Scienceblogtwo

According to scientists from the University of Exeter, soldiers on patrol guarding the sea are responsible for the historic graffiti of ships cut into an African fort. The mid- to late nineteenth-century engravings, which were discovered in Tanzania's Zanzibar archipelago, provide a window into the ships that plied the western Indian Ocean at the time. They were created during a time when the region served as the southernmost point of an oceanic trading network that relied on monsoon winds. Along the length of the waterfront, just outside Stone Town's Old Fort, or Gereza, ships anchored, beached, and unloaded their cargoes. The photos, though occasionally hazy, imply a variety of ship designs, including a European-style frigate or frigate-built vessel as well as a number of settee-rigged ocean going ships frequently referred to as "dhows." Some of them appear to have transom sterns, suggesting certain ship types like the baghla, ghanja, sanbq, or kotia. The prows of t...