The doorways of Stone Town, Zanzibar
Stone Town, Zanzibar’s capital, is arguably most famous for its iconic wooden doorways. Often they are the only thing left standing when the buildings they belong to collapse, which an alarming number have.
Stone Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, however, due to a lack of funding and perhaps political will, tragically, much of its architectural heritage has crumbled away.
The doorways, many of which do remain, blend African styles with Indian and Arabic designs brought to the island by traders and migrants over the centuries.
The brass knobs that protrude from many of them hark back to those found on doorways ten times the size in India.
On those doors, the knobs were intended to deter war elephants from ramming the doors of its great forts.
In Zanzibar, however, they are purely decorative. No elephants there.
