The ruins of Gede are the
remains of a mysterious lost city on the
Swahili Coast of Kenya, located deep within the
Arabuko Sokoke forest. The mystery of Gede (Gedi) is that it
does not appear in any Swahili, Portuguese, or
Arab written records and
present day research has not yet been able to fully account for what actually happened to the city. The inhabitants were of the
Swahili, an ancient trading civilization that emerged
along the eastern coasts of Africa
ranging from Somalia to Mozambique.
Archaeological excavations
carried out between 1948 and 1958
have uncovered porcelain from China, an Indian lamp, Venetian beads, Spanish scissors, and other artefacts from
all over the world, demonstrating the occupants
were engaged in extensive and
sophisticated international trade. Questions still remain as to what caused the downfall of Gede, but by the 17th century, the city was
completely abandoned to the forest
and forgotten until the 1920s. Today, a
National Museum, Gede's
sister cities from the period are part of the ethnography based archeological work of
Dr Chapurukha M. Kusimba of Chicago's Field Museum,
whose lifework has thrown
light on the precolonial
heritage of the Swahili peoples.
posted by infini
on Nov 30, 2011 -
23 comments
Click here? Was structuralism, the big idea of Claude Lévi-Strauss, more cult than science? Apostolos Doxiadis, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna – the team behind the bestselling graphic novel Logicomix – investigate.
posted by infini
on Mar 18, 2010 -
30 comments
Mohandas K. Gandhi’s critique of the modern identification of society with the state was devastating. He believed that it disabled citizens, subjecting mind and body to the control of professional experts when the purpose of a civilization should be to enhance its members’ sense of their own self-reliance. He proposed instead that every human being is a unique personality and participates with the rest of humanity in an encompassing whole. Between these extremes lie proliferating associations of great variety. [...] But what is most relevant to us is his existentialist project. If the world of society and nature is devoid of meaning, each of us is left feeling small, isolated and vulnerable. How do we bridge the gap between a puny self and a vast, unknowable world? The answer is to scale down the world, to scale up the self or a combination of both, so that a meaningful relationship might be established between the two. Gandhi devoted a large part of his philosophy to building up the personal resources of individuals. Our task is to bring this project up to date. ~ From
The Digital Revolution and me by
John Keith Hart
posted by infini
on Jan 9, 2010 -
15 comments
