Cobbling Material Memory: Kings, Gods, and Shrines in an Old Kingdom with Active Roots – Kanazi Palace, NW Tanzania

Summary

This is an abstract from the "African Archaeology throughout the Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the last decade, heritage research in Kagera Region of NW Tanzania has responded to community-driven initiatives focused on preservation, tourism, and museum development. This attention to heritage-related programs has fostered several projects that continue to enhance our understanding of appropriate methods for preserving local and regional histories in African contexts, including the challenge of working in settings where projects expand and contract as trust between researchers and informants develop. Recent work at Kanazi Palace — an edifice built by the German colonial government in 1905 for local kings (bakama) of Kihanja kingdom — illustrates how trust, coupled with generational change, can transform an ongoing project. A multi-functional site, Kanazi Palace currently functions as a residence, active shrine complex, and historic museum dedicated to archaeological research conducted on the site in 2011 and 2012. This paper summarizes recent developments at the palace while outlying future plans aimed towards linking its heritage component to the kingdom's spiritual center in Kaibanja, approximately 20 kilometers east near Lake Ikimba.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African Archaeology throughout the Holocene   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23512