Kabab and the medieval towns of the Gebiley region, about 1400–1600

In short

The hill country between Borama and Hargeisa holds many ruined medieval settlements. They were first listed by A. T. Curle, a British vice-consul, in 1937, and visited by staff of the Somali Academy of Sciences in the mid-1980s. Research then stopped until a Spanish team from the Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit-CSIC) returned. This page follows two short reports:

• Rouco Collazo, "A medieval town in Western Somaliland: Kabab", Nyame Akuma 102, 2024, pp. 68–75, open access.
• Allamagen, de Torres Rodríguez et al., "The medieval occupation of the Gebiley region: Documenting the archaeology of Central Somaliland", Nyame Akuma 104, 2025, pp. 47–54, open access. Its first author is from the National Museum of Somaliland.

Neither site has been excavated, so all dates come from objects picked up on the surface. For the wider picture, see Ruined towns of the Somali interior.

Kabab

Kabab lies 44 km east of Borama and 60 km north-west of Hargeisa, on a small plain at about 1,520 metres. Curle noted only "about twenty houses". The Incipit team mapped it in 2018 (Rouco 2024, pp. 68–69).

• Size. The site covers about 20 hectares, with houses spread over 14 hectares and no clear clusters. About 90 buildings were recorded, which Rouco calls "larger than indicated by A.T. Curle" and about half the size of the towns Curle called principal, such as Abasa (p. 70). See Abasa.
• Houses. They are rectangular, with two or three rooms and probably a yard with a low stone fence, built of dry-laid local sandstone (p. 70).
• A possible mosque. One better-built building in the centre may be a mosque, but no mihrab survives, so Rouco does not count it as one (p. 71).
• The oval enclosure. At the highest, southern end stands a stone enclosure about 67 metres across with at least one narrow entrance, holding four buildings. Rouco notes that inland sites of this period are generally unwalled, and suggests "a defensive or similar function" (p. 71).
• Graves. Two cemeteries lie at the northern edge, with about thirty visible graves. Most are cists of upright slabs, some in pairs and some small enough for children, laid east–west so that the head faced Mecca (p. 71). See From cairns to cemeteries.
• Finds. All the pottery was local and handmade. The only import was cowrie shells; no imported pottery, softstone, glass beads or bangles were found, which Rouco calls "striking" (pp. 72–73).

Rouco gives a tentative date from the 15th to the late 16th century and places Kabab among the inland settlements of the sultanate of Barr Sa'd al-Din (Adal). He suggests that the lack of imports may mean it "was not integrated into the same level as other towns" in the trade networks (p. 73).

The 2024 Gebiley survey

In October 2024 the National Museum of Somaliland and the StateHorn project spent three days recording eight sites. Four were known from Curle and four were new (Allamagen et al. 2025, pp. 47–48, table 1):

The authors describe the sites as alike: at the foot of hills, near streams, with scattered square or rectangular houses "without any evidence of planning", and stone terraces on steep slopes (p. 47).

• Beeyo Dhaadheer runs for about 1 km along the Dibra Wein river. A possible mosque stands near its centre. The authors call it "a major site in central Somaliland", linking the river with the pass to the Gebiley plains (p. 49).
• Gogeysa, which Curle called a major town, turned out to be a middle-sized village. It sits in flat farmland and yielded the only imported pottery of the survey, including two pieces of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain of the 16th century or later (pp. 49, 52).
• Cad Cad lies near the small medieval fort of Derbiga Cad. The authors suggest the pair may mean control of the area was disputed, either in the Christian–Muslim wars of the 14th–16th centuries or between nomads and settled people (p. 49).
• Dhagax La Galay has a walled cemetery of almost half a hectare. Its medieval cist graves are sometimes filled with white quartz, and later stone-pile graves with stelae lie above them (p. 50).

What the finds suggest to the authors

Most finds were local handmade pots and stone tools. The authors read the grinding stones and handstones as signs of farming. Imports were few: 29 cowries and 16 pieces of softstone vessels, each at five sites, and 12 glass fragments; the softstone probably came from Arabia, and the bangles probably from Egypt (pp. 51–52). They take this scarcity to mean the settlements "played a modest role in the trade networks" (p. 52).

They group the sites in two clusters. One follows a route from the Gebiley valley, which they say now grows 85% of Somaliland's vegetables, through the pass at Kabab and Dhagax La Galay to the Dibra Wein valley, where the site of Dameraqad also lies. The other, Satiile, Cad Cad and Musa Hassan, follows the wide wadis along the Ethiopian border towards Borama (p. 52). They give a preliminary date from the 15th to the early 17th century, and suggest some sites may be older (pp. 52–53).

Related pages

• Ruined towns of the Somali interior
• Fardowsa, the medieval trading town at Sheekh
• Medieval mosques of Somaliland
• History of archaeology in the Somali lands