Picturing the PastChinese Porcelain Plates Embedded in an eighteenth-century Kunduchi pillar tomb, these Chinese plates testify to the enormous Asian-African trade that flourished in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Kunduchi, whose ruins lie north of Dar es Salaam in present-day Tanzania, was one of the Swahili city-states. (Werner Forman Archive/The Bridgeman Art Library)ANALYZING THE IMAGE How many Chinese plates can you identify? What features identify this as a tomb?CONNECTIONS Why would a Muslim African want a Chinese plate embedded in his tomb? What does this suggest about his status, occupation, and wealth?