of a monumental landscape based on the performances that occurred within them. By exploring the physical arrangement of open space through the placement of monumental and other buildings, it is argued that some Swahili open spaces might be understood as a ‘built exterior’: places where meaningful activities and performances were enacted, enhanced and framed by their monumental setting. These themes are explored though data from the site of Songo Mnara, in southern Tanzania, where archaeological research in two open spaces has revealed deposits associated with the activities occurring in them.