Before 1500: Adal, Ajuran and the coast
Ancient burials, standing stones and towns in the Somali lands, about 2000 BC to 1200 AD
Before Islam, the Somali lands were dotted with stone cairns (araweelo), megalithic tombs, carved and decorated standing stones, graves with Sabaean and Himyarite writing from South Arabia, early Christian burials marked with crosses, and dry-stone towns. Archaeologist Sada Mire mapped many of these sites in Somaliland and dates them across roughly 2000 BC to 1500 AD, with pre-Islamic towns such as Ceeg Weyne and Gidheys and a sacred site at Aw-Barkhadle that later became a Muslim shrine.
In short
Most of what is known about the Somali lands before about 1200 AD comes from stones in the ground: burial mounds, tombs, standing stones, inscriptions and the foundations of towns. Very few of these sites have been excavated.
The main source is a survey by Sada Mire and the staff of Somaliland's Department of Archaeology, published in 2015 with almost 100 sites not reported before. Mire writes that "the body of past and recent archaeological discoveries in Somaliland (and Somalia)… account for more than 200 sites, many of them clusters of sites" (Mire 2015, "Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire", African Archaeological Review 32: 111–136). Unless another source is named, the facts below are from that article.
Cairns: the araweelo mounds
Stone burial mounds, called araweelooyin in Somali, "are found all over the country". In some places they stand in lines, as along the Red Sea coast road between Heis (Xiis) and Maydh in Sanaag. Until recently they were the only stone burial structures reported in Somali archaeology.
They are under threat: stonecutters selling building stone look for cairns "as these are perfectly sized stones for building local houses".
At Heis, a cemetery of over 300 cairns along 1,800 m of coast held imported Roman, Parthian and South Arabian goods of the 1st to 3rd centuries AD (Fernández Fernández, González-Ruibal and de Torres 2022). See the Somali ports in the Periplus.
Megalithic tombs
Recent surveys found "countless megalithic burials and stelae cemeteries". Mire lists cairns, tumuli, dolmens, passage graves and standing stones (hawelti, a Cushitic word later borrowed into the Semitic languages of the Horn).
- Gidheys, near Burco, has elaborate graves, single carved stones and stelae cemeteries, and some burials with funeral chambers. Some burials stand more than 2 m above ground.
- Saaxil region and Bustanka (Dhaymoole area) have many round or rectangular tombs with upright stelae.
- Locals describe old traditions of burial standing, sitting or lying down, and some burials inside the trunks of large trees.
Mire writes that the megalithic traditions "could go back to Neolithic times", but that many seem to date "from about the second millennium BCE up until recently, being contemporary with Islam". She notes "great similarities with sites in Ethiopia, northern Kenya, Djibouti and Eritrea". "It is only during Islamic times that a certain homogeneity emerged but everything before that testifies to elaborate burial practices of localized styles."
Decorated standing stones (stelae), about 1500 BC to 1500 AD
Carved and decorated grave-stones were "a widely practiced tradition in Somaliland", though not reported before the recent surveys. They are concentrated between Sheekh in Saaxil and Burco in Togdheer.
- The carvings include "solar and geometric signs as well as schematic depictions of animals".
- Ximan, in Sheekh district, has large wadis ringed by decorated stelae about 1 m tall, which Mire links to "Cushitic pre-Islamic cultures probably a few millennia old".
- Suuqsade (Xaragotir) has huge cairns (araweelooyin/maguurto), stelae cemeteries and cross-shaped burials.
- Hayeeti Oodan, near Berbera, has a grave marked with a stele carved with what Mire reads as a crown, possibly the grave of a pre-Islamic priest.
- Other sites: Aw-Barkhadle, Gidheys, Nagaagir, Qar-Gebi Haqayo Malaas, Siir, Darayley and Bagan.
Mire calls decorated stelae "one of the most threatened class of Somali antiquities" because of demand from collectors in the UK, Italy and the Gulf.
Writing from South Arabia, about 9th century BC to 3rd century AD
Several sites carry Sabaean and Himyarite script, the writing of the ancient kingdoms of Yemen:
- The rock art sites of Dhagah Nabi Gallay and Dhagah Kure, where the writing seems to have been added on top of the paintings.
- A burial site at Shalcaw on the Red Sea coast, with Sabaean writing, among ancient burials exposed in the walls of flood-cut wadis.
- Possibly the megalithic burials of Qar-Gebi.
- More inscribed rocks around Hargeisa found in 2007, some of which "were bulldozed by developers".
Mire writes that the region "seems to have formed part of the Himyarite and Sabaean cultures" and was linked with the pre-Aksumite kingdoms of the highlands.
In 2021 a team of epigraphers published seven Sabaic inscriptions from a looted sanctuary in Bari region, which they date most likely to the late 8th or 7th century BC. The same team questions the reading of writing at Dhagah Kure. See The Sabaean inscriptions of the Somali coast.
Early Christian burials, about 4th to 12th century AD
Mire's 2015 article was, in her words, "the first report of ancient Christianity in Somali territory". She lists:
- A grave at Aw-Barkhadle marked with a stele carrying a cross "probably of Byzantine appearance".
- Many cross-shaped tombs, called laanqayr, and megalithic burials with stones laid in a cross, especially at Dhuxun in Saaxil and around Dhubato near Hargeisa.
- Christian burials at Suuqsade (Xaragotir), Gala Caddo near Dhagah Kure, Aroori and Kal Bare.
- Finds of Christian manuscripts in Ethiopian languages, including Ge'ez.
She notes that Christian burials are often found inside early Islamic ruined towns, which she takes as a sign that "the areas that blossomed as towns under Islam were most likely also significant pre-Islamic centres". The northern Somali regions, she writes, were in pre-Islamic times part of the Aksumite empire.
Pre-Islamic towns, about 10th century BC to 12th century AD
- Ras Hafun, on the Indian Ocean coast, was a port from the last centuries BC (see Opone and Ras Hafun).
- Heis (Xiis): Roman glass, studied by E. M. Stern in 1987.
- Gabiley: people digging wells found two vases, one with figures resembling Graeco-Roman pottery.
- Ceeg Weyne, south of Burco, and Seeto, near Burco: dry-stone towns that "seem to be more ancient than the early Islamic towns". At Ceeg Weyne the house foundations include ostrich eggshell, and nearby wadis form natural lakes (haro).
- Gidheys, Darayley and Bagan in Saaxil: ancient towns with burials that may be older than, or as old as, the pre-Islamic phase of Aw-Barkhadle.
Mire also cites the historian George Hourani: Greek records say the Barbars of the Somali coastal cities were, around 300 BC, "more active seafarers than the Arabs".
Aw-Barkhadle: from a pre-Islamic sacred site to a Muslim shrine
Aw-Barkhadle lies about 30 minutes' drive from Hargeisa, on the Berbera road. It holds a ruined town, the tomb of the saint Aw-Barkhadle, and Christian, Muslim and pre-Islamic burials, including cairns, dolmens and phallic gravestones (Mire 2015, "Wagar, Fertility and Phallic Stelae", African Archaeological Review 32).
- The oral history. Local informants say that about 850 years ago an Arabian sheikh, Sharif Yusuf al-Kawnayn, known as Aw-Barkhadle, came to the place then called Dogor, now named after him. "According to the oral history, Aw-Barkhadle has been a centre of Muslim pilgrimage since the twelfth century". Mire calls his tomb "the most important pilgrimage centre in Somali territory" (same source).
- The older layer. Mire writes that the site "was a pre-Islamic centre", with a sacred mountain, trees, stones and a well associated with deities, "most prominently the sky God", and that it links "the pre-Islamic/pre-Christian with the Islamic through myths, legends and ancestor worship" (Mire 2015, "Mapping").
- Waaq. She suggests the site may be linked to the worship of Waaq, the Sky-God "adhered to by the Cushitic people of the Horn both before and during the practice of Christianity and Islam" (Mire 2015, "Wagar").
- The legend of Bu'ur Ba'ayr. Local tradition tells of a duel in which Aw-Barkhadle defeated Bu'ur Ba'ayr, the leader of the people of the old religion, at the hill that bears his name (same source).
- The rulers. Mire writes that the Walashma dynasty of Ifat and Adal justified its rule through Islam and claimed direct descent from Aw-Barkhadle, and that its leaders were buried at the site (Mire 2015, "Mapping").
Threats
Mire records looting for the antiquities trade, stone collecting for building, bulldozing for development, and the spread of the shrub Prosopis juliflora, which has hidden the dolmens at Aw-Barkhadle. In 2015 Somaliland had no heritage protection law and no requirement for environmental impact checks (Mire 2015, "Mapping").
Related pages
Sources
- Mire 2015, "Mapping the Archaeology of Somaliland: Religion, Art, Script, Time, Urbanism, Trade and Empire", African Archaeological Review 32: 111–136 · link.springer.com
- Fernández Fernández, González-Ruibal and de Torres 2022 · books.openedition.org
- Mire 2015, "Wagar, Fertility and Phallic Stelae", African Archaeological Review 32 · link.springer.com
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