Gede ruins are the remains of a Swahili town. It traces its origin in the twelfth century but was rebuilt with new town walls in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries after the emigration of many citizens of Kilwa to Mombasa, Malindi and other places along the coast. The emigrantsmade the town wealthy and it reached its peak in the fifteenth century. This enormous wealth is evidenced by the presence of numerous ruins, consisting of an assortment of mosques; a magnificent palace and houses all nestled in 45 acres ofprimeval forest. But in the first half of the seventeenth century the last families left the town. Gede’s was abandoned as a result of the Wazimba raid along the East African coast in 1589, the removal of the Sheikh of Malindi and the Portuguese to Mombasa in 1593, the falling water table shown by the deepening of the well outside the Great Mosque and the overhanging menace of the Galla, a hostile nomadic ethnic group from Somalia. Gede remains the first intensively studied site on the coast. It was first visited by Sir John Kirk, a British resident of Zanzibar in 1884, in 1927 it was gazetted as a Historical Monument, in 1929, it was declared a “protected monument” and in the late thirties, the Public Works Department carried out work on preservation of its crumbling walls. In 1948, Gede was declared a National park and an Archaeologist appointed as warden. In 1969, Gede’s administration was taken over by the Museum Trustees. The monument is under the care of the National Museums of Kenya and is a very important archaeological site. Gede indigenous forest is a sacred site for traditional rituals and sacrifices for the surrounding community.