Dinosaurs of Tendaguru (original title in Swahili: Dinosaria wa Tendaguru) is a Tanzanian booklet for young readers on natural history, focussing on the discovery and subsequent excavations of dinosaur fossils at Tendaguru hill in Lindi Region of South Eastern Tanzania. It was written in the country’s national language Swahili by Tanzanian authors Cassian Magori and Charles Saanane, with illustrations by the German graphic artist Thomas Thiemeyer. This book was published in 1998 with the support of the Goethe-Institut in Dar es Salaam, the local branch of the German cultural institute, by E&D Vision Publishing, Tanzania. [1]
Through its illustrations and a partially fictional story, the book tells the story of dinosaurs that lived approximately 150 million years ago in East Africa. Their skeletons were excavated between 1906 and 1913 in the former colony of German East Africa and until today represent the most important excavations of dinosaur fossils found in Africa. As the book is directed towards young readers in Tanzania, the authors invented a partially new narrative to set the story of the discovery, the subsequent excavations, and the scientific knowledge about natural history and the life of dinosaurs into a contemporary Tanzanian perspective. For the first time, this book presented thorough information about the excavations and the reconstructed skeletons of the dinosaurs that are exhibited in the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, Germany, to Tanzanian readers in their own language. [2]
During several years, and under supervision of German natural scientists, 230 tons of excavation material containing fossil bones and other remnants of life 150 million years ago were packed into wooden boxes by African workers and carried to the nearby port of Lindi. From the excavation site at the Tendaguru Formation, they were shipped to Hamburg and, finally, to Berlin. Subsequently, scientists at the museum in Berlin reconstructed several skeletons of different dinosaur species, making the fossils of the Tendaguru formation one of the world’s most important collections for ongoing research. The exhibition’s highlight is an almost 14-metre-high skeleton of the species Giraffatitan, the largest dinosaur skeleton on display in the world.
Along with presenting scientific knowledge about the existence and environment of the dinosaurs, the presumed reasons for their extinction, and their classification into different species, the story of their discovery is here presented in a different way than in the historical German sources. [3] Whereas the German excavation reports claim that the fossils were first found by a German mining engineer who was surveying the region of Tendaguru, the Tanzanian book attributes this discovery to a local farmer, a wise old man called Mzee Buheti, who by means of magical herbs supplied by his wife Mama Msomoe, is able to travel through time and space guided by a spirit. On one of his travels back millions of years, he comes across huge animals in the region of the Tendaguru hills. Upon his return through the millennia, he witnesses environmental changes that eventually lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs. By means of a time line reaching from the beginning of our universe to the present and showing pictures of different species, the reader is presented with short scientific information about the evolution of the dinosaurs and other species. By choosing the name of Buheti for their protagonist the authors referred to the historical Boheti bin Amrani who was the local "chief supervisor" (Oberaufseher) of more than 100 African workers involved in the excavations [4] When in 1906, the German engineer Bernhard Sattler is surveying the region, it is Mzee Buheti who shows him the place where the fossils were found, thus prompting the excavations and their scientific exploration. [5]
In order to present an adequate visual idea of the dinosaurs and their environment, Thomas Thiemeyer, a German illustrator specializing in this subject, created colour plates for both the presumed living conditions and the extinction of dinosaurs, and for the fictitious story of their discovery, told from a contemporary Tanzanian perspective. The text in Swahili was jointly written by the palaeontologist Charles Sanaane and the natural historian Cassian Magori of the University of Dar es Salaam, and edited for young readers by literary writer Bernard Mapalala.
As scientific research and presentations for the general public of these excavations had usually been published in German or English, very few Tanzanians knew about the existence and history of the fossils from Tendaguru before this book was published. Although the international discussion and demands for cultural cooperation and restitution of African cultural heritage from museums in Europe [6] [7] have become more prominent especially since the 2010s, Tanzania does not possess any biological specimens from Tendaguru, sufficient personal resources nor infrastructure to present dinosaur fossils in an adequate way. In order to make this important historical information accessible to a general local audience, the Goethe-Institut in Dar es Salaam suggested the story of the Tendaguru dinosaurs to the publishers of the book in 1998. [8] - According to Elieshi Lema of E&D Vision Publishing, 4000 copies were produced with the financial help of a sponsor and distributed free of charge to Tanzanian secondary schools. In Kenya, the booklet was also approved as instructional material for primary schools and teacher training colleges. [9] It has since been out of print, but copies exist in libraries in Sweden, Japan and in the United States. [1]
In 2009, paleontologist Gerhard Maier mentioned the booklet in his comprehensive study on the history of the excavations African Dinosaurs Unearthed: The Tendaguru Expeditions. [10] He commented on the effect of this booklet as "a most welcome outcome (...) was the popularization of Tendaguru for the people of Tanzania." [2]
In 2022, Dinosaria wa Tendaguru was mentioned in the report "Reclaiming restitution" by Open Restitution Africa, an Africa-led heritage project that referred to the Tendaguru fossils as a case study for the discussion on restitution of African cultural heritage. [11]
Kentrosaurus is a genus of stegosaurid dinosaur from the Late Jurassic in Lindi Region of Tanzania. The type species is K. aethiopicus, named and described by German palaeontologist Edwin Hennig in 1915. Often thought to be a "primitive" member of the Stegosauria, several recent cladistic analyses find it as more derived than many other stegosaurs, and a close relative of Stegosaurus from the North American Morrison Formation within the Stegosauridae.
The Natural History Museum is a natural history museum located in Berlin, Germany. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history and in such domain it is one of three major museums in Germany alongside Naturmuseum Senckenberg in Frankfurt and Museum Koenig in Bonn.
Following Tanganyika's independence (1961) and unification with Zanzibar (1964), leading to the formation of the state of Tanzania, President Julius Nyerere emphasised a need to construct a national identity for the citizens of the new country. To achieve this, Nyerere provided what has been regarded by some commentators as one of the most successful cases of ethnic repression and identity transformation in Africa.
Giraffatitan is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived during the late Jurassic Period in what is now Lindi Region, Tanzania. Only one species is known, G. brancai, named in honor of German paleontologist Wilhelm von Branca, who was a driving force behind the expedition that discovered it in the Tendaguru Formation. Giraffatitan brancai was originally described by German paleontologist Werner Janensch as a species of the North American sauropod Brachiosaurus from the Morrison Formation, as Brachiosaurus brancai. Recent research shows that the differences between the type species of Brachiosaurus and the Tendaguru material are so large that the African material should be placed in a separate genus.
Janenschia is a large herbivorous sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Tendaguru Formation of Lindi Region, Tanzania around 155 million years ago.
Lindi District also known as Mtama District is one of six administrative districts of Lindi Region in Tanzania. The District covers an area of 5,975 km2 (2,307 sq mi). Kilwa district is bordered to the north by Kilwa District, to the east by the Indian Ocean and Lindi Municipal District, to the south by the Mtwara Region, and to the west by the Nachingwea District. The district seat (capital) is the town and ward of Mtama. The district is known for the Tendaguru Formation, the richest Late Jurassic strata of fossils in Africa. According to the 2012 census, the district has a total population of 191,143.
Dysalotosaurus is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It was a dryosaurid iguanodontian, and its fossils have been found in late Kimmeridgian-age rocks of the Tendaguru Formation of Lindi Region in Tanzania. The type and only species of the genus is D. lettowvorbecki. This species was named by Hans Virchow in 1919 in honor of the Imperial German Army Officer, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. For much of the 20th century the species was referred to the related and approximately contemporary genus Dryosaurus, but newer studies reject this synonymy.
Tendaguria is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of Lindi Region, Tanzania.
The Tendaguru Formation, or Tendaguru Beds are a highly fossiliferous formation and Lagerstätte located in the Lindi Region of southeastern Tanzania. The formation represents the oldest sedimentary unit of the Mandawa Basin, overlying Neoproterozoic basement, separated by a long hiatus and unconformity. It reaches a total sedimentary thickness of more than 110 metres (360 ft). The formation ranges in age from the late Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous, Oxfordian to Hauterivian stages, with the base of the formation possibly extending into the Callovian.
Australodocus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived during the Late Jurassic period, around 150 million years ago, in what is now Lindi Region, Tanzania. Though initially considered a diplodocid, recent analyses suggest it may instead be a titanosauriform.
Werner Ernst Martin Janensch was a German paleontologist and geologist.
Thomas Thiemeyer is a German illustrator and author of fantasy novels. Since 2018, he also has published crime stories set in Corsica under the pen name Vitu Falconi.
Gustav Tornier was a German zoologist and herpetologist.
Thomas Spreiter, OSB was a German missionary, one of the first of the Missionary Benedictines, who worked in German East Africa and later South Africa. He was the ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dar-es-Salaam in German East Africa, and bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Natal and of the Vicariate of Eshowe.
Hans Gottfried Reck was a German volcanologist and paleontologist. In 1913 he was the first to discover an ancient skeleton of a human in the Olduvai Gorge, in what is now Tanzania. He collaborated with Louis Leakey in a return expedition to the site in 1931.
Ostafrikasaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period of what is now Lindi Region, Tanzania. It is known only from fossil teeth discovered sometime between 1909 and 1912, during an expedition to the Tendaguru Formation by the Natural History Museum of Berlin. Eight teeth were originally attributed to the dubious dinosaur genus Labrosaurus, and later to Ceratosaurus, both known from the North American Morrison Formation. Subsequent studies attributed two of these teeth to a spinosaurid dinosaur, and in 2012, Ostafrikasaurus crassiserratus was named by French palaeontologist Eric Buffetaut, with one tooth as the holotype, and the other referred to the same species. The generic name comes from the German word for German East Africa, the former name of the colony in which the fossils were found, while the specific name comes from the Latin words for "thick" and "serrated", in reference to the form of the animal's teeth.
Up to the second half of the 20th century, Tanzanian literature was primarily oral. Major oral literary forms include folktales, poems, riddles, proverbs, and songs. The majority of the oral literature in Tanzania that has been recorded is in Swahili, though each of the country's languages has its own oral tradition. The country's oral literature is currently declining because of social changes that make transmission of oral literature more difficult and because of the devaluation of oral literature that has accompanied Tanzania's development. Tanzania's written literary tradition has produced relatively few writers and works; Tanzania does not have a strong reading culture, and books are often expensive and hard to come by. Most Tanzanian literature is orally performed or written in Swahili, and a smaller number of works have been published in English. Major figures in Tanzanian modern literature include Shaaban Robert, Muhammed Said Abdulla, Aniceti Kitereza, Ebrahim Hussein, Abdulrazak Gurnah and Penina Muhando.
Elieshi Lema is a Tanzanian writer and publisher, also active in Tanzania's civil society.
Wamweracaudia is a large herbivorous sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Tendaguru Formation of Tanzania, Africa, 155-145 million years ago.
Boheti bin Amrani was a Tanzanian farmer. In 1909 he served first as a guide, and then the chief supervisor and preparator for the 1909–1913 German Tendaguru Expedition. A sauropod dinosaur, Australodocus bohetii, was named after him in 2007.