Ancient ruins of the north-east recorded by Georges Révoil, 1880–1881

In short

Georges Révoil (1852–1894) was a French traveller who made several journeys to the Somali coast between 1877 and 1881, the last with support from France's Ministry of Public Instruction. His book La vallée du Darror: voyage aux pays çomalis (Paris, 1882) is one of the earliest written records of ancient remains in what is now Bari and eastern Sanaag. Quotations below are translated here from the French, and page numbers refer to that edition. Révoil wrote in the language of his time, and many of his readings are no longer accepted; later views are given where they exist.

Olog, under Cape Guardafui

Below the cape, which local people called Assir, Révoil found ruins on a small rock by the sea at Olok (Olog), where the sand "barely lets one glimpse the foundations cut into the rock on a very regular plan". He picked up pottery and a fragment of a lava millstone, and local people told him that small silver coins showing a bird had once been found there (pp. 40–41). A pottery expert he consulted, Adrien de Longpérier, judged the finds Roman, and Révoil wondered if this was the anchorage named in the Periplus (p. 302). The epigraphers who published the Sabaean inscriptions in 2021 note that Olog and Damo are usually linked with the Periplus's "Market of Spices" (Prioletta et al. 2021, p. 2). See The Somali ports in the Periplus.

Khor Abdaham, near Bargal

On the coast road to Berguel (Bargal), a few kilometres from the stream of Khor Abdaham, Révoil saw the remains of "an almost square construction, made up of two rooms", standing about a metre high, of "perfectly cut and fitted" stone, with a broken moulded cornice, and a small square structure nearby. He took it to be a small temple, perhaps Greek (pp. 51–53, 294–303). His guides would not let him dig.

In 2021 the epigraphers who studied seven Sabaic inscriptions looted from a site near Bargal in 2019 matched the looted site to this area, and think it and Révoil's ruin are "one and the same". They date the inscriptions most likely to the late 8th or 7th century BC. See The Sabaean inscriptions of the Somali coast.

Hafdar, in the Darror valley

Near Rhat in the Darror valley, Révoil visited Hafdar, which he notes the British explorer John Hanning Speke had already seen. In a dry valley he found "a large cemetery strewn with tombs of all forms", many walled in dry stone and some plastered (pp. 218–221). Two buildings stood out:

• A mosque of mud, its four walls still standing, with a small apse facing north-west. Révoil noted that its axis matched the mosque at Laasqoray.
• A "fort", which local people called darti. It was a maze of dry-stone rooms covering about 400 square metres, with walls 60 cm thick and 1.5 metres high, and a separate round tower 5 metres across. Révoil wrote that its age was "a problem in itself".

His guides again refused to let him dig.

Towers, cairns and shell heaps

• Near Bosaso. A few hours from Bender Gâsem (Bosaso), at a place he called Alleyah in Warsangali country, Révoil saw two square towers on one base, plastered in places with "a very hard cement", among round and square cairns (pp. 292, 294).
• Cairns everywhere. He describes heaps of stones ringed with large stones, flat-topped "truncated pyramids", and rings with or without a standing stone. He saw them along his whole route, from Bargal to the Darror valley and Laasqoray (pp. 287–292).
• Bargal. Between Bargal and Binnah, a large stone platform of about 60 square metres stood among round cairns, with heaps of shells, fish bones and the shells of giant turtles. He found flints, pierced shell amulets, pottery, iron and bronze there. Révoil linked the place to the fish-eating and turtle-eating peoples described by the Greek writer Artemidorus, as quoted by Strabo (pp. 290–291, 297–298).
• Stone tools. He collected flaked flint axes, knives and scrapers "on the shore and on the high plateaux", and noted workshops still recognisable (pp. 286–287).

His dig at Xiis

At Haïs (Xiis), in a cairn marked by a standing stone, Révoil found glass, enamel rods, "a mask in spun glass", green- and blue-glazed pottery, an alabaster vase fragment, beads of carnelian, amethyst, glass and bone, stone vessels, amphorae, nails and red-glazed ware (p. 293). Longpérier dated some of the pieces to Ptolemaic times and others to Roman times (p. 299). Révoil placed the ancient port of Mosylon here (p. 301). Modern researchers instead identify Xiis with the Periplus's Mundus (Cornax Gómez et al. 2022, p. 42). His finds went to the Trocadéro museum in Paris and were later dated to the 1st century AD. See Heis (Xiis) and The Xiis cairns and Somali star lore.

What local people told him

• Who built the ruins. At every site, Révoil writes, he was told: "What you see before you is the work of the Gallas, the Pharsis, the pagans of old". He understood this to mean peoples living in the land before the coming of Islam (pp. 41, 53, 295). He also noted that people feared digging into these places (p. 41).
• The cairn legend. He recorded a legend of cairns called arouèlo, "heaps of stones of the women". In the legend, a conquering queen once ruled the land and ordered the mutilation of boys. When she died the men refused to bury her, so the women covered her with stones. Women, he was told, still threw a stone on such cairns as they passed and said a prayer (pp. 296–297). The story matches the legend of Queen Araweelo told today. See Ancient burials, standing stones and towns.

How his ideas are seen now

Révoil believed that Punt, the land of the Egyptian voyages, lay near Barawa, and that Greek and Roman traders had settled on this coast (pp. 295–303). For current views on where Punt lay, see Punt and the Somali coast. Two of his sites have been taken up by modern research. Writing about Xiis, Cornax Gómez and colleagues note that Révoil's finds were for long the only material known from the site (Cornax Gómez et al. 2022, p. 42). Prioletta and colleagues observe that none of the archaeological surveys of the east coast had reached the Abdexan area since his visit (Prioletta et al. 2021, p. 2).

Related pages

• Opone and the ancient port at Ras Hafun
• Who dug where: a history of archaeology in Somalia and Somaliland
• Before 1300: the ancient Somali lands