Rhapta () was an emporion said to be on the coast of Southeast Africa, first described in the 1st century CE. Its location has not been firmly identified, although there are a number of plausible candidate sites. The ancient Periplus of the Erythraean Sea described Rhapta as "the last emporion of Azania", two days' travel south of the Menouthias islands (Chapter 16). The Periplus also states that the city and port were ruled by South Arabian vassals of the Himyarite kingdom, particularly a certain “ Mapharitic chieftain.” According to Claudius Ptolemy, Diogenes, a merchant in the Indian trade, was blown off course from his usual route from India, and after travelling 25 days south along the coast of Africa arrived at Rhapta, located where the river of the same name enters the Indian Ocean opposite the island of Menouthias. Diogenes further describes this river as having its source near the Mountains of the Moon, near the swamp whence the Nile was said to also have its source. Ptolemy also mentions another Greek captain, called Theophilos, who took twenty days to travel from the Horn of Africa to Rhapta. Rhapta is also mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium and Cosmas Indicopleustes. Stephanus of Byzantium and Ptolemy write that Rhapta was a metropolis of Barbaria (). Name It was named Rhapta (meaning sewn in Greek), due to the sewed boats (ῥαπτῶν πλοιαρίων) which were used there. Location G.W.B. Huntingford lists five proposed locations for Rhapta: Tanga, at the mouth of the Mkulumuzi and Sigi Rivers Pangani, at the mouth of the Ruvu river Msasani, three miles north of Dar es Salaam—or Dar es Salaam itself Kisuyu Somewhere in the Rufiji River delta, opposite Mafia Island. Huntingford dismisses the first two as being too close to Zanzibar and Pemba islands (which he identifies with Menouthis, and follows the author of the Periplus in locating Menouthis north of Rhapta). He observes that there is no river at Msasani, and thus concludes Kisuyu or the Rufiji delta are the most likely candidates. However, J. Innes Miller points out that Roman coins have been found on Pemba; that the Ruvu emerges near the Kilimanjaro and Meru mountains—which confirm the account of Diogenes; and that an old inscription in Semitic characters has been found near the Pangani estuary, which make Pemba a likely candidate for Rhapta. However, the first evidence of inhabitation starts solely in the seventh century