The spanish team new paper

[Midas]

@Shimbiris @NidarNidar @Idilinaa @The alchemist So galla

It looks like the Spanish team just released a new paper . It's got some intresting stuff but they have apparently taken their nonsense to new levels with some of their takes ( apparently islamization in the interior didn't really start before the 12th century and wasnt even complete by the 16th century

 

[Midas]

We were also apparently heavily under the sway of himar and akusm and only began to create our own states after they collapsed as a result of directly being influenced by them

 

[Shimbiris]

Not really bothered by this, to be honest. The only people reading this are those deeply interested in the niche that is Horn history, like us. And if anyone tries to quote this nonsense to push an agenda (even on Wiki), it’s easy to shut down. Just point out the countless counter sources—“No settlements before the 12th century? Then what about these archaeological sites mentioned by other scholars? What’s the Periplus talking about? Or other Greco-Roman sources? All made up?” Same goes for the Islam claims. A quick skim through the medieval Arab sources on the Horn and Somali territories makes the idea that Islamization wasn’t complete, even in Afar lands, by the 16th century laughable.

What baffles me is this team, especially that individual @The alchemist pointed out—a genuinely racist scumbag and fanboy of Richard Burton. They really can’t be this dense? Someday, when actual Somalis or even serious Western scholars conduct proper analyses, these frauds will be exposed. And if anyone digs up the kind of dirt Alchemist did on them, their whole career gets flushed down the toilet of history. Just weird. Not serious people, wallahi.

 

[Midas]

Not really bothered by this, to be honest. The only people reading this are those deeply interested in the niche that is Horn history, like us. And if anyone tries to quote this nonsense to push an agenda (even on Wiki), it’s easy to shut down. Just point out the countless counter sources—“No settlements before the 12th century? Then what about these archaeological sites mentioned by other scholars? What’s the Periplus talking about? Or other Greco-Roman sources? All made up?” Same goes for the Islam claims. A quick skim through the medieval Arab sources on the Horn and Somali territories makes the idea that Islamization wasn’t complete, even in Afar lands, by the 16th century laughable.

What baffles me is this team, especially that individual @The alchemist pointed out—a genuinely racist scumbag and fanboy of Richard Burton. They really can’t be this dense? Someday, when actual Somalis or even serious Western scholars conduct proper analyses, these frauds will be exposed. And if anyone digs up the kind of dirt Alchemist did on them, their whole career gets flushed down the toilet of history. Just weird. Not serious people, wallahi.

They also misinterpret Burton as well. Horta does he or any of the other European explorers mention a town in ethiopia besides gonder at all ? You have all these cadaan people drawing pic and images of all the coastal somali towns and even an inner one like bardheere. Considering these guys where at Ethiopian courts since the 1600s where are all the ethiopian towns?

 

[Zak12]

We were also apparently heavily under the sway of himar and akusm

This is obviously total BS. Not only is there is next to no material evidence, archeology, or historical texts of Aksumite or Himyarite domination of Somalia at the time, but the document Periplus of the Erythrean Sea made it clear that Somalia or "Barbaria" was fully independent. As for Himyar, the only place in Africa we know that Himyar ruled was Azania which was in Kenya/Tanzania.

This honestly reeks of misinterpretation and agenda. @The alchemist had already touched upon his thoughts on this Spanish team before but if you recall, they made absurd statements in the past about Somalia's coastal city states being multi ethnic. I'm skeptical of whatever they have to say about Somalia.

 

[Midas]

This is obviously total BS. Not only is there is next to no material evidence, archeology, or historical texts of Aksumite or Himyarite domination of Somalia at the time, but the document Periplus of the Erythrean Sea made it clear that Somalia or "Barbaria" was fully independent. As for Himyar, the only place in Africa we know that Himyar ruled was Azania which was in Kenya/Tanzania.

This honestly reeks of misinterpretation and agenda. @The alchemist had already touched upon his thoughts on this Spanish team before but if you recall, they made absurd statements in the past about Somalia's coastal city states being multi ethnic. I'm skeptical of whatever they have to say about Somalia.

Yeah it's absolutely nonsensical. The mutliethnic nature of somali coastal towns is so nonsensical it's funny. They never claim that swahili towns were majority non swahili.

The mythical ethiosemetic peoples who they claim inhabited somali towns is an argument that fall apart when you realize that several oromo and Afar provinces separate the somali regions of Ethiopia from the ethio-semetic ones. There is also the fact that the gurage and hararis are basically several hundred thosuand each. Imagine how small these pouplations must have been in the past.

 

[Zak12]

Ya allah, its nonsense after nonsense. The collapse of Aksum and Himyar led to the rise of the Harla polity?? Aksum and obviously Himyar literally had no presence in the lowlands or that deep in the interior.

And their proof that ancient Somalis and Aksum had a strong relationship is because Aksumites once used Somalis as mercenaries, I mean come on lmao

 

[Shimbiris]

They also misinterpret Burton as well. Horta does he or any of the other European explorers mention a town in ethiopia besides gonder at all ? You have all these cadaan people drawing pic and images of all the coastal somali towns and even an inner one like bardheere. Considering these guys where at Ethiopian courts since the 1600s where are all the ethiopian towns?

Yeah, Burton was just a man of his time. British and western superiority just baked into him. Then he gets a bit fanciful and ignorant with some of his interpretations of tribal and demographic histories like when he wades into all the "Galla" stuff but beyond that, there was not actual hate in him toward Somalis that I could see, especially before his violent incident.

He even at various points seems to befriend Somalis during his journey like Shaykh Jami of Harar and the Governor of Saylac whom he doesn't at all insultingly report on. These guys are so weird in that Burton himself plainly states over and over that there are "Settled Somalis" of the towns and then the "Bedouins" of the countryside who contrast each other but also move amongst one another throughout his writings:

On the 24th of November I had an opportunity of seeing what a timid people are these Somal of the towns, who, as has been well remarked, are, like the settled Arabs, the worst specimens of their race.

In Zayla there is not a single coffee-house. The settled Somal care little for the Arab beverage, and the Bedouins’ reasons for avoiding it are not bad. “If we drink coffee once,” say they, “we shall want it again, and then where are we to get it?” The Abyssinian Christians, probably to distinguish themselves from Moslems, object to coffee as well as to tobacco. The Gallas, on the other hand, eat it: the powdered bean is mixed with butter, and on forays a lump about the size of a billiard-ball is preferred to a substantial meal.

The settled Somal have a holy horror of dogs, and, Wahhabi-like, treat man’s faithful slave most
cruelly. The wild people are more humane; they pay two ewes for a good colley, and demand a two-year-old sheep as “diyat” or blood-money for the animal, if killed.

As we entered the long straggling village of Wilensi, our party was divided by the Gerad’s two wives. The Hammal, the Kalendar, Shehrazade, and Deenarzade, remained with Beuh and his sister in her Gurgi, whilst Long Guled, the End of Time, and I were conducted to the cottage of the Gerad’s prettiest wife, Sudiyah. She was a tall woman, with a light complexion, handsomely dressed in a large Harar Tobe, with silver earrings, and the kind of necklace called Jilbah or Kardas.18 The Geradah (princess) at once ordered our hides to be spread in a comfortable part of the hut, and then supplied us with food— boiled beef, pumpkin, and Jowari cakes. During the short time spent in that Gambisa, I had an opportunity, dear L., of seeing the manners and customs of the settled Somal.

source

How do you read this and come to the sort of conclusions these weirdos do? It's like they were just racists who read the bits where he uses words like "savages" to describe the Bedouins in that typical colonial arrogant fashion—whilst also romanticizing them several times in contrast to the settled Somalis—giggled to themselves and only took that from his writings. So strange.

 

[Zak12]

We need a Somali version of Zahi Hawass, someone who can reign in these ajnabi archeologists and ensure their findings are accurate and quality.

 

[Shimbiris]

Ya allah, its nonsense after nonsense. The collapse of Aksum and Himyar led to the rise of the Harla polity?? Aksum and obviously Himyar literally had no presence in the lowlands or that deep in the interior.

View attachment 358004

And their proof that ancient Somalis and Aksum had a strong relationship is because Aksumites once used Somalis as mercenaries, I mean come on lmao

These guys remind me of some Ethiopian historians. Just straight making shit up with no citations or evidence.



There is not a single text that says or proves "Barbar" people from the Somali coast were ever mercenaries for the Aksumites. Frankly, to my honest chagrin, you'll be hard-pressed to even find sources mentioning the two groups even making contact in any way. We can only assume they made contact via the archaeology in that there's evidence of Ge'ez bibles and some Christian burials in the northwest.

 

[Zak12]

in that there's evidence of Ge'ez bibles and some Christian burials in the northwest.

IIRC.Sada Mire claimed that the crosses found in the north are of Christian origin but someone here said they are indigenous pagan symbols.

But yeah beyond some Aksumite artifacts being found in Somalia, there isn't proof of a "strong" relationship between Aksum and the Barbar region. I'd go as far to say that Somalia was too far for Aksum to make any serious influence and was something of a frontier area for that kingdom. We can assume as much because from all the Aksumite tablets and texts we have, "Barbaria" is barely ever mentioned compared to Yemen and Nubia.

 

[Midas]

IIRC.Sada Mire claimed that the crosses found in the north are of Christian origin but someone here said they are indigenous pagan symbols.

But yeah beyond some Aksumite artifacts being found in Somalia, there isn't proof of a "strong" relationship between Aksum and the Barbar region. I'd go as far to say that Somalia was too far for Aksum to make any serious influence and was something of a frontier area for that kingdom. We can assume as much because from all the Aksumite tablets and texts we have, "Barbaria" is barely ever mentioned compared to Yemen and Nubia.

There controll is always exaggerated. I think @Idilinaa even posted something about these guys didn't always even fully control adulis. You see this with how the governors of eritea were always somewhat semi-autonomous from Ethiopia

 

[Shimbiris]

IIRC.Sada Mire claimed that the crosses found in the north are of Christian origin but someone here said they are indigenous pagan symbols.

But yeah beyond some Aksumite artifacts being found in Somalia, there isn't proof of a "strong" relationship between Aksum and the Barbar region. I'd go as far to say that Somalia was too far for Aksum to make any serious influence and was something of a frontier area for that kingdom. We can assume as much because from all the Aksumite tablets and texts we have, "Barbaria" is barely ever mentioned compared to Yemen and Nubia.

Indeed. The "Barbars" the Aksumites mention are ones whose geography appears quite close by to them and to groups like Agaws from reading the inscriptions, so basically ancestral Saho-Afars. @NidarNidar was correct too in that the Danakil triangle is basically a perfect natural barrier that no settled agriculturalist highlanders in particular were going to get through in order to get to Somali territories:

Braving the Danakil is nothing like going into eastern Sudan where there are tributaries of the Nile, fertile patches, wells and the like strewn all across. It is one of the most desolate and hot places on Earth. Only a pastoralist fighting force could ever cross it. So barring that path you'd have to either go via the sea or around through the highlands and in through the Harar to northwest corridor and we have no archaeological or written evidence that they did either. We also have no archaeological evidence that they were ever even as deep into Ethiopia as places like Shewa, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Midas]

Indeed. The "Barbars" the Aksumites mention are ones whose geography appears quite close by to them and to groups like Agaws from reading the inscriptions, so basically ancestral Saho-Afars. @NidarNidar was correct too in that the Danakil triangle is basically a perfect natural barrier that no settled agriculturalist highlanders in particular were going to get through in order to get to Somali territories:

Braving the Danakil is nothing like going into eastern Sudan where there are tributaries of the Nile, fertile patches, wells and the like strewn all across. It is one of the most desolate and hot places on Earth. Only a pastoralist fighting force could ever cross it. So barring that path you'd have to either go via the sea or around through the highlands and in through the Harar to northwest corridor and we have no archaeological or written evidence that they did either. We also have no archaeological evidence that they were ever even as deep into Ethiopia as places like Shewa, if I'm not mistaken.

The most damning fact of basically all historical resaerch done in the horn of africa is the fact that nobody has seemed to have taken basic geography into account.

 

[Shimbiris]

The most damning fact of basically all historical resaerch done in the horn of africa is the fact that nobody has seemed to have taken basic geography into account.

Absolutely. Barring even topography, one thing I think these people sometimes don't realize at all when they make all their outlandish assumptions about the size of Aksum is that I don't think they fully understand how huge the Horn of Africa truly is. Somalia from the tip of the Horn down to Ras Kambooni is comparable to Boston in Massachusetts down to Jacksonville in Florida:

Bosaso to Saylac is comparable to NYC to Detroit. When you count together all of Somaliweyn you're looking at a land mass roughly the size of Western Europe:

United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, and Switzerland: ~1.3 million square km

Somaliweyn: ~1.2 million square km

These people are skewed heavily by staring all day at Mercator projections and have no clue how huge Africa really is or how diverse its climes and topographic makeup really is even within a region like ours that takes up less than 1/4th the continent's landmass:

Their skewed brain thinks an empire that stretches from Northern Sudan to Northeastern Somalia and into Yemen is like an impoverished sized Byzantium when it's like ruling from beyond the northern most reaches of India into the border with Bangladesh and then some.

 

[NidarNidar]

Not really bothered by this, to be honest. The only people reading this are those deeply interested in the niche that is Horn history, like us. And if anyone tries to quote this nonsense to push an agenda (even on Wiki), it’s easy to shut down. Just point out the countless counter sources—“No settlements before the 12th century? Then what about these archaeological sites mentioned by other scholars? What’s the Periplus talking about? Or other Greco-Roman sources? All made up?” Same goes for the Islam claims. A quick skim through the medieval Arab sources on the Horn and Somali territories makes the idea that Islamization wasn’t complete, even in Afar lands, by the 16th century laughable.

What baffles me is this team, especially that individual @The alchemist pointed out—a genuinely racist scumbag and fanboy of Richard Burton. They really can’t be this dense? Someday, when actual Somalis or even serious Western scholars conduct proper analyses, these frauds will be exposed. And if anyone digs up the kind of dirt Alchemist did on them, their whole career gets flushed down the toilet of history. Just weird. Not serious people, wallahi.

By the 12th century we where already fully Muslim across all of modern greater Somalia.

7th century AD map

11th century AD map

12th century - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

12th ad Century Map

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/East-Hem_1200ad.jpg

 

[Xassan]

By the 12th century we where already fully Muslim across all of modern greater Somalia.

7th century AD map
View attachment 358020

11th century AD map
View attachment 358017

12th century - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

12th ad Century Map
View attachment 358016

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/East-Hem_1200ad.jpg

View attachment 358015

The fact that only the north in the 7th century AD map is labeled somali instead of all of Somalia is crazy

 

[Midas]

Absolutely. Barring even topography, one thing I think these people sometimes don't realize at all when they make all their outlandish assumptions about the size of Aksum is that I don't think they fully understand how huge the Horn of Africa truly is. Somalia from the tip of the Horn down to Ras Kambooni is comparable to Boston in Massachusetts down to Jacksonville in Florida:

Bosaso to Saylac is comparable to NYC to Detroit. When you count together all of Somaliweyn you're looking at a land mass roughly the size of Western Europe:



These people are skewed heavily by staring all day at Mercator projections and have no clue how huge Africa really is or how diverse its climes and topographic makeup really is even within a region like ours that takes up less than 1/4th the continent's landmass:

Their skewed brain thinks an empire that stretches from Northern Sudan to Northeastern Somalia and into Yemen is like an impoverished sized Byzantium when it's like ruling from beyond the northern most reaches of India into the border with Bangladesh and then some.

The biggest giveaway that aksum wasn't actually this massive kingdom. Is how there haven't been any large towns found except aksum and adulis.

What crazy about the Somali territories is basically how interconnected people were. I mean you have the biimaal in merca who are a branch of dir. In a place nearly 1000 km away from djbouti.

 

[NidarNidar]

The fact that only the north in the 7th century AD map is labeled somali instead of all of Somalia is crazy

Mai-Mai speakers arrived in the south long before the 7th century.

 

[The alchemist]

I'm reading this work and can't believe how everything is wrong. The scholarship here is weak to the point of utter disrespect. You can tell these people lack both dignity and integirty by how they write their bullshit. They think they can write whatever they want because of this perceived first-mover advantage, thinking they're not getting called out for their fraudulent efforts.

Everything I concluded about these people checks. Here you see how they juxtapose directly the fake "pure nomad" phenomenon with this weird obsession with their narrow and quite irrelevant view of centralization and statehood.

I noticed they claimed there was a political transformation because of influence from foreigners, specifically the economic trade relations. This was doubled down on this:

What they directly imply here is that foreign relations set fixtures of political infrastructures, whereas before contact, these people were unstructured "nomadic" vagabonds. Because of their Spanish ignorance, they seek to falsely contrive a model of foreign people shaping Somali adaptation, especially their wrong lens of reductive sophistication based on their Western historical, and quite inept value judgments. That is why there is the pure nomad, and a foreigner who comes and establishes "civilization". It's quite stupid and sad how they can't move out of their colonial perspective of world history. It's a childish and unsophisticated formula that drives their essential narrative on top of jargon that tries to dress it in respectable linguistics.

The word for camel was in the land since before the Rendille ancestors moved south. So we can look at a 2000-year-old phenomenon or older. Glottochronology shows that the word was nested thrugh descent not contact during roughly that time:

This goes well with genetic influence, intesification of economic relations with Southern Arabia, probaby drying of the region and expansions of economic internal logistics, as camels revolutionized the caravan industry wheras the donkey would probably be the chief beast of burden for taking goods from one region to another.