Plano de valorizacão do património urbano da Ilha de Moçambique

Abstract

The Island of Mozambique, first inhabited by speakers of Bantu languages around the year 200 AD and included in the navigation routes of the Indian Ocean since the first millennium, the Island experienced periods of disputes over hegemony due to its strategic importance involving Arab groups between the centuries VIII and XVI, followed by the Europeans (Portugal) and Dutch in the 15th and 17th centuries, and Indians in the 18th and 19th centuries, in addition, also highlighted by the slave trade. The island has therefore become an intercultural melting pot in which heritage elements of human values are expressed in the material heritage of the urban landscape and in the intangible heritage associated with the Island. The Island is a single body, an urban continuum, divided into two urban systems, Cidade de Pedra e Cal and Cidade de Macuti. The Island of Mozambique was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in December 1991, in response to the proposal of the Government of Mozambique in the context of valuing and preserving the mosaic, which has been displayed since secular times. However, the city's heritage is in a state of manipulation and devaluation and it is in this context that the plan emerges which aims to enhance the urban heritage of the Island of Mozambique