contrasts the wider and deeper courts found in houses constructed during the fifteenth century. The entrances of houses have a greater deal of variability in the configuration of their passageways, since many of the houses were highly concentrated and laid out to maximize the use of available space. Palace The palace, which housed the city's sheikh, had a large central room with two anterooms, each containing its own courtyard. A series of residential rooms were accessible from the main hall. There were also two additional courts, the audience court and the reception court, which were accessed through different gates. Hinterland Gedi also has a hinterland consisting of several smaller sites made up of either solitary mosques and tombs or several houses. The sites of Shaka and Kilepwa are nearby. Kilepwa, located on an island in Mida Creek, is closer to Gedi and consists of three stone houses. There is also an isolated mosque at the west end of the creek, a mosque at Watamu, and a mosque and tombs at Kiburugeni. Material culture 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. Many of the names given to the stone houses refer to the objects found within or in association with them including two Chinese coins, a porcelain bowl, scissors, a Venetian Bead, cowrie shells, an iron lamp, and an iron box. The material remains found at Gedi have been found to be similar to the remains at adjacent Swahili coastal settlements with the greatest degree of variation among the styles of pottery represented. Of eight sites examined by Kirkman, the sites of Gedi, Ungwana, and Kilepwa had nearly identical material remains prior to the fifteenth century, while the sites of Mnarani, the Pillar Tomb at Malindi, Takwa, Kinuni, and Kilindidni increasingly similar material culture over the course of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. 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. Currency It is speculated that cowrie shells may have been the principal currency at Gedi. Cowrie shells have been recovered in the