Heritage sites in Somalia: Laas Geel, Hafun, the medieval towns and old mosques

In short

The Somali lands hold rock art thousands of years old, ports that traded with Rome, and stone towns from the age of the Muslim sultanates. Few of these places are protected or well studied. The main sites are listed below, from oldest to newest.

Laas Geel rock paintings

Laas Geel lies about 50 km from Hargeisa. A French team led by archaeologist Xavier Gutherz found it in 2002. Its rock shelters carry red and white paintings of cattle, antelopes, giraffes and hunters with bows. They show a herding way of life about 5,000 years old or more (AFP via The Peninsula, 27 June 2016).

The French team also dug inside one shelter, number 7. Stone tools there trace people at the site back to the Stone Age (Gutherz et al., Quaternary International, 2014).

The site is guarded by only a few people, and about 1,000 visitors a year make the trip. Its manager, Abdisalam Shabelleh, gave a warning in 2016. "If nothing is done now, in 20 years it could all have disappeared." Dust from visitors' feet may add to the fading (AFP 2016).

Gutherz asked for a UNESCO listing, but the request could not go ahead. UNESCO said "only state parties to the World Heritage Convention can nominate sites" (AFP 2016).

Ras Hafun and the ancient ports

Ras Hafun sits on the tip of the Horn, south of Cape Guardafui. Digs there found two sites full of imported pottery. Hafun West dates from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD. Hafun Main dates from the 2nd to the 5th centuries AD. The goods came from the Roman Empire, the Gulf and South Asia (Fernández Fernández, González-Ruibal and de Torres, Networked spaces, MOM Éditions, 2022).

Hafun is often linked to Opone, a port named in the 1st-century Greek sailing guide, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Neville Chittick led a British Institute in Eastern Africa expedition along this coast in 1975 and 1976, with Somali colleagues. He described Hafun as an early port (Chittick 1979, Early ports in the Horn of Africa).

On the north coast, Xiis (Heis) in Sanaag is a burial ground of more than 300 stone cairns. It is the only site in that region so far to yield Roman goods from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. Imports make up 99% of the finds. Scholars link it to the port of Mundu in the Periplus (Fernández Fernández et al. 2022).

Medieval trade towns

For what travellers saw in these ports, see the Somali coast, 1331 to 1586.

Between the 11th and 16th centuries, Islam spread inland and trade grew. Permanent stone towns rose along the caravan routes. Zeila was the main hub, with Berbera and Maydh as smaller ports. The sultanates of Ifat (1285 to 1415) and Adal (1415 to 1577) shaped this network (de Torres et al. 2022, Towns in a sea of nomads).

Fardowsa, near Sheekh and 60 km south of Berbera, covered about 35 hectares. It served caravans in the 14th to 16th centuries, and its finds include many imported goods. A Portuguese fleet raided Berbera in 1518, one of the attacks that helped end the old trade system. Fardowsa was empty by the end of the 16th century (de Torres et al. 2022).

The ruined medieval towns of the west, around Awdal, were first studied in the 1930s. At Fardowsa, new building in modern Sheekh has already covered part of the old town and one of its graveyards (de Torres et al. 2022).

Mogadishu's old mosques

The Fakhr al-Din mosque in Hamar Weyne carries an inscription dated 1269. It is among the oldest mosques in East Africa (Fakhr al-Din Mosque, Wikipedia, backup). For the faith behind these buildings, see Islam in Somalia.

UNESCO and protection today

• 2020: Somalia ratified the World Heritage Convention and the convention on living heritage. Both came into force for Somalia on 23 October 2020. In the same year Mogadishu reopened its National Museum, National Theatre and National Library after almost 30 years (UNESCO World Heritage Centre).
• 2024: Somalia sent its first tentative list, the step before a site can be nominated. It named two natural sites: Bushbushle National Park and the Hobyo grass and shrubland (UNESCO, Bushbushle National Park; UNESCO, Hobyo grass and shrubland).
• 2025: The Secondo-Lido lighthouse in Mogadishu was added as the first cultural site on the list (World Heritage Site, tentative list).

No Somali site is on the World Heritage List yet. At a 2020 UNESCO meeting, experts named the old coastal towns of the Benadiri and Barawani communities as possible future entries (UNESCO 2020).

Sources

• Gutherz, X. et al. (2014). "The Hargeisan revisited: lithic industries from shelter 7 of Laas Geel." Quaternary International 343: 69 to 84. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.04.038
• de Torres Rodríguez, J. et al. (2022). "Towns in a sea of nomads: territory and trade in Central Somaliland during the Medieval period." PDF
• Fernández Fernández, A., González-Ruibal, A. and de Torres, J. (2022). "New evidence of long-distance trade in Somaliland in Antiquity." In Networked spaces, MOM Éditions. OpenEdition
• Chittick, N. (1979). "Early ports in the Horn of Africa." International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 8(4). PDF
• AFP (2016). "Rocky future for Somalia's ancient cave art." The Peninsula
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Somalia ratification news; tentative lists 6752 and 6753.