Brass bolts protrude from the doors lining the narrow alleyways in Zanzibar's enticing Stone Town. The story has it that the idea migrated from India where the local populace used them to ward off elephants that would topple doors with their immense weight. The Omani people who ruled over Zanzibar for centuries took this idea and turned it into an ornamentation for their already elaborately carved doors... Rather than ward creatures off, they draw tourists like flies, attracted to the magnificent workmanship wrought in the brass and surrounding etchings...
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