The government has come out to explain the discovery of a concrete cross within Nairobi’s City Market.
Following the discovery by NMS workers carrying out renovations, all works have been temporarily halted.
According to the National Museums of Kenya Director of Sites and Monuments, Purity Kiura, the slab is a cover for something beneath the ground.
Speaking to the press, Kiura noted that the body had arrived at the conclusion that the site was a washing area used for the market decades ago.
She explained that the washbasin may have been covered in concrete as the City Market went through various stages of renovation.
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“The National Museums Kenya perspective is that this was a washing basin, like a huge washing basin, which was reinforced with this structure, which looks like a cross.
“Later on when the market was being rehabilitated to what it is today, it was too heavy for them to remove it from the location,” she said.
A number of vendors at the City Market who have operated their businesses at the location for many years also corroborated the explanation.
“It's a drainage system because there are pipes from underneath. It is not a grave,” one of the traders said.
The site had been cordoned off after the discovery fuelled speculations from the site workers and other Kenyans who were shopping at the market.
Some claimed it was a burial site while others argued that it was a religious symbol, which the National Museums refuted.
“From the initial analysis and from the archaeologist’s perspective, they don't think it is a religious cross.
“Generally, wherever crosses are found, either they are standing upright and even the ones which are on the ground are not as huge,” the museum's director added.
