Gedi was a thriving city-state, then one day everyone just packed and left.



From the look of things, the people of Gedi woke up one day and left. All 2500 of them. The problem is, we don’t know who they were, and why they left a perfect city behind.

It probably started in the city center, a core of mega-structures separated from the rest of the city by its own wall. Within this inner wall, the Sultan and his nobles packed up all their things and led the way out. They emptied their safes, had their servants and slaves pack everything, and started the journey through the Arabuko Sokoke forest. The middle class living just beyond that inner wall did the same. Then the peasants followed, tugging their meagre possessions, leaving their mud-walled homes in the background.

We don’t even know if they made it to wherever they were going. But we know they were enterprising, organized, rich, and Muslim. That’s pretty much it.

At a time that saw many wars among and for other city states, Gedi was isolated in the middle of a thick coastal forest. Built over 45 acres cut into the forest, it had an outer perimeter wall marketing the edges of the city, and an inner wall protecting an urban core with bigger houses, and an imposing mosque. This inner wall seems to have been built purely to separate the wealthy and powerful from everyone else. While the core was built entirely from coral stones, the homes of the poor outside were mud-thatched houses. So while the coral walls mostly survived, the peasants’ homes all but disappeared.

But there was a masterplan. All the houses are single-storey and built with coral and limestone. At least those ones in the rich areas. Each had a medieval safe in their structure, only accessible through a trapdoor. Even more interesting were the indoor bathrooms with drains, overhead basins for flush toilets.

The urban plan was detailed, with all the streets laid out in a grid pattern complete with a drainage system throughout the core of the city.

From the look of things, business was done in the courtyards. This economy was sustained by trade, fishing, metalworking and pottery production. The currency was cowrie shells, and the wares were pretty much anything they could get their hands on. Archeological finds include a pair of Spanish scissors, an Indian iron lamp, Chinese pottery, and Venetian beds. Hell, there’s even an iron box!

Then twice, once in the 1500s and in the 1700s, the people of this great city simply abandoned it. The second time, no one ever came back.

Save a few more details, that’s about all we know so far about the ancient civilization that built Gedi. Everything else is a theory or an exposition.

The problem starts with the fact that there is no Gedi in available records or even local folklore. No one even knows what the people of Gedi called it, because the few written records available on site are inscriptions on tombs. One simply has the date AH 802 (AD 1399), which means that by then it was big enough to host someone important enough to need such a tomb. Gedi is missing in Portuguese records yet they ruled just 15kms away for a century. It’s not in Swahili records, or Arab ones. The Giriama who have lived near it for centuries left it untouched, believing it was haunted. So, until the 1920s, it stayed that way, subservient only to nature herself.

At least one theory suggests that the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama did mention Gedi as Quelimani, but that place is a seaport further down, in Mozambique, near the Rio dos Bons Sinais (River of Good Signs). For it to be Gedi, there would have had to be a river nearby that dried up.

There is another theory that whoever occupied the city’s position in the 13th century built atop a much older civilization. This would (sort of) explain the choice of location, if only it was supported by evidence and perhaps clear indications why it was a good spot (beyond near an ancient coral reef). Another theory suggests Gedi was in fact once a port city, perhaps early in its life. It would be like the Sumerian city of Ur in Iraq, meaning it got further and further away from the ocean as water levels receded.

That would mean Gedi should in fact be 5,000 years and not 700 years as we’ve always thought. But even if it isn’t that old, the people of Gedi still had access via Mida Creek, which is nearby. The broadwater inlet would have served as a seaport for the people of Gedi, Kirepwe Island and Temple Point.

But if we can’t figure out who built it and why, perhaps we can fare better with why they eventually left after four centuries? Nope. Not at all.

There are very few reasons why a civilization would abandon a city. It could have been a plague, an invasion, receding water levels or a drying up of key resources. But Gedi, unlike many other abandoned Swahili city states, has no proof of any of these. In fact, it seems as if its people just up and left for some reason known only to them.

So this is where theories go from bland to absolute crazy.

The first archeologist on site in the 1920s, James Kirkman, theorized that they abandoned it because of a looming invasion. Gedi was first sacked by an army from Mombasa in 1530, which was at war with Malindi. At the end of that century, a Turkish privateer called Ali Bey landed and disrupted things even further. Then in 1589, a marauding army called the Zimba was making its way up from southern Africa. The Simba launched a battle for Mombasa which ended in a genocide of the Swahili population. The Portuguese destroyed them near Malindi, around the same time Gedi died down (the first time).

A new town wall was built, and the town structures and streets repaired. It was never the same again.

But that wouldn’t explain why it was abandoned two centuries later. The exit in the 17th century was most likely because Portuguese exit from Malindi meant there was no more protection from the Oromo of Somalia. Gedi is the Oromo word for “precious”: one theory has it that it could be because it was in such a lush place, and the other is that it was the name of the Oromo king who made it there.

The problem though, is that there’s no proof of a war or skirmish of any kind. The walls and coral houses seem intact but for the wear and tear of abandonment. It also doesn’t explain why the Giriama, also fleeing Oromo invasions in Somalia, landed here. Perhaps these two stories are interconnected, because the Oromo invasions continued much further south.

A leading theory is that the people of Gedi fled because of receding water levels in their wells. All the wells in the ruins seem to have been deepened over time. Lack of drinkable water would be enough of a motivation to abandon a city, especially one with in-house toilets. Another less plausible theory is that it was the Black Plague in some form. But epidemics are merciless assassins, and the people would have been too frightened to have time to bury their dead. Perhaps there are mass graves lying somewhere within the forest around it. At least one excavation found a mass grave with infant remains, but that’s just about it.

Even with any of these, we don’t know who built it. Were they Swahili, Arabs, Phoenicians or a medieval civilization we haven’t even found evidence of yet?

Whoever it was that built Gedi, they woke up one day and disappeared without a trace.

Read about Malindi’s, another thriving city-state, diplomatic mission to China in 1414. [Link]

Featured image republished with permission. (Source: Safari254 [Link])

Owaahh, 2017

One story is good,

till Another is told.

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Last modified: November 7, 2018