Editing Rhapta (section)

==Location==
[[G.W.B. Huntingford]] lists five proposed locations for Rhapta:
* [[Tanga, Tanzania|Tanga]], at the mouth of the [[Mkulumuzi river|Mkulumuzi]] and [[Sigi River]]s
* [[Pangani]], at the mouth of the [[Pangani River|Ruvu River]]
* [[Msasani]], three miles north of [[Dar es Salaam]]—or Dar es Salaam itself
* [[Kisuyu]]
* Somewhere in the [[Rufiji River]] delta, opposite [[Mafia Island]].

Huntingford dismisses the first two as being too close to [[Zanzibar]] and [[Pemba Island|Pemba]] islands (which he identifies with Menouthis, and follows the author of the ''Periplus'' in locating Menouthis north of Rhapta). He observes that there is no river at Msasani, and thus concludes Kisuyu or the Rufiji delta are the most likely candidates. However, J. Innes Miller points out that [[Roman Empire|Roman]] coins have been found on Pemba; that the Ruvu emerges near the [[Mount Kilimanjaro|Kilimanjaro]] and [[Mount Meru (Tanzania)|Meru]] mountains—which confirm the account of Diogenes; and that an old inscription in [[Semitic language|Semitic]] characters has been found near the [[Pangani]] estuary, which make Pemba a likely candidate for Rhapta.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}} However, the first evidence of inhabitation starts solely in the seventh century at a site called [[Tumbe]] on the northern end of the island,<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Fleisher|first1=Jeffery|last2=LaViolette|first2=Adria|title=The early Swahili trade village of Tumbe, Pemba Island, Tanzania, AD 600-950|journal=Antiquity|volume=87}}</ref> limpidly contradicting these assertions. Furthermore, John Perkins states this: "Some Roman, Byzantine, and Sasanian coins are reported from the East African coast; however, none of these come from excavations, and the surrounding evidence suggests that they probably did not reach the Swahili Coast in antiquity. Evidence for contacts and trade between this part of Africa and the Roman and Persian worlds is mainly recorded in the limited written records."<ref>Perkins, John, "The Indian Ocean and Swahili coins, international networks and local developments" in ''Afriques'', 2015</ref>

In recent years, professor [[Felix A. Chami|Felix Chami]] has found archaeological evidence for extensive Roman trade on Mafia Island and, not far away, on the mainland, near the mouth of the Rufiji River, which he dated to the first few centuries CE.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Chami |first=Felix A. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/200009 |title=Roman Beads from the Rufiji Delta, Tanzania: First Incontrovertible Archaeological Link with the Periplus |journal=[[Current Anthropology]] |pages=237–242 |volume=40 |issue=2 |date=1999  |doi=10.1086/200009|jstor=10.1086/200009 |s2cid=143050537 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>