and incised ornamentation on top of the rims are more common at Gedi. White to cream colored bowls were also found in small quantities, along with an isolated pottery type that has a golden brown luster. A sherd with a trellis pattern is a possible import from the African interior. Imports Ceramic that were imported to Gedi represent either direct or indirect trade with China, South Asia, and the Islamic world. 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. Sgraffiato is red-bodied earthenware with yellow or green glaze that was common in modern-day Iraq from the ninth to the sixteenth century. 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. 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. Various types of Chinese pottery also appear at Gedi, including celadon and blue and white porcelain, which were found in large enough volumes to assume that a significant portion of the population had access to higher quality wares, while sherds were also found inlayed in the mosques. Local wares 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. 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. Conversely, fifteen different potters' marks have been found at Gedi on pottery found on or near the surface of the site dating to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which has been used to suggest the site may have had a communal kiln at that time. 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