The ruins of Gedi are one of the main mysteries of Kenya and Africa as a whole. This city, lost in an impassable forest, was discovered by the Briton John Cook in 1927, a few years later the first excavations began in it, and in 1948 Gedi was declared a territory of national importance.
Despite the fact that almost a hundred years have passed since the discovery of Gedi, researchers still cannot find answers to two key questions.
First, who exactly built it? The data obtained during the excavations indicate that the city was founded at the beginning of the XIII century and existed until the XVII century. It is believed that before the arrival of the colonialists, Africa was significantly lagging behind in civilizational development from the same Europe, but Ghedi makes, if not revise this thesis, then at least look at it from a different angle.
Gedi was distinguished by a well-thought-out layout - with streets and a water supply system. The city was dominated not only by numerous buildings made of coral pressed into a kind of brick, but also by a chic palace, as well as an impressive mosque, and in the buildings themselves, researchers have even found analogs of modern toilet bowls with a flush system. Who could have created all this in Kenyan forests in the XIII-XVII centuries is not clear.
Judging by the artifacts found during the excavations, the Muslims who inhabited the city actively traded with the outside world. On the territory of Gedi, vases of the Ming dynasty, which ruled China from the mid-14th to the mid-17th centuries, were discovered, Spanish scissors and Venetian glass.
The second question, which so far remains without a clear answer: why was such a developed and prosperous city empty? The only more or less weighty version at the moment: the inhabitants of Gedi were forced to leave the city, unable to cope with the raids of the Oromo - then ordinary nomads who came to the territory of modern Kenya and Ethiopia in about the 15th century and actually declared war on all local residents.
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Exploration of the ruins of Gedi continues to this day.