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The Lamu Museum

The Lamu Museum

The Lamu Museum is the flagship of the five museums and resource centers in Lamu Old Town. The Lamu Museum established in the 1960s constitutes one of the largest and most authentic Swahili ethnographic collections on the East African coast assembled from numerous researchers and enthusiasts from the early 1900s. The artefacts represent different facets of Swahili cultural heritage and include items of clothing, jewellery, furniture, manuscripts, amulets, musical instruments, maritime and dhow materials, archaeological finds, among a wide array of household and technical tools and implements.

These artefacts have been collected from the numerous traditional Swahili settlements within the Lamu archipelago and collectively represent the identity of the northern Swahili cultural landscape of Eastern Africa. Locals from within the archipelago are regular visitors to the museum and are able to accurately and using authentic illustrations from the collections give a narration of their cultural heritage to their children. The artefacts are also an important reference for the numerous scholars and researchers studying the cultural heritage of the Lamu archipelago.

CategoriesTour By Admin

Jumba la Mutwana Ruins

Jumba la Mutwana Ruins

Jumba la Mtwana was opened to the public in 1973 and was gazetted as a national monument in 1982. It is located approximately 20km (15km north of Mombasa, 3km off the Mombasa-Malindi road.

The site represents the remains of a 14th century Swahili settlement which was occupied for about one century before abandonment. While the name literally means  “large house of the slave”, there is neither historical nor archaeological evidence that suggests that this may have been the case. There are no historical records on the settlement, as a result what is known has been deduced from the ruins which were excavated by James Kirkman in 1972. The settlement was likely built around 1350, inhabited and then abandoned a century later. It is not certain whether ‘Jumba la Mtwana’ was the settlement’s name at the time of occupation. However, one thing that is certain is that the inhabitants were Muslim evidenced by the ruins of 4 mosques, washing platform and water cisterns.

There are ruins (old coral stone walls) of 4 mosques, 4 domestic houses and a tomb which have survived in recognizable condition situated among huge baobab trees on grassy slopes that descend to the sea. This ancient ruins provide a sense of what life must have been like over six hundred years ago, when it was home to the Swahili fishermen, craftsmen and merchants who traded precious products from the African interior with their maritime trading partners in India and Arabia. Excavations of the site have revealed numerous artefacts including decorated local pottery and shell beads, imported Chinese and Islamic ceramics, and glass beads.