dc.description.abstract | For 2000 years or more, the East African Coast has had contacts with other parts of the world and that was possible because an understanding of the monsoon winds and current patterns of the region encouraged the interchange of knowledge, transfer of technology and barter of products. This facilitated sailing over long distances, crossing the Red sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Among other ancient coastal cities on the East African Coast, Mombasa has played a significant role in the transoceanic trade. Earlier, trade and cultural contacts with other countries was delineated on the basis of land and inshore exploration and excavation finds. Now, it is possible to understand the aspects of maritime trade contacts because of availability of new tools and technologies to decipher the unknown past from underwater finds. With the initiation of maritime archaeological investigations new evidences come to light indicating trade and cultural contacts through pottery, amphorae, stone anchors, cargo, ingots, ship remains, etc. With the number of underwater findings increasing, the curiosity to know more about them also rises. During underwater explorations stone anchors have also been recovered from many sites across the world and in recent past from Mombasa, Kenya coast. This paper describes stone anchors discovered during underwater explorations off Mombasa and explores ancient trade contacts of Mombasa with other countries through the anchors and other findings | |