On the Thresholds of Social Space in Swahili Towns of East Africa
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F49777513%3A23330%2F24%3A43977338" target="_blank" >RIV/49777513:23330/24:43977338 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://www.brepolsonline.net/content/books/10.1484/M.NAA-EB.5.151679#abstract" target="_blank" >https://www.brepolsonline.net/content/books/10.1484/M.NAA-EB.5.151679#abstract</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1484/M.NAA-EB.5.151679" target="_blank" >10.1484/M.NAA-EB.5.151679</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
On the Thresholds of Social Space in Swahili Towns of East Africa
Original language description
The Swahili coastal towns of East Africa represent a relatively well-known case of urbanism from pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. This is, among other factors, thanks to the stone architecture, which is preserved on coastal archaeological sites to this day. This paper explores the idea that the element of boundaries built into the urban environment played an important role in the Swahili towns of the tenth to sixteenth centuries ce. It is argued that it was through thresholds represented on constructed features that boundaries were made permeable, and transitions between social/communal and private/residential space were accentuated. Considering the characteristics of constructed features, it appears that thresholds may have been marked by employing the elements of depth and light in the environment. This paper discusses the meaning of thresholds in association with doorways and courtyards in the houses, as well as in context with low town walls or tombs in the exterior urban space. Recognizing thresholds may hence be used as a possible means of identifying streets and passageways, the existence of which has long been disregarded in precolonial Swahili context for lack of evidence. The specific properties of these thresholds in Swahili urban spaces, including their architectural form, building material and capacity to act on sensory experience, are discussed in order to show how space was attributed with social meaning.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60102 - Archaeology
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2024
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Limiting Spaces: The Attribution of Spatial Meaning through the Creation of Boundaries
ISBN
978-2-503-61749-7
Number of pages of the result
14
Pages from-to
85-98
Number of pages of the book
187
Publisher name
Brepols
Place of publication
Turnhout
UT code for WoS chapter
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