Manhole cover

The manhole cover from Stone Town, the main city on the island Zanzibar, is inscribed with the logo of the local city architect responsible for refurbishing the historical city center. In 2000 the historical Stone Town was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List because of its unique mixture of African, Arab, European, and Indian culture and architecture, developed over a period of a thousand years. The logo features Beit-el-Ajaib or “House of Wonders”, a central building on the waterfront erected in 1883 as a palace for Zanzibar’s second sultan, Bargash bin Sahid. The name “House of Wonders” is a direct reference to its remarkable architecture, as well as the fact that it was the first building with electricity in all of southern Africa.