Malindi Kingdom
The Malindi Kingdom was a
Ming China, India, and Portugal; pottery from all three regions has been found there dating to between the 13th and 15th centuries.[1]
Knowledge of this kingdom became available when the
History
Old Town Malindi may have been somewhat north of the modern city. There is some dispute as to whether the kingdom itself was centered initially around Old Town Malindi, or Mambrui. The general settlement of this region seems to date back to about 850 AD.[citation needed] Old town Malindi seems to have been destroyed around 1000 AD, but resettled by 1250.
Chinese texts as early as the 9th century name far-western ports with names that, phonetically, seem similar, or in one case identical, to Malindi,Song Dynasty having been recovered at appropriate levels in modern Somalia.
The kingdom appears to have thrived from 1250 through the appearance of
Vasco de Gama
in the 15th century, when colonization of the region seems to have caused a decline.