User:Cjb7/sandbox

Historical Gedi

Gedi is a Swahili ruin that was discovered in 1884 by Sir John Kirk in modern-day Kenya, approximately ten miles south of Malindi and sixty-five miles north of Mombasa. Gedi is 50 feet above sea level, four miles from the sea and two miles from Mida Creek. Built in the 13th to 16th centuries, Gedi was a walled city of approximately forty-five acres in size. Gedi was a planned city. It had seven private houses, one large Mosque and several smaller Mosques, approximately fifteen stone burial plots (one of which is dated 1399 AD, fourteen of the Muslim tradition , three of which are pillared), one palace, and several verandas and other open spaces, along with streets and sewers. Of particular interest to archaeologists is the significant amount of pottery found in deposits at the site. Most of this pottery was made locally, but some were produced in distant locales, including ports on the Red Sea, India and China. In the excavation, many of the walls had to be reinforced or rebuilt. Most notably, the rear wall of the great Mosque was heroically restored to vertical. The Giriama were the local African tribe that assisted James Kirkman in his excavations. Later, in 1948, Kenya declared Gedi a National Park.

James Kirkman, an English excavator from the 1950's and 1960's, thought that Gedi represented an Arab colony. However, new scholarship has shown that Gedi, like many other East African towns, are better considered remnants of a thriving Swahili civilization. Stephane Pradines has underwent excavations in 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003. In his excavations, Pralines discovered a new Great Mosque outside of the confines of the city as well as two additional smaller mosques.

The Palace

The Palace is relatively close to the Great Mosque, and is about 1/4 of an acre. The highlight is the Court of Audience, which is 52 feet by 25 feet. The Haramlink(women's court) is on the west, while the Selamlink (reception) is on the east side.

The Tombs

At Gedi, there is an Arab Tomb with a date of Hejira 802, or A.D. 1399. The tomb was made out of plastered rubble masonry, in a square shape, and was once about 6 feet high. There is another tomb that is adjacent and built at the same level, thus likely built at the same time, though there is no date on the smaller tomb. The two tombs lie 30 yards beyond the town wall, whose foundation is six inches above that of the tombs. Since fragments from the same piece of pottery were found on multiple levels of the tomb, one can deduce that there is no significant time difference between the various levels.

There is probably a double floor in the tomb, as the line of the grave was not parallel with the wall of the tomb. The “floor of the grave” and “floor of the tomb” were made of the same material of a thin earth and gravel surface. Below both is a mix of brown and grey earth, and then it reaches natural red earth and coral at 3 feet below the tomb.

In the levels above the tomb, which were post-1399 A.D., some of the objects found include: a crystal bead, pressed beads, large pressed ‘eye’ beads, glass bowl fragments, glass bottle neck, green glass bases, a lead and tin alloy lid, a bobbin for threads, and shell hair ornaments.

There are strata below the tomb, which are pre-1399 A.D. Strata II and III are similar, with more Chinese pottery in stratum III. From the archaeology of other parts of Gedi, the distribution of cooking pots with short necks, bowls with incised ornaments, and imported yellow and black Islamic ware, Chinese celadon, and white porcelain is similar to the distribution below the court of the Great Mosque.

Stratum 1 has many shouldered cooking pots and a lack of many of the types found above. Thus, it is 13th century and the founding of Gedi.

Other imported objects include iron knives and points, bronze bowls, bronze earring, and glass sprinkler bottles and bowls.

The Great Mosque

The Great Mosque was built in the fifteenth century. The Great Mosque is rectangular, and built in the direction of Mecca. There is an anteroom on the west side, a veranda on the east side, and a court which has a well, conduit, cistern, and lavatory. There are also steps to the roof, presumably so that the call to prayer could be made from the roof. The roof consisted of coral tiles on square rafters. Niches for oil lamps are set into the walls, which would allow for prayers at night.

The Great Mosque was repaired many times, as can be seen by the three levels of the floor; fill on these floors include shrds of Chinese blue and white porcelain.

Before the Great Mosque, there had been occupation for a considerable period of time. The only part of the Great Mosque from the original mosque is probably the fragment of wall west of the mihrab. Outside, the fine-grained coral corners are also remnants from the original building.

A hundred years after the Great Mosque was rebuilt, it underwent a dramatic transformation. New square pillars were added to support the roof, the floor was raised 6 inches, the east and west walls were rebuilt and verandas added. At the north end of the veranda there were a set of steps that lead to the roof for prayer. Pilasters were added to the east, west, and north walls for support.

The current mihrab is from this last revision. This claim is supported by the fact that the bottom of the mihrab is the same level as the base of the pilasters of the north wall, which were clearly built after the last floor level of the mosque.

There are three different types of masonry. The first type used small stones smoothly set in red earth. A thin plaster was used, but again the finish was smooth. This was used in the pre-mosque period and in the first mosque period.

The second mosque period was characterized by coarse coral blocks for steps. In this period, there was a thick mortar used that was applied in a circular pattern. This was used for the veranda arcade.

The third type is made with stones and earth, held together with lime and plaster. There were foundations of stones that extended up to a foot deep, though the mosque had mortar foundations down 4 feet. Though there is no woodwork seen, the inside had square sockets for huge door frames. Also, the windows had space for wooden frames, shutters, and bars.

Pottery

Excavators have found many different types of pottery in the multiple Gedi excavations. The local pottery was found from all periods of the occupation (e.g., at all strata of the excavation). The most common types of local pottery included ribbed-ornamented ware (which had a thin, brittle, rough-surfaced body), incised decorated ware, finger-nail ornamented ware (which is today a characteristic ornament of the Wanyika tribe), red and burnished wared (red-ochre coated ware used for cooking), sandy-buff vessels, and charcoal stoves (large bowl with three horns that is made and used by the Swahili).

In addition, excavators have found Islamic pottery at Gedi. The most common type was yellow and black glazed earthenware from the Red Sea. There are also some sherds of sgraffiato in various shades of green, yellow lustered vessels, with a trellis or grill pattern, manganese-black, diaper patterns in black on blue, and a polished red ware.

Almost all classes of celadon and white porcelain were found in the lower levels of excavations, only in small amounts. This suggests that the large Chinese imports did not begin until the middle of the fourteenth century.

The many different types of Chinese wares are similar to those found at other late fourteenth and fifteenth century sites. The types of wares are celadon, blue and white, ch’ing-pai, white porcelain, and glazed stoneware.

Theories of Abandonment

To this day, it is not clear why Gedi was abandoned after many centuries of occupation.

Scholars have put forth two theories to explain Gedi’s abandonment. The first theory is based on natural difficulties and challenges. It is apparent that the water table decreased over time, as the wells had to be repeatedly deepened. If the rivers had dried up at about the same time, Gedi’s inhabitants would have been prevented from trading to the ocean and would have had to abandon their walled city to be closer to the ocean and/or to move to another water source.

The second theory for abandonment is based on political strife and inter-tribal conflict. Specifically, given Gedi’s proximity to relation to Mombasa and Malindi, the raid of Zimba in 1589 may have created problems for Gedi. There are no references to Gedi from Portuguese sources, even though the Portuguese travelers were known to have explored the area. In the tomb area, there was very virtually no sixteenth-century ceramics, while there were some fifteenth century glossy Islamic monochromes. So, it is possible that Gedi was abandoned at the raid of Zimba in A.D. 1589. Alternatively, scholars have theorized that the flight from Gedi was associated with the war between the Sheiks of Malindi and Mombasa, which had reached a boiling point in the burning of Mombasa by Nuno de Cunha in 1528, in which the Sheikh of Malindi is known to have also participated. Mombasa attempted to avenge them, and Gedi is between Mombasa and Malinda, so it might have been caught up in this conflict and destroyed. Last, according to many of the oral traditions of Swahili tribes such as the Wanyika, Wasegeju, and Giriama, the nomadic cattle tribe of the Galla expelled all other tribes from Gedi in the late sixteenth century. A destruction/abandonment of Gedi during this time period (e.g., in the 1500’s) would explain the absence of Gedi in Portuguese sources of the sixteenth century. A reoccupation later of Gedi would have been missed by the Portuguese, as the Portuguese moved from Malinda to Mombasa in 1593.