As it is already known, local peoples in the area of Somalia, and the Horn of Africa area down to the coast of present day Mozambique, did not develop scriptures of their own in the pre-Christian and even the Pre-Islamic Antiquity.
So, contrarily to what happened in Yemen where Ancient Yemenite scripture was introduced already in the 6th century BCE (and was in use until the Islamization of the country, following Ali´s preaching in Sanaa in 630 CE) for the needs of writing down Minaean, Sabaean, Qatabani, Himyaritic and Hadhramwti (the basic Ancient Yemenite languages), we have to rely exclusively on foreign literatures in our effort to reconstitute the Ancient History of the Eastern African Coast.
Although the area was at the confines of the then known world, the Eastern African Coast was constantly and regularly visited by Assyrians and Babylonians already in the 3rd millennium BCE. The area was described in Ancient Egyptian generically as ´Punt´, but to modern scholarship this term is difficult to be precisely delineated as a part of the entire area.
Various efforts of identification encompass the coast of Sudan, the coast of Eritrea, the Red Sea coast of Yemen, the Atbara river valley area (in the Eastern part of Sudan), the coast of Northern and Northeastern Somalia. With the exception of some of the aforementioned that seem rather farfetched interpretations, perhaps the term Punt meant to the Ancient Egyptians a vast area in the Eastern African coast, where the homonymous state of Punt (as mentioned in the famous ´Expedition to Punt´ by Pharaoh Hatshepsut (1490 1470 BCE) in the inscriptions of the Southern Section of the Second Colonnade of her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari in Thebes West / Luqsor) was probably only a part (and therefore even more difficult to identify).
The fact that there are linguistic similarities between the Ancient Egyptian term ´Punt´ and the Ancient Greek term ´Opone´ (that denotes a town and port of call in the area of Ras Hafun coast) does not solve completely the Punt mystery, although it looks plausible that the Punt kingdom might have been located in that area.
Ancient Greek and Latin sources pertaining to the Horn of Africa area are later than Queen Hatshpsut´s text by 1500 years but some of them shed much more light into the social, economic, commercial and political details of the area. We have however to make clear that, when we compare the two periods (15th century BCE and 1st century CE), we have to bear in mind that many groundbreaking developments had taken place in-between! The entire world had changed, which is only normal for such a long space of time!
Iran, Yemen, and India were almost empty circumferences with few centers of relatively low culture at the times of the Egyptian Queen. When we go down to the times of the first Christian century, not only Iran, Yemen and India but also Meroitic Ethiopia, Axumite Abyssinia had risen to power, had developed important civilizations, involving scriptures and epigraphic material. Even more significant is the fact that in this later period another event had also taken place.
Due to the maritime inclination of the Qatabani Yemenites and to their navigational explorations in the open seas, direct sailing from the Horn of Africa to the West coast of India was already possible thanks to good knowledge of the Monsoons. The extensive navigation of the Yemenites in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean led to the establishment of a vast maritime trade network that encompassed the West coast of India, the coasts of Persia and the Persian Gulf, the Eastern coast of Africa, the coasts of today´s Oman and Yemen, as well as the entire Red Sea.
Yemenite merchants and sailors had the upper hand in this vast network for several hundreds of years, so that we can safely call the phenomenon ´Yemenite Thalassocracy´. It was only normal for the Egyptians to try to be involved and to send a fleet manned by Phoenician sailors to circumnavigate Africa, which they did during two years (around 600 BCE) at the times of Pharaoh Nechao.
We know that the Yemenite Thalassocracy phenomenon occurred at the times of the Achaemenidian Empire of Iran, after Shah Darius envisioned the maritime contacts between the central province of his vast country and Africa (Egypt, Libya and the North of Sudan were Persian provinces) as an alternative to the land contacts that had to cross areas like Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) and Syria, where the Iranian control was new and therefore not absolutely solid.
For a period going from 525 BCE (Iranian invasion of Egypt and the north of Sudan) to around 115 BCE (when the combined forces of Himyar and Sheba invaded the Yemenite kingdom of Qataban), we have uninterruptedly increased commercial and cultural exchanges throughout the vast area of the aforementioned network area. Certainly, the decay times of the Achaemenidians (after 425 BCE) allowed the Qatabani Yemenites to raise even heavier taxation and accumulate great wealth.
The rise of Sheba and Himyar at the prejudice of the wealthy and maritime Qataban proved to be a rather negative development for Yemen, since the two countries had no significant maritime tradition. The event was monitored and noticed by the ailing Ptolemies of Egypt (the Macedonian origin dynasty that ruled from Memphis and Alexandria between 330 and 30 BCE), who did their best to force the Yemenites to reduce the high taxation on products from India, Africa and Asia. In addition, Egyptian commercial ships started sailing beyond the Bab el Mandeb straits, paying the necessary tolls.
Still the Yemenite taxation was heavy enough to cause a Roman naval expedition against Yemen and Aden (Arabia Felix) a few years after the Roman annexation of Egypt and the death of Cleopatra VII. Strabo narrated that at the beginning of the Roman Imperial era more than 100 ships sailed annually down to the southernmost confines of the Red Sea and beyond.
All this testifies to increased interest of the Greco-Roman world in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and the reason was apparent: spices, aromatic trees, various luxurious and exquisite products were necessary in the changing habitudes of the Mediterranean people who sought the refined Oriental sumptuousness instead of their earlier simplicity and modesty.
Thanks to the rise of the navigation and trade, we notice an increased interest in explorations as well. A Roman mission was sent through Ethiopia (the great Kushitic state at the north and the center of present day Sudan, with capital at Meroe nearby today´s Bagrawiyah) to sail down to the sources of the Nile, and in their return they reported about the Mount of the Moon (possibly Kilimanjaro).
The ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ and the Horn of Africa countries at the end of 1st century CE
This is precisely the historical cultural milieu from which we extract historical information about the Eastern coast of Africa, based mostly on Greco-Roman sources. As coronation of earlier fragmentary or disparate textual evidence, the ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ proved to be a goldmine of historical information for the entire area between Egypt and Indochian/Indonesia (an area called ´Chryse´, i.e. ´the Golden´, by the Greeks at those days).
The text was written around the year 70 CE, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero and (as stated in the text itself) the reign of the King Malichus II of the Nabataeans (at Rekem / Petra in today´s Jordan). The text is written by an anonymous Alexandrian Egyptian merchant and captain, who certainly had personal experience in vast parts of that navigation and trade network area, and wished to compile a kind of guide for sailors and traders.
We assume that ´the Periplus of the Red Sea´ is just one of many texts of similar contents, but of course the only that what preserved entirely until today. It is not a long text. In a modern English translation, it would be less than 8000 words (around 24 pages). But it is a very dense text mentioning the distance between the various ports of call, the products exported from, and imported in, every port and market, plus socio-anthropological and political information. To lesser extent, it also provides details about land and desert road networks attached to the maritime network, which is the author´s main topic.
The ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ is written in the way needed for different maritime voyages, because at those days there were basically two maritime itineraries throughout that vast area. One itinerary was the African sailing down to Rhapta, namely the area of present day Daressalam in Tanzania. The coast beyond that faraway port of the South was unknown and certainly not frequented. So, the text starts with the narration of all the harbours from Arsinoe (Suez) to Rhapta.
The other itinerary was the Asiatic sailing along side the coast of the Arabian Peninsula (and at times the Persian Gulf) to the Delta of Indus River, and then through the Western and the Eastern coasts of India towards Indochina and China. So, after presenting the African coast sailing, the text goes back to Arsinoe, and continues with the narration of all the harbors from Arsinoe and Leuke Kome (Al Wadjh in the northern Red Sea coast of S. Arabia) down to Yemenite, Persian and Indian coasts up to China. The text gives also details about the open seafaring from the Horn of Africa area to the West Indian coast.
The political entities that existed on both sides of the Red Sea and throughout Eastern Africa involve the following states:
1 - Saba and Himyar kingdoms in Yemen (merged in one)
2 - Hadhramawt Kingdom, named as Frankincense-bearing Country
The Periplus of the Red Sea makes a clear cut distinction between the barbaric Arabs (in the area of Hedjaz) and the civilized Yemenites, who were organized in two states,
one under Kharibael (Saba and Himyar kingdoms had merged at those days), who ruled mostly the area of the former Northern Yemen plus the region of Aden, and
another under Eleazos (the Hadhramawt Kingdom that was named in Greek ´I Libanotoforos Khora´, i.e. the Frankincense-bearing Country).
The Yemenite states controlled their respective coasts and inland, whereas only barbaric nomads were said to dwell in the coasts of Arabia.
3 - Roman Egypt in control of ´Berberia´, the Sudanese coast
4 - Meroe
With regard to the Eastern African coast, the text states clearly that the coast of present day Sudan was rather controlled by the Roman rulers of Egypt (through their colony, Ptolemais Theron, at present day Suakin). All that area was called ´Berberia´ (not to be confused with the adjective ´barbaric´).
Quite strangely, the great Kushitic kingdom of Ethiopia with capital at Meroe (in today´s Sudanese Nile Valley) is reported not to control the Red Sea coast adjacent to it.
5 - Axumite Abyssinia
The coast of today´s Eritrea between Adulis (near Massawa) and Avalites (Assab) was ruled by Zoscales, king of Axum, whose rule ended at Avalites. Zoscales´ power did not extend beyond Assab or further in the inland beyond Axum.
6 - ´The Other Berberia´ an independent state in Northern Somalia stretched up to the area of Cape Guardafui
The coast beyond the Axumite kingdom until the Horn of Africa was named by the Periplus´ author ´I Alli Berberia´, i.e. ´the Other Berberia´, without any explanation to the connection with ´Berberia´, the Sudanese coast. ´The Other Berberia´ was ruled independently´, and was never under the control of either Saba, Himyar or Abyssinia.
7 - Azania a Yemenite colony
8 - Socotra a Hadhramawti colony
Beyond the ´Akrotirion Aromaton´, the Cape of Spices as the Periplus names Cape Guardafui, Azania was extended down to Rhapta (in today´s Tanzania). Azania was colony of the Sabaean Himyaritic kingdom of Kharibael, and plenty of details are given in the text.
Similarly, the Hadhramawt Kingdom (´I Libanotoforos Khora´, i.e. the Frankincense-bearing Country) owed the island of Socotra (´Dioskouridou Nesos´/island, according to the text) as colony.
In a series of articles, we will publish, comment and analyze the excerpts of the ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ that refer to ´The Other Berberia´ and ´Azania´ that correspond to an early concept of Greater Somalia, in extensive interaction with Yemen, Egypt and India.
So, contrarily to what happened in Yemen where Ancient Yemenite scripture was introduced already in the 6th century BCE (and was in use until the Islamization of the country, following Ali´s preaching in Sanaa in 630 CE) for the needs of writing down Minaean, Sabaean, Qatabani, Himyaritic and Hadhramwti (the basic Ancient Yemenite languages), we have to rely exclusively on foreign literatures in our effort to reconstitute the Ancient History of the Eastern African Coast.
Although the area was at the confines of the then known world, the Eastern African Coast was constantly and regularly visited by Assyrians and Babylonians already in the 3rd millennium BCE. The area was described in Ancient Egyptian generically as ´Punt´, but to modern scholarship this term is difficult to be precisely delineated as a part of the entire area.
Various efforts of identification encompass the coast of Sudan, the coast of Eritrea, the Red Sea coast of Yemen, the Atbara river valley area (in the Eastern part of Sudan), the coast of Northern and Northeastern Somalia. With the exception of some of the aforementioned that seem rather farfetched interpretations, perhaps the term Punt meant to the Ancient Egyptians a vast area in the Eastern African coast, where the homonymous state of Punt (as mentioned in the famous ´Expedition to Punt´ by Pharaoh Hatshepsut (1490 1470 BCE) in the inscriptions of the Southern Section of the Second Colonnade of her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari in Thebes West / Luqsor) was probably only a part (and therefore even more difficult to identify).
The fact that there are linguistic similarities between the Ancient Egyptian term ´Punt´ and the Ancient Greek term ´Opone´ (that denotes a town and port of call in the area of Ras Hafun coast) does not solve completely the Punt mystery, although it looks plausible that the Punt kingdom might have been located in that area.
Ancient Greek and Latin sources pertaining to the Horn of Africa area are later than Queen Hatshpsut´s text by 1500 years but some of them shed much more light into the social, economic, commercial and political details of the area. We have however to make clear that, when we compare the two periods (15th century BCE and 1st century CE), we have to bear in mind that many groundbreaking developments had taken place in-between! The entire world had changed, which is only normal for such a long space of time!
Iran, Yemen, and India were almost empty circumferences with few centers of relatively low culture at the times of the Egyptian Queen. When we go down to the times of the first Christian century, not only Iran, Yemen and India but also Meroitic Ethiopia, Axumite Abyssinia had risen to power, had developed important civilizations, involving scriptures and epigraphic material. Even more significant is the fact that in this later period another event had also taken place.
Due to the maritime inclination of the Qatabani Yemenites and to their navigational explorations in the open seas, direct sailing from the Horn of Africa to the West coast of India was already possible thanks to good knowledge of the Monsoons. The extensive navigation of the Yemenites in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean led to the establishment of a vast maritime trade network that encompassed the West coast of India, the coasts of Persia and the Persian Gulf, the Eastern coast of Africa, the coasts of today´s Oman and Yemen, as well as the entire Red Sea.
Yemenite merchants and sailors had the upper hand in this vast network for several hundreds of years, so that we can safely call the phenomenon ´Yemenite Thalassocracy´. It was only normal for the Egyptians to try to be involved and to send a fleet manned by Phoenician sailors to circumnavigate Africa, which they did during two years (around 600 BCE) at the times of Pharaoh Nechao.
We know that the Yemenite Thalassocracy phenomenon occurred at the times of the Achaemenidian Empire of Iran, after Shah Darius envisioned the maritime contacts between the central province of his vast country and Africa (Egypt, Libya and the North of Sudan were Persian provinces) as an alternative to the land contacts that had to cross areas like Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) and Syria, where the Iranian control was new and therefore not absolutely solid.
For a period going from 525 BCE (Iranian invasion of Egypt and the north of Sudan) to around 115 BCE (when the combined forces of Himyar and Sheba invaded the Yemenite kingdom of Qataban), we have uninterruptedly increased commercial and cultural exchanges throughout the vast area of the aforementioned network area. Certainly, the decay times of the Achaemenidians (after 425 BCE) allowed the Qatabani Yemenites to raise even heavier taxation and accumulate great wealth.
The rise of Sheba and Himyar at the prejudice of the wealthy and maritime Qataban proved to be a rather negative development for Yemen, since the two countries had no significant maritime tradition. The event was monitored and noticed by the ailing Ptolemies of Egypt (the Macedonian origin dynasty that ruled from Memphis and Alexandria between 330 and 30 BCE), who did their best to force the Yemenites to reduce the high taxation on products from India, Africa and Asia. In addition, Egyptian commercial ships started sailing beyond the Bab el Mandeb straits, paying the necessary tolls.
Still the Yemenite taxation was heavy enough to cause a Roman naval expedition against Yemen and Aden (Arabia Felix) a few years after the Roman annexation of Egypt and the death of Cleopatra VII. Strabo narrated that at the beginning of the Roman Imperial era more than 100 ships sailed annually down to the southernmost confines of the Red Sea and beyond.
All this testifies to increased interest of the Greco-Roman world in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and the reason was apparent: spices, aromatic trees, various luxurious and exquisite products were necessary in the changing habitudes of the Mediterranean people who sought the refined Oriental sumptuousness instead of their earlier simplicity and modesty.
Thanks to the rise of the navigation and trade, we notice an increased interest in explorations as well. A Roman mission was sent through Ethiopia (the great Kushitic state at the north and the center of present day Sudan, with capital at Meroe nearby today´s Bagrawiyah) to sail down to the sources of the Nile, and in their return they reported about the Mount of the Moon (possibly Kilimanjaro).
The ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ and the Horn of Africa countries at the end of 1st century CE
This is precisely the historical cultural milieu from which we extract historical information about the Eastern coast of Africa, based mostly on Greco-Roman sources. As coronation of earlier fragmentary or disparate textual evidence, the ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ proved to be a goldmine of historical information for the entire area between Egypt and Indochian/Indonesia (an area called ´Chryse´, i.e. ´the Golden´, by the Greeks at those days).
The text was written around the year 70 CE, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero and (as stated in the text itself) the reign of the King Malichus II of the Nabataeans (at Rekem / Petra in today´s Jordan). The text is written by an anonymous Alexandrian Egyptian merchant and captain, who certainly had personal experience in vast parts of that navigation and trade network area, and wished to compile a kind of guide for sailors and traders.
We assume that ´the Periplus of the Red Sea´ is just one of many texts of similar contents, but of course the only that what preserved entirely until today. It is not a long text. In a modern English translation, it would be less than 8000 words (around 24 pages). But it is a very dense text mentioning the distance between the various ports of call, the products exported from, and imported in, every port and market, plus socio-anthropological and political information. To lesser extent, it also provides details about land and desert road networks attached to the maritime network, which is the author´s main topic.
The ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ is written in the way needed for different maritime voyages, because at those days there were basically two maritime itineraries throughout that vast area. One itinerary was the African sailing down to Rhapta, namely the area of present day Daressalam in Tanzania. The coast beyond that faraway port of the South was unknown and certainly not frequented. So, the text starts with the narration of all the harbours from Arsinoe (Suez) to Rhapta.
The other itinerary was the Asiatic sailing along side the coast of the Arabian Peninsula (and at times the Persian Gulf) to the Delta of Indus River, and then through the Western and the Eastern coasts of India towards Indochina and China. So, after presenting the African coast sailing, the text goes back to Arsinoe, and continues with the narration of all the harbors from Arsinoe and Leuke Kome (Al Wadjh in the northern Red Sea coast of S. Arabia) down to Yemenite, Persian and Indian coasts up to China. The text gives also details about the open seafaring from the Horn of Africa area to the West Indian coast.
The political entities that existed on both sides of the Red Sea and throughout Eastern Africa involve the following states:
1 - Saba and Himyar kingdoms in Yemen (merged in one)
2 - Hadhramawt Kingdom, named as Frankincense-bearing Country
The Periplus of the Red Sea makes a clear cut distinction between the barbaric Arabs (in the area of Hedjaz) and the civilized Yemenites, who were organized in two states,
one under Kharibael (Saba and Himyar kingdoms had merged at those days), who ruled mostly the area of the former Northern Yemen plus the region of Aden, and
another under Eleazos (the Hadhramawt Kingdom that was named in Greek ´I Libanotoforos Khora´, i.e. the Frankincense-bearing Country).
The Yemenite states controlled their respective coasts and inland, whereas only barbaric nomads were said to dwell in the coasts of Arabia.
3 - Roman Egypt in control of ´Berberia´, the Sudanese coast
4 - Meroe
With regard to the Eastern African coast, the text states clearly that the coast of present day Sudan was rather controlled by the Roman rulers of Egypt (through their colony, Ptolemais Theron, at present day Suakin). All that area was called ´Berberia´ (not to be confused with the adjective ´barbaric´).
Quite strangely, the great Kushitic kingdom of Ethiopia with capital at Meroe (in today´s Sudanese Nile Valley) is reported not to control the Red Sea coast adjacent to it.
5 - Axumite Abyssinia
The coast of today´s Eritrea between Adulis (near Massawa) and Avalites (Assab) was ruled by Zoscales, king of Axum, whose rule ended at Avalites. Zoscales´ power did not extend beyond Assab or further in the inland beyond Axum.
6 - ´The Other Berberia´ an independent state in Northern Somalia stretched up to the area of Cape Guardafui
The coast beyond the Axumite kingdom until the Horn of Africa was named by the Periplus´ author ´I Alli Berberia´, i.e. ´the Other Berberia´, without any explanation to the connection with ´Berberia´, the Sudanese coast. ´The Other Berberia´ was ruled independently´, and was never under the control of either Saba, Himyar or Abyssinia.
7 - Azania a Yemenite colony
8 - Socotra a Hadhramawti colony
Beyond the ´Akrotirion Aromaton´, the Cape of Spices as the Periplus names Cape Guardafui, Azania was extended down to Rhapta (in today´s Tanzania). Azania was colony of the Sabaean Himyaritic kingdom of Kharibael, and plenty of details are given in the text.
Similarly, the Hadhramawt Kingdom (´I Libanotoforos Khora´, i.e. the Frankincense-bearing Country) owed the island of Socotra (´Dioskouridou Nesos´/island, according to the text) as colony.
In a series of articles, we will publish, comment and analyze the excerpts of the ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ that refer to ´The Other Berberia´ and ´Azania´ that correspond to an early concept of Greater Somalia, in extensive interaction with Yemen, Egypt and India.
