[6][7] All of the standing buildings at Gedi, which include mosques, a palace, and numerous houses, are made from stone, are one-story, and are distributed unevenly in the town.

[4] Currently, the Giriama, one of the Mijikenda tribes, maintain a large community around the Gedi ruins who view the site as a sacred and spiritual place.

[15] From the 1980s archaeological research increasingly began to focus more on the relationships between the coastal communities and the interior, challenging the original notion that the development of the Swahili Coast was driven by foreign influence through Indian Ocean trade or by Arab colonists.

[9] In 2001, Stephane Pradines from the Institute Francias d'Archeologie Orientale and archaeologists from the National Museum of Kenya conducted a topographical survey of Gedi, which mapped the distribution of neighborhoods in order to investigate the site's urban development.

[23] The earliest evidence for occupation at Gedi is a grave marker that has been radiocarbon dated to between 1041 and 1278, placing the original settlement of the site sometime in the eleventh or early twelfth century.

[11] Gedi's participation in trade is believed to be the contributing factor in its founding and its later development into a city supporting an estimated population of 2,500 inhabitants at its peak.

[1][25] The presence of the Portuguese from the sixteenth century has been considered one of the primary factors in Gedi's eventual abandonment with their attempts to monopolize trade and due to armed intervention.

[6] Although several of the buildings predate the fourteenth century, coral became a more common construction material for important structures and elite residences during that time period.

[6][8] The walls and other coral structures were constructed in a similar manner using lime mortar, with most foundations no greater than one foot in depth and filled with stones.

Doorways for the buildings consist of square framed pointed archways, with tombs and mosques containing spandrels and architraves that have been carved or inlaid with porcelain.

[4] Gedi's mosques were typically laid out with anterooms flanking the central room, which had a roof supported by wood beams resting on square stone pillars.

[34] Excavations at Gedi have uncovered numerous artifacts, but the most abundant and commonly discussed in literature are beads and ceramics, which have been used to identify trade and to obtain dates for the site's occupation.

[21] In addition to local production, one of the major contributors to the presence of cultural materials found at the site is due to the importance of Indian Ocean trade, which assumed a growing role in East Africa at the beginning of the Islamic era in the seventh century.

[36] Monochrome yellow, green, and black wound and pressed glass beads formed in melon, biconical, globular, barrel, and cylindrical shapes were the most common styles represented in strata from the fourteenth century and sporadically appeared in later levels.

[39] Numerous types and styles of ceramics have been found during the excavations at Gedi including Chinese porcelain, Islamic glazed ware, and locally produced earthenwares.

Islamic pottery found at Gedi was wheel spun, glazed, and kiln fired, which includes sgraffito, Yemeni black on yellow ceramics, and figured wares frequently depicting floral designs on blue and white panels.

[26] A type of polychrome stoneware from the sixteenth century characterized by grey, green, and brown glazes may have been made in Persia or India as an attempted imitation of Chinese porcelain.

[30] Another type of partially grey glazed bowls with circular decorations on their interior is believed to come from Indochina since the disappearance of the style coincides with the Thai conquest of the region in AD 1467.

[22] Pottery produced locally in East Africa was shaped by hand, unglazed, and assumed to be open fired, but it has been proposed that the absence of evidence for kilns may be the result of mistaking their remnants for metal furnaces.

[35] However, the absence of glazed and wheeled pottery illustrates that the inhabitants of the Swahili Coast did not adapt these technologies as a result of Indian Ocean trade, but were primarily the recipients of finished products in exchange for other local produce.

[18] The pots inscribed with the potters marks show the variation of different types and styles of ceramics over time, which were influenced by local production, as well as, the adaption of foreign design elements.

[44][46] During the same century, local wares began to change with the reduction in the number of incised ornamental patterns and a shift to long necked-pots, compared to earlier short-necked variants.

[30] The array of different types and styles of ceramic found during the excavations of Gedi provide information about the city's trade ties through the origin of imported vessels and aid in dating the site through seriation.

Celadon, Islamic monochromes, and blue and white Chinese porcelain were found in levels above the tomb, which date to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

[50] Available crops included millet, African rice, cocoyam, coconuts, bananas, citrus fruits, pomegranates, figs, sugar cane, cotton, and various vegetables, while the principal livestock was likely cattle.

[34] Small settlements or hamlets were established between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries within the vicinity of Gedi including sites at the end of Mida Creek, Kiburugeni, Watamu, Shaka, and Kilepwa.

The Periplus Maris Erthraei, written by an Egyptian-Greek merchant circa AD 40–55, described trading ports along the Indian Ocean including Azania, a historic designation of the East African coast extending southward to present day Tanzania.

[57] Many artifacts found at Gedi including much of the ceramics, all the beads, and the two Chinese coins resulted from either direct or indirect trade with the Near East, Arabia, China, India, and Indochina.

[8][26][35][23] Swahili coastal settlements exported gold, ivory, slaves, ebony, mangrove poles, copper, copal gum, frankincense, myrrh, and crystal rock.

[58] However, despite reduced access to good anchorage, Gedi and other large mainland sites were able to maintain a high degree of economic success.