Qualla: Chibuene https://qualla.com/chibuene en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/k/u/1/4/chibuene-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Chibuene https://qualla.com/chibuene Chibuene: Introduction https://qualla.com/chibuene/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Somewhere between 2,800 glass beads collected from a sandy coastal site five kilometers south of Vilanculos lies a mystery that stretches from the Persian Gulf to the Zimbabwe Plateau. The beads were made with plant-ash glass, a technique associated with glassmakers east of the Euphrates, yet shaped using South Asian manufacturing methods. No one can say with certainty where they were made. What is certain is that they ended up here, at Chibuene, the most southerly trading port on the entire Indian Ocean network — a site continuously occupied from roughly AD 600 to AD 1700, where African, Arab, and Asian commerce converged on a stretch of Mozambican shoreline that today looks like nothing more than scrubland above a beach.

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/u/1/4/chibuene-wp/ku14-chibuene-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Chibuene: Shark Hunters and Ocean Traders https://qualla.com/chibuene/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Chibuene's earliest inhabitants were not mere farmers waiting for merchant ships. They fished for sharks and hunted sea turtles — subsistence strategies that archaeologists associate more closely with Swahili coast communities far to the north, near Kenya and Tanzania, than with ...

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/u/1/4/chibuene-wp/ku14-chibuene-shark-hunters-and-ocean-traders.mp3 0:06 2 full Chibuene: Beads That Traveled the World https://qualla.com/chibuene/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. The glass beads are what make Chibuene remarkable in the archaeological record. Between 1995 and 2001, surveys of the lower occupation levels yielded 2,800 beads, most belonging to the Zhizo tradition — a type found at sites across southern Africa. But among them was something ne...

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/u/1/4/chibuene-wp/ku14-chibuene-beads-that-traveled-the-world.mp3 0:06 3 full Chibuene: Under the Influence of Manyikeni https://qualla.com/chibuene/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Around AD 1200, something shifted. The ceramics in Chibuene's upper archaeological layers changed character. Imported glazed pottery disappeared, replaced by styles unmistakably linked to Manyikeni, an inland settlement roughly 160 kilometers to the southwest that had connections...

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/u/1/4/chibuene-wp/ku14-chibuene-under-the-influence-of-manyikeni.mp3 0:06 4 full Chibuene: Drought, Change, and Persistence https://qualla.com/chibuene/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pollen evidence from the nearby lakes of Nhaucati and Xiroche reveals a lengthy drought between 1400 and 1700, peaking around 1700, that transformed the surrounding landscape from forest savanna mosaic to drier woodland. Throughout this climatic upheaval, and despite the decline ...

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]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/u/1/4/chibuene-wp/ku14-chibuene-drought-change-and-persistence.mp3 0:06 5 full