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All that remains today of Gede’s 12th century Swahili town are grey piled ruins of coral stone buildings, dried up wells, mosques and adorned graves, under a canopy of baobabs and dense vegetation that’s part of the Arabuko Sokoke forest. Yet these greyed Gede Ruins have a tangled, mystic history.
The way the city was intricately planned and built makes Gede one of the earliest cradles of civilisation in Africa. The town’s 2500 to 3000 inhabitants were of the Swahili tribe whose origins were Persia, Syria and Oman.
The town’s inner and outer walls protected the Swahili from wild animals and the ravenous Zimba tribe of cannibals.“The Zimba race is now extinct thank god” said Ali Hassan Mwarora the Gede Museum Education Officer.
And within lived a seasoned class society of predominantly middle class Swahili, the most affluent living within the innermost walls. Beyond the outer walls lived a surrounding community of poorer peasants.
The richest houses were built of Coral stones, red earth, dry coconut leaves, and mangroves, into sturdy durable houses the ruins of which still exist today. “Due to Gede ruins resilience some builders are now using coral to build,” explains Mwarora.
But behind the stones lies a complex history, much of which has been reconstructed from Arabic inscriptions found on the ruins, many of them on the Dated Tomb dating from 820AH to 1399 AD right at the ruins’ entry.
Each ruin also has labels explaining what was unearthed there, such as: house of the porcelain bowls, house of the Venetian bead, house of the conduit, house of the iron lamp, house of the Chinese cash, house of the cowries, house of china, house of the sunken court. The findings have been used to understand the Swahili’s trade and culturally. “The artifacts are likely indicators that they traded with the outside world” said Mwarora. The trading countries included China, Egypt and Iran.
The town was built to the Islamic tenets the the Swahili practised, with 8 mosques discovered so far. For the affluent and rulers, houses reflected a rich 12th century lifestyle. They had servant’s quarters, strong rooms for valuables, and indoor drop down toilets, cisterns, and courts for reception, women, audience and altars. There were also communal amenities like wells, toilets and tubs for washing before worshiping in a mosque. The walls were painted white to reduce the sun heat intensity.
Yet perhaps the greatest mystery has been Gede’s near annihilation and abandonment. Four theories have been fronted. The first was that the Portuguese arrived in Malindi in the 1500’s under Nuna Da Cunha intending to have a trade monopoly along the coast of Mombasa. This led to war with the people of Mombasa who collectively attacked and killed Gede residents whom they thought had collaborated with the Portuguese to attack them, which was probably not the case. In fact, fellow Portuguese adventurer Vasco Da Gama had been rejected in Mombasa, but welcomed in Malindi, which is close to Gede.
The second theory is that the water used in Gede lost its taste, turned salty and consequently the Swahili left.
The third theory is that the Portuguese brought with them plague that wiped out Gede’s Swahili residents an left others to escape.
A final possibility is that the Oromo-Galla nomads in 16th Century realised Gede was endowed and self sufficient so they attacked the Swahili and made it their own. In fact the name Gedi/Gede in Oromo dialect means precious.
The museum educator Mwarora also has a fifth idea. “I feel it’s likely the Swahili residents died of cholera, which was undiscovered then” he said, noting the close proximity of wells and the latrines that might have led to well waters being polluted by the latrines.
However it happened, by the 17th century Gedi was deserted, and was left untouched by locals. It wasn’t until 1884 that Sir John Clarke visited what was dubbed the forgotten land.
In 1927, Gede was gazetted as a historical monument by the colonial government and in 1939 the public works ministry was commissioned to renovate the crumbling walls.
According to Mwarora, care is taken to conserve the ruins as they originally existed, with visitors roundly scolded if they start climbing and clambering over the ruins’ wall.
Gedi was later declared a royal national park, with James Kirkman appointed a warden, and excavations were begun on the site, which was placed under the jurisdiction of Museums of Kenya in 1969.
The excavations continue. In 1998, a French Archaeologist Stephan Pradine dug out a 15th Century wall. In 2002, a mosque dating from the 12th century was discovered.
And various tomb ruins illustrate the status people held in the community, with the tomb of the fluted pillar speculated to be where the Imam of the mosque was buried.
Yearly, Gede attracts some 37,000 visitors who also come to see the rare spotted ground thrush bird that migrates to and from the Usambara Mountains in Tanzania.
The ruins are located some 110km north of Mombasa on Malindi Road.
Written By James Karuga for African Laughter
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