Stone Town ( Portuguese : Cidade de Pedra ) is a town situated towards the northern end of the Island of Mozambique .
5-538: The Fort of São Sebastião lies at the northern end of Stone Town on the Island of Mozambique . It is the oldest complete fort still standing in sub-Saharan Africa . Construction by the Portuguese began in 1558, and it took about fifty years to complete. Immediately beyond the fort is the recently restored Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte , built in 1522, which is considered to be the oldest European building in
10-593: A distinction it held until 1898, when Lourenço Marques (now Maputo ) became the capital. Within Stone Town, the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte and the Fort São Sebastião are two notable old buildings. Between 2010 and 2015, Stone Town's neglected buildings and faded grandeur had been turned around with infrastructure improvements and building restorations. This Mozambique location article
15-445: A permanent record that can be used for research, education, restoration, and conservation. This Mozambique location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Stone Town, Mozambique Pottery found on Mozambique Island indicates that the original town was founded no later than the fourteenth century. According to tradition, the original Swahili population came from Kilwa. The town's rulers had links with
20-434: The rulers of both Angoche and Quelimane by the fifteenth century. In 1514, Duarte Barbosa noted that the town had a Muslim population and that they spoke the same Swahili dialect as Angoche. Portugal established a trading fort in 1507. It was an important staging post on the maritime journey between Portugal and India . The Portuguese settlement (later known as Stone Town) was the capital of Portuguese East Africa ,
25-663: The southern hemisphere. It is also one of the best examples of Manueline vaulted architecture in Mozambique . In 2013, the Zamani Project documented Fort of São Sebastião with terrestrial 3D laser scanning . The non-profit research group from the University of Cape Town (South Africa) specialises in 3D digital documentation of tangible cultural heritage . The data generated by the Zamani Project creates
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