One of Rio de Janeiro’s most degraded areas is located, contradictorily, inside one of the most historically important areas of the city: the Port Area. Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016, a unique opportunity that the city received, is changing the region. And not only that: during the excavation for the revitalisation work, various objects of great historical and archaeological value were found, culminating in the creation of the Historical and Archaeological Circuit of African Heritage Celebration.

Monitored by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan in Portuguese) and under Tania Andrade Lima’s coordination, archaeologist of the National Museum of Brazil/UFRJ, the excavations revealed the existence of hundreds of objects, the majority related to African culture, that belonged to the ruling classes as well as to slaves.

“We were already aware of Quay of Valongo’s existence. The big surprise was to find it so well preserved. Thousands of Black people from different African ethnic groups passed through it. What we had before, about Black slave culture, was comprised of pieces which already carried great White cultural influences. The Quay’s rediscovery brought genuinely Black artefacts that reshape the History of African Diaspora and Slavery, through its materiality”, Tania said.

According to the archaeologist, there is no other enslaved Africans disembarkation site in the Americas with the same characteristics as Valongo: this finding transcends the History of Brazil, as it recalls a painful period of mankind’s path which shall never repeat itself. Valongo is a site for reflections on racism and its consequences, but also for the celebration of the extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity the Africans brought to our country and which turned into an important part of our identity as a people”.

The Hanging Gardens of Valongo is part of the Historical and Archaeological Circuit of African Heritage Celebration (Photo: Divulgação/Porto Maravilha)

Religious objects, Eshu images, adornments such as piassava rings, necklaces and crucifixes, pipes, horns, hundreds of split seashells, coconuts, crystals, bones, pots, china… Tania Lima calls the Quay a “Heritage of People of African Descent”, an archaeological site of extreme historical, urbanistic, economic and cultural importance for the city of Rio de Janeiro and the history of its society.

The group of archaeologists’ field stage took place between January 2011 and September 2012, but the work’s laboratory stage is still going on. Once found, the pieces went through a cleaning, cataloguing and analysis process. After all the registration process, the pieces will be sent to a place yet to be defined. In the vicinity of São Francisco da Prainha Square were also found five 17th century canons. “They are the oldest in Rio de Janeiro, dating from the time of the French Invasions, around 1710”, she explained.

So important were the findings that the Quay is a strong candidate to receive the title of World Heritage Site. Ports of exit for slave ships in Gorée Island, in front of Dakar, capital of Senegal, and Mindelo, in Cape Verde, are recognised as World Heritage Sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

With the coordination of the Under-secretariat of Heritage, the City Hall created an itinerary that highlights the set of important sites for Afro-Brazilian culture including the Quay of Valongo, the Hanging Gardens of Valongo, the Pedra do Sal (Salt Rock),the Largo do Depósito (Warehouse Square), the Instituto Pretos Novos (New Blacks Institute) and the José Bonifácio Cultural Centre.

Map of the Historical and Archaeological Circuit of African Heritage Celebration (Art: Porto Maravilha)

Port of Rio History

Saveiros (a kind of boat) were used for the shipment of goods abroad as well as to other Brazilian states by sea. They docked at wooden bridges called piers or quays. From 1779 until 1831, around 500 thousand enslaved Africans disembarked in Brazil at the Quay of Valongo, in a region that comprised the Saúde and Gamboa neighbourhoods. In 1871, with the construction of the Doca da Alfândega (Customs Docks), there was the start of the first projects for the development of Rio’s Port, which at the time operated with scattered venues.

In 1903, the first stage in Rio de Janeiro’s Port modernization started and it was officially inaugurated on 20th July 1910. The Jornal do Brasil published: “Of the various works carried out, the one inaugurated today is among the most important and represents the desire of the population, that only after long years finally came true… Those who pass along the stretch of the Quay which is ready, in the Mangue area of the city, feel surprised and even proud of the extraordinary transformation now present at the Port of Rio de Janeiro”. Today, the port is one of the country’s busiest regarding the value of goods and the tonnage. Iron ore, manganese, coal, wheat, gas and oil are the main products shipped.