Lamu Old Town in Kenya is acknowledged as the cradle of Swahili civilisation, albeit more famous as a 14th-century trading port of choice for seafaring Omani merchants who would ride the monsoon winds to the East African coast.
Its coral stone buildings and narrow alleys preserve the story of an indigenous African culture that absorbed influences from across the Indian Ocean to create something unique.
In 2001, UNESCO designated Lamu as a World Heritage Site, calling it a place of "outstanding value to humanity".
So, when historians and cultural experts entered the newly renovated Lamu Museum in 2023, they expected to find this story better told than ever.
Instead, they found seven new galleries celebrating Omani history and culture in the museum's prime spaces.
A pair of ceremonial Siwa horns, voted Sub-Saharan Africa's most treasured artefact, had been relocated from the naturally lit first floor to the ground section to accommodate displays of Omani clothing.
A replica of the Mtepe dhow, constructed using traditional wood chips and wedges instead of nails, now sits on the floor in a corner of the display. Above it, a large Omani ship model dominates the maritime room.
Exhibits on indigenous communities that used to be part of the old museum were no longer there.
Lost in translation
The US $200,000 renovation project, funded by the Sultanate of Oman in partnership with UNESCO and the Kenyan government, was meant to restore the crumbling building and refresh the displays as part of a larger heritage canvas spanning all countries where Omani traders historically operated and even settled.
Besides Kenya, similar projects were undertaken in Tanzania, Comoros, Mozambique and Somalia.
"The museum hasn't had a major facelift since maybe the 80s, when most of its existing exhibits were put in place," Mohammed Mwenje, curator of the Lamu Museum, told local media in 2021.
The brief was to remove and recast the dilapidated plaster, repair the leaking roof, and improve the preservation and display of the exhibits.
The National Museums of Kenya had a precedent for being optimistic about the outcome.
"The renovation done at Fort Jesus had left us confident with what they were going to do in Lamu... Anywhere where there was relevant Omani history, they would fill in the gaps. Where there was Lamu history, it would be better presented," says a museum official on condition of anonymity.
The Omani National Records and Archives Authority, in coordination with the embassy of the Sultanate of Oman in Nairobi, installed seven permanent exhibitions – "Oman through the Ages", "Omani Marine Heritage: People and Community", "Omani Maritime Heritage", "Sultans of the Al Busaidi Dynasty in East Africa", "Sultan Qaboos bin Said (1390-1441 AH 1970-2020 AD)", "Modern Oman", and "Omani Presence in East Africa".
Vanishing heritage
"We went around the region collecting and selecting material that emphasises the indigenous culture of Lamu," Omar Bwana, the only surviving member of the team that established the museum in 1970, tells TRT Afrika.
"The museum and its exhibits were meticulously designed to highlight the local communities in the region."
Three indigenous communities – the Pokomo, Orma and Boni – are no longer represented in the museum. The hall displaying portraits of Omani Sultans previously housed an extensive Pokomo ethnographic collection.
"We are not short of prominent people who could have featured in those sections," notes a Swahili cultural historian, who doesn’t want to be named.
"There were numerous prominent indigenous people who could be featured in the museum. They could have featured Zahid Mngumi, Bwana Mataka of Siyu, Fumo Luto of Witu and Mwana Kupona."
Tale of two standards
The museum's first floor offers natural light, a waft of the sea breeze and access to a balcony, which exhibition curator Mohammed Hasan calls "ideal for exhibitions, compared to the ground floor".
This floor now houses exclusively Omani exhibits.
The remaining indigenous displays occupy the darker ground floor. Their labels remain on oxidised laminated paper, while Omani exhibits feature new signage in English, Swahili and Arabic.
The galleries display a 3D model of the 2007 Omani Opera House, photographs of Omani schoolchildren and other portraits. There is no equivalent representation of local figures or contemporary Lamu life.
"The maritime exhibits on the first floor were completely removed. I just put back one or two things... But we have a lot of maritime exhibits; in fact, we do not have enough space because the maritime gallery used to take up an entire hall," says Mohammed Ali, the collections manager.
"We should not have such artefacts in storage; they should be on display so that they are seen."
Kenya's cultural institutions operate under severe financial constraints. According to a 2024 Wall Street Journal report, the government allocates funds only for National Museums of Kenya staff salaries, leaving the institution dependent on ticket sales and external funding.
"While fundraising for cultural heritage is necessary, we need greater scrutiny and transparency around the terms of funding agreements," says Chao Tayiana, founder of African Digital Heritage.
Mzalendo Kibunjia, who was arrested in 2024 on corruption charges, was the director general of the National Museums of Kenya when the renovations took place.
Museum staff have filed formal complaints about managing this priceless repository of Swahili heritage.
"I have submitted a written complaint about adherence to protocol within the museum," says collections manager Ali, who has been working to restore indigenous exhibits within spatial and bureaucratic constraints.
A 2024 visit by the Omani Embassy officials to Lamu museum has raised hopes for a correction of what some scholars call "colonial-era misconceptions" and misplaced "attempts to conflate Swahili and Arab identities".
Early missionaries and scholars, including Edward Steere and John Knappert, had classified the Swahili people as "half-castes" rather than indigenous Africans. Although researchers like Shihabuddin Chiraghdhin, Alamin Mazrui, Derek Nurse and James De Vere Allen later established the Swahili as a Bantu people who incorporated outside influences, misconceived notions persist.
Not surprisingly, for a museum established to preserve East Africa's oldest living Swahili settlement's heritage, one question remains unanswered: Whose story gets told, and who decides?
