The lost city of Gede, the “Machu Picchu” of Kenya

Kenya (EFE) .- Hidden in the thick of a tropical forest in East Africa lies a mystery: the ruins of the lost city of Gede, an intriguing archaeological wonder known as the “Machu Picchu” of Kenya.

This Swahili city has baffled archaeologists and historians for decades due to the lack of references to the site in historical sources, but its remains prove that it was home to an advanced civilization before it was abandoned in the 17th century.

Located a few kilometers from the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean that bathe the tourist town of Watamu, in southeastern Kenya, the site occupies a small portion of the Arabuko Sokoke reserve, the largest coastal forest in East Africa.

“It was one of the oldest cities established on the Indian coast. It began (its construction) in the 12th century. It came to occupy 45 acres (18 hectares), of which only 12 acres (about 5 hectares) have been excavated,” guide Hudson Mukoka explains to Efe, specifying that its population could reach about “three thousand people.”

Gede, which means “precious” in the language of the Oromos (one of the peoples who inhabited the city), it is a haven of peace broken only by the song of the cicadas -“the music of the forest”, according to Mukoka- and the pranks of the monkeys that come out into the visitor passage.

lurking spirits

The Mijikenda tribe, which currently lives nearby, has long venerated the ruins, which they consider sacred and guarded by “The Elders”, spirits on the lookout for intruders who dare to desecrate the place.

However, Gede went unnoticed for centuries until the arrival of the British settlers. In 1884, explorer John Kirk rediscovered the city, although excavations began in 1948 under the supervision of James Kirkman, a pioneer of Swahili archaeology.

Kirkmam ran into an almost supernatural environment. “When I started working on Gede,” he said, “I had the feeling that something or someone was looking behind the walls, neither hostile nor friendly, but waiting for what they knew was going to happen.”

In the shade of baobabs, fig trees and tamarinds, these works brought to light a sophisticated city built with coral stone on streets drawn within two concentric walls: the internal one protected the elite and the external one the entire enclosure.

“This is the great palace, which was divided into two zones: a private residence and a public activity area. They called the king sultan”, Mukoka points out before the steps of the imposing main door still standing, with an arch of exquisite workmanship.

The remains of eight mosques are also astonishing, including the so-called “great mosque”, where the minbar (pulpit) and the qibla facing Mecca are preserved, which “functioned as a loudspeaker and produced an echo”, clarifies the guide, who suddenly he shouts “Allahu akbar (Allah is the greatest)! to recreate that acoustic effect.

The site also features ruins of houses with bathrooms and toilets, ornate funerary pillars and even a sewage system, works that dismantle the (erroneous) stereotype that Africa lacked development before the European colonial invasion.

“Visitors say that (the site) looks like Machu Picchu,” el Mukoka told Efe, referring to the famous sanctuary of the Inca empire in Peru.

Like Machu Picchu, Gede contains many enigmas, such as the cause of its abandonment, which could be due, according to various theories, to a lack of water (no less than 28 wells have been found in the city), an armed conflict or a devastating disease.

Spanish scissors

To decipher this mystery, the Kenyan-American paleontologist Chapurukha Kusimba, from the University of South Florida (USA), excavates with the help of National Geographic to answer a question: “what really happened?”

“One of the things we want to find out is if the population of Gede was a victim of the black plague”, the epidemic that wreaked havoc in the world in the Middle Ages, Professor Kusimba, who has discovered in the wells, explains to Efe by phone “literally thousands of black rats,” rodents blamed for the disease.

The paleontologist is also intrigued because the city does not appear in historical documents, not even on the maps of the Portuguese, who arrived at the end of the 15th century in Malindi (16 kilometers from Gede), “they were great cartographers and wrote down everything”.

What nobody seems to doubt is that the city was a relevant and prosperous center of commercial exchange in the Indian Ocean.

Not surprisingly, Mukoka points out, archaeologists have unearthed coins from China, beads from Venice (Italy), iron lamps from India, and even “16th-century Spanish (iron) scissors” which can be seen in the small museum attached to the site.

“This -he adds- is proof that (Gede) traded with people from different countries. The objects found indicate that the city reached its zenith between the 15th and 16th centuries”, a prelude to the decadence that ended up sentencing the city to death.

Despite the importance of the ruins (historic monument and popular tourist attraction) and the nomination by the Government of Kenya, Gede has not yet managed to enter the UNESCO World Heritage List, although Professor Kusimba believes that “it deserves to be there”