Before 1300: the ancient Somali lands, from the Stone Age to the first sultanates

Show who took part and what each event meant for unity ## In short

Before 1300 there was no Somali state, but there were Somali towns, trade routes, ports, rulers and religions. What survives is of four kinds: things in the ground (tools, paintings, tombs and town ruins), what foreign visitors and geographers wrote down (Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Chinese), a few inscriptions, and traditions recorded later.

Sada Mire, who headed Somaliland's Department of Archaeology, counts "more than 200 sites, many of them clusters of sites" known in Somaliland and Somalia, very few of them excavated (Mire 2015, African Archaeological Review 32). Neville Chittick, who led excavations on the north-east coast in 1975–76, wrote that aromatic gums were throughout history "the chief commodity sought by merchants coming to the Horn of Africa" (Chittick 1979, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 8.4, p. 273).

Timeline

About 29,000 to 6,000 years ago: Stone Age hunters. People return again and again to Guli Waabayo rock shelter on Buur Heybe, in Bay region. Its dates are "the earliest radiometric evidence of Later Stone Age (LSA) occupation in the southeastern Horn of Africa" (Jones, Brandt, Henry and Ambrose 2021). Full page: The Stone Age in the Somali lands.

About 14,000 to 5,000 years ago: a greener Horn. The African Humid Period, when north and eastern Africa "were much wetter and greener than they are today" (Reid et al. 2019).

3rd and 2nd millennia BC: the first herders paint the rocks. Humpless cows with decorated necks, people with raised arms, dogs, sheep, goats and wild animals at Laas Geel, Dhambalin, Karin Heegan, Dhagah Kure and dozens of other sites (Gutherz, Cros and Lesur 2003; Mire 2015). Full page: Laas Geel and Somali rock art.

From about 2000 BC: cairns, megaliths and carved stelae. Burial mounds (araweelo), dolmens, chambered tombs and decorated standing stones spread across the north (Mire 2015). Full page: Ancient burials, standing stones and towns.

About 2500 to 1150 BC: Egypt sails to Punt. Egyptian expeditions from Sahure to Ramesses III bring back myrrh, incense, ebony, gold and baboons. Hatshepsut's reliefs of about 1470 BC show the chief of Punt, Perehu, and his family. A 2020 isotope study sourced two baboons brought from Punt to a region including "portions of Somalia" (Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. 2; Dominy et al. 2020). Full page: The Land of Punt and the Somali coast.

First millennium BC to 3rd century AD: writing from South Arabia. Sabaean and Himyarite inscriptions at Dhagah Nabi Gallay, Dhagah Kure and Shalcaw (Mire 2015).

3rd century BC: Eratosthenes. The Alexandrian geographer describes a "myrrh-bearing country" and a "cinnamon-bearing country" beyond the strait, with "many [cities] in the interior that are beautifully settled" (Strabo 16.4.4). Full page: Greek and Roman writers on the Somali coast.

Last centuries BC: Hafun West. A stone building with Hellenistic-style painted pottery at Ras Hafun, dated from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD (Chittick 1979; Fernández Fernández et al. 2022). Full page: Opone and Ras Hafun.

About 20 AD: Strabo's "country that bears frankincense". The Greek geographer describes the coast beyond the Bab el-Mandeb as far as the "Horn of the South" (Strabo, Geography 16.4.14).

1st century AD: the Periplus. A Greek merchants' guide lists Avalites (Zeila), Malao (Berbera), Mundus (Heis), Mosylon, the Market of Spices (Guardafui) and Opone (Ras Hafun), and says "each market-town is ruled by its separate chief" (Schoff 1912). Full page: The Somali ports in the Periplus.

1st to 3rd centuries AD: the Heis cemetery. Over 300 cairns, 80 of them with Roman, Parthian and South Arabian goods (Fernández Fernández et al. 2022).

About 150 AD: Ptolemy. His Geography lists Avalites, Malao, Mondu, Mosylum, the Aromata promontory and Opone, and calls the interior "Barbaria, in which there are many elephants" (Stevenson 1932, pp. 107–108).

2nd to 5th centuries AD: Hafun Main (Opone). A trading site with Parthian, Roman and South Asian goods (Chittick 1979).

4th to 12th centuries AD: early Christian burials. Cross-marked graves at Aw-Barkhadle, Dhuxun and Dhubato; Mire writes that the northern Somali regions were in pre-Islamic times part of the Aksumite empire (Mire 2015).

Mid-500s onward: Harlaa. A trading town north-west of Harar, on the routes to the Somali coast, is lived in from the mid-6th to the 15th century; its mosque stands by the mid-12th century (Insoll et al. 2021). Full page: Ruined towns of the Somali interior.

About 550 AD: "the frankincense country called Barbaria". Cosmas Indicopleustes describes the people of Barbaria buying frankincense and spices inland and shipping them to Adulis, Yemen, India and Persia (McCrindle 1897, pp. 51–52). Full page: Frankincense and myrrh.

7th century: the Qiblatayn mosque at Zeila. Oral history holds it to be "one of the earliest or indeed the earliest mosque in sub-Saharan Africa" (Mire 2015). Fauvelle-Aymar and his colleagues, who dug there in 2001, date Zeila's conversion to Islam to the late 1100s or early 1200s (Fauvelle-Aymar et al. 2011). Full page: Early Zeila and the Qiblatayn mosque.

8th century: Sasanian pottery at Fardowsa, a ruined town near Sheekh (Mire 2015).

Mid-800s: China's first description. Duan Chengshi describes Po-pa-li (Berbera), which "from of old… has never been subject to any foreign power" (Hirth and Rockhill 1911, p. 128). Full page: Chinese records of the Somali coast.

Late 800s and 900s: Zeila in the Arab geographers. Al-Ya'qubi names "Zayla' in the region of the Mandeb". In the 900s al-Istakhri, al-Mas'udi and Ibn Hawqal describe it as a port for Yemen and the Hijaz, shipping leopard skins, hides, tortoise-shell, ambergris and incense (Fauvelle-Aymar et al. 2011).

896–897 AD (283 AH): the Sultanate of Shewa. The Makhzumi dynasty is founded in eastern Shewa, according to an Arabic chronicle from Harar (Lusini). Full page: The Sultanate of Shewa and the founding of Ifat.

1105 (498 AH): Barawa's epitaph. An Arabic gravestone at Barawa dated 498 AH is, according to the studies of Enrico Cerulli, the oldest known Arabic inscription in Somalia (E. van Donzel, quoted in Fauvelle-Aymar et al. 2011, §87).

1154: al-Idrisi. His "Zalegh", usually read as Zeila, is "a town of small size but very populous", visited by many foreign merchants; Merca is a town of the country of Berbera (Jaubert, Géographie d'Édrisi, 1836, vol. 1). Fauvelle-Aymar and his colleagues argue that Idrisi's Zalegh may instead be a Red Sea port (Fauvelle-Aymar et al. 2011).

12th century: Aw-Barkhadle. By oral history, the saint Yusuf al-Kawnayn comes to the place near Hargeisa that now bears his name, a site that was already a pre-Islamic sacred centre (Mire 2015, "Wagar").

1200s: Yaqut and Ibn Sa'id on Mogadishu and Merca. Yaqut describes Mogadishu governed by elders and exporting sandalwood, ebony, ambergris and ivory; Ibn Sa'id calls Merca a Muslim town and Mogadishu a town "whose name comes up often" among travellers (Guillain 1856, part 1, pp. 234–239). Full page: Early Mogadishu, Merca and Barawa.

Early 1200s: Zeila is Muslim. Yaqut (died 1229) and Ibn Sa'id describe Zeila's people as Muslims who hire boats to pilgrims. A source on the 1270s says the town "has no kings" but seven chiefs (Fauvelle-Aymar et al. 2011). Full page: Early Zeila and the Qiblatayn mosque.

1225: Zhao Rugua. The Song official describes Pi-p'a-lo with "four cities" and Chung-li, "the only one which produces frankincense" among the Muslim lands (Hirth and Rockhill 1911, pp. 128–131).

August 1238 (Muharram 636 AH): Mogadishu's oldest dated inscription, on the minaret of the Hamar Weyne mosque (Guillain 1856, part 1, p. 612).

1269 (667 AH): the Fakhr al-Din and Arba'a Rukun mosques and a third dated inscription in Mogadishu (Guillain 1856, part 1, pp. 612–613; Garlake 1966, p. 10).

1285 (684 AH): Ifat rises. The Walashma family of Ifat takes over from the Makhzumi sultans of Shewa (Lusini).

After 1300. Ibn Battuta's visit to Zeila and Mogadishu in 1331, Ifat's wars, Adal and Ajuran: see Medieval and early modern polities, 1300s–1700s, Ruined towns of the Somali interior, the Somali coast towns, 1331–1586 and Timeline, 1300s to 1960.

How the record is built

1. Archaeology

   Very few sites have been excavated: Buur Heybe (1935, 1940s, 1980s), Ras Hafun and Heis (1975–76), Laas Geel Shelter 7 (2000s) and Heis again (2018–19). Most northern sites are known from surveys (Mire 2015).

2. Foreign texts

   Each was written by outsiders, often from sailors' reports, and each records what its writer's world wanted from the coast: incense for Egypt, spices for Rome, ivory and ambergris for China.

3. Inscriptions

   The oldest known Arabic inscription in Somalia is an epitaph at Barawa dated 1105; Mogadishu's mosques carry dated inscriptions from 1238 and 1269.

4. Traditions

   Founding stories, saints' lives and genealogies, written down from the 1800s on.

How we source every page is set out on how we check facts.

More on this period

• Who dug where: a history of archaeology in Somalia and Somaliland
• Heis (Xiis): the ancient port and its cairns
• The Sabaean inscriptions of the Somali coast, about 700 BC
• The Xiis cairns and Somali star lore
• Ancient ruins of the north-east recorded by Georges Révoil, 1880–1881
• The wagar, sacred trees and the sky-god Waaq
• Zeila, Berbera and Mogadishu in the records of Rasulid Yemen
• Marco Polo and the Somali coast, about 1298
• Dakar, the lost capital of Adal, 1415–1520
• Awfat, capital of the Ifat sultanate, and the tombs of the Walashma
• Harar becomes the capital of Adal, 1520–1577
• The death of Sultan Saʿd ad-Din at Zeila and his sons in Yemen
• The seven Muslim kingdoms of the Horn: tribute, trade and money
• The end of Adal, 1543–1583
• Scholars from Zeila at al-Azhar and in Cairo, 1300–1500
• Scholars from Zeila and the Horn in medieval Yemen, 1150–1450
• Mogadishu and Brava in João de Barros, 1503–1510
• Zeila and Berbera in João de Barros's Décadas da Ásia, 1513–1518
• Early Berbera before 1300
• Aksum, the Adulis inscription and Barbaria
• The 'nomad kings': great cairns, about 650–1000 AD
• The Harla and the town of Harlaa
• Abasa (Darbiyah Kola) and its neighbours
• Fardowsa: the medieval trading town at Sheekh
• Kabab and the medieval towns of the Gebiley region
• Aw Bare, Aiyanle and the medieval towns across the border
• The trade fairs of the Berbera coast and their Asian imports
• Handoga: a medieval town of nomads in Djibouti
• Nomads, towns and the state under Ifat and Adal
• Medieval mosques of Somaliland
• From cairns to cemeteries: medieval Muslim graves