Tongoni Ruins

The Tongoni Ruins are the remains of a 14th-century Shirazi-era town about 17 km south of Tanga — a collection of coral-stone tombs and the foundations of a small mosque, set in a quiet grove of baobab and palm overlooking the Indian Ocean. The cemetery is the most striking feature: forty or so cylindrical pillar-tombs, some surviving to head-height, decorated with shallow geometric carvings and traces of coloured glazed bowls that were once inlaid as ornament.

A caretaker will show you around for a small donation; allow an hour. The site is reached down a rough track off the main road south to Pangani, or by chartered taxi from Tanga. Pair it with a swim at the nearby beach.

things to do sight
A story
When the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama anchored off Tongoni in 1498 on his first voyage to India, the village was already an established Shirazi port — one of a string of small Islamic trading settlements that linked the East African coast to Arabia, Persia, and beyond. The town survived another two centuries of Portuguese trade before disappearing for reasons that are still not entirely clear. By 1700 it was abandoned, the houses crumbling and the cemetery overgrown.