Located in Migori County, south-west Kenya c. 18 km from Lake Victoria, Thimlich Ohinga is a gazetted National Monument, managed by the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2018. The site is dominated by a large complex of four primary, high stone-walled enclosures linked by subsidiary stone walling and stone lines. Test-excavations have been undertaken at the site on at least four separate occasions between 1985 and 2018, exposing the traces of house floors, livestock pens and at least one area of intensive ironworking, yielding large assemblages of pottery and faunal material (dominated by fish and domestic livestock, but with a significant wild component), and diverse small finds including tobacco pipes and glass beads. Available radiocarbon dates, once calibrated, place the occupation of the site between c. 1650 and 1900.
Today, the area around Thimlich Ohinga is inhabited primarily by self-identifying Luo people, whose language—Dholuo—belongs to the Western Nilotic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language phylum.
A view of Thimlich Ohinga complex from above. Source: Google Earth Pro
A stone walled entrance of Thimlich Ohinga
Interior view of Koluoch enclosure after localised fire Feb 2017
Did you know?
‘Thim lich’ means “frightening dense forest” and ‘Ohinga’ means “a large fortress” in Dholuo.
Sources
1. National Museums of Kenya: “Sites and Monuments, Thimlich Ohinga” [Link]
2. UNESCO World Heritage. “Thimlich Ohinga Archaeological Site” [Link]
