Caluula (Alula)

Where it is

Caluula lies on the coast of the Guardafui Channel, about ten miles east of Ras Filuk and about 100 nautical miles from Bosaso (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia), at about 11.96°N, 50.76°E (Wikidata). It was in the Bari region. In 2013 Puntland made it the capital of a new region, Gardafuul (Gardafu), carved out of Bari: the government announced it on 8 April 2013 and Puntland's parliament approved it on 20 July 2013 (Garowe Online, 2013).

The name is read as Cal (the Cal mountains of the north-east) and luul (pearl), "the pearl of the Cal mountains" (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia).

Ancient Acannae and the frankincense trade

Sources identify Caluula with Acannae in the 1st-century Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and with Akkania in Ptolemy's 2nd-century Geography (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia; Ptolemy, Geography 4.7). A grove near the town gave what the Periplus calls the finest frankincense, the "far-side" (peratic) incense, from beyond the Bab el-Mandeb strait. It went to other ports of the northern coast, among them Malao, Mosylon and Opone, and on to Roman Egypt and Arabia (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia). Cosmas Indicopleustes recorded this trade still running in the 6th century (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia). See also frankincense and myrrh.

Ruins

About 20 km east of Caluula is a stone platform monument, 24 m by 17 m, with standing stones at its corners and graves and cairns nearby. It is the largest of a group of platform monuments found only in far north-eastern Somalia. Neville Chittick surveyed them in 1975–76 for the British Institute in Eastern Africa (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia).

The Majeerteen Sultanate and Italian conquest

The navigator Ahmad ibn Majid named Caluula among the ports of the northern coast in the 1400s (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia). In the early modern period it served as a capital of the Majeerteen Sultanate (Migiurtinia), and a castle from that time still stands (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia). In the late 1920s, in Italy's campaign against the northern sultanates, Caluula, Hafun, Bargal, Qandala and Habo were heavily bombarded, and much of their old buildings were destroyed (Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia). See Bargaal and Qandala.

See also the Majeerteen and Hobyo sultanates.

Today

Puntland's education ministry counts 11 primary schools in Caluula district, among them Xabo, Geesaley, Murcanyo, Xoogad and Caluula Primary (Puntland Ministry of Education). The town has an airstrip and a small sea port (World Airport Codes; Somali government transport paper, 2010). It has a hot desert climate (Köppen BWh) (Deutscher Wetterdienst).

Sources

• Wikipedia: Alula, Somalia
• Wikidata Q448076
• Ptolemy, Geography, book 4 chapter 7
• Garowe Online, Puntland parliament approves new region, 2013
• Puntland Ministry of Education, primary schools