Where did Somalis get this vernacular architecture?

[Shimbiris]

This shit ain’t no architecture

You have a poor vocabulary. The keyword was vernacular. I don't know if you know anything about history but rural people's architecture or the more rough, actually more common architecture in medieval and ancient cities and towns was distinct from the normal, more monumental architecture of the cities and towns. It wasn't planned or overseen by any architects nor did any really extensive labor someone like a feudal lord could employ go into them. They were thus usually simpler. A rural hut is a form of vernacular architecture, for example.

 

[Dima&Damo]

View attachment 247296Stupid ass hell. We have cities older than your ancestorsView attachment 247297

Who is my ancestors

 

[Curtana]

Ancient and Medeival Somali cities are described as being grand in size with glamerous advanced architecture, what the hell happened to them? Why are there no remains and why wasn't the techniques they used to construct these cities passed down or written? Saylac is described so majestically and today it is a small town town with a hundred shitty houses, there are barely any remains of Somali civilization.

 

[Shimbiris]

Who is my ancestors

Stop trolling up the thread, aboowe.

 

[Dima&Damo]

Stop trolling up the thread, aboowe.

Sorry sxb

 

[Shimbiris]

Ancient and Medeival Somali cities are described as being grand in size with glamerous advanced architecture, what the hell happened to them? Why are there no remains and why wasn't the techniques they used to construct these cities passed down or written? Saylac is described so majestically and today it is a small town town with a hundred shitty houses, there are barely any remains of Somali civilization.

I don't think they were ever that big in regards to stone architecture. What you see in the 1800s was probably it or maybe that times two or three in some cases. The majority of the population was probably living in constructions like what we've been sharing in this thread and many of them were highly transient. Some towns were borderline fully "nomadic" where they would balloon up like crazy for a certain period of the year when trade was high then shrink exponentially or possibly in some cases even "disappear" where all the local merchants either went off to sea in places like Yemen or to the interior to restock on goods and the rest of the population just went back to their interior lifestyle until the next trade season.

Berbera near the middle of the 1800s was a perhaps extreme and prime example of this:



Even magaalo like Xamar and Harar had a significant transient population based on the accounts and censes. Even Ibn Khaldun in the 1300s describes Xamar's mode of civilization as "nomadic" and when Battuta is there in the 1331 he points out the absurd abundance of camels and sheep in its alleyways, telling you that there were clearly lots of geeljires amok among the more permanent inhabitants like the Suldaan he was guest to. The situation, from what I've noticed, was also often similar in Arabia.

 

[Dima&Damo]

I don't think they were ever that big in regards to stone architecture. What you see in the 1800s was probably it or maybe that times two or three in some cases. The majority of the population was probably living in constructions like what we've been sharing in this thread and many of them were highly transient. Some towns were borderline fully "nomadic" where they would balloon up like crazy for a certain period of the year when trade was high then shrink exponentially or possibly in some cases even "disappear" where all the merchants either went off to sea in places like Yemen or to the interior to restock on goods and the rest of the population just went back to their interior lifestyle until the next trade season.

Berbera near the middle of the 1800s was a perhaps extreme and prime example of this:



Even magaalo like Xamar and Harar had a significant transient population based on the accounts and censes. Even Ibn Khaldun in the 1300s describes Xamar's mode of civilization as "nomadic" and when Battuta is there in the 1331 he points out the absurd abundance of camels and sheep in its alleyways, telling you that there were clearly lots of geeljires amok among the more permanent inhabitants like the Suldaan he was guest to. The situation, from what I've noticed, was also often similar in Arabia.

Have you thoughts on this

 

[Dima&Damo]

Ancient and Medeival Somali cities are described as being grand in size with glamerous advanced architecture, what the hell happened to them? Why are there no remains and why wasn't the techniques they used to construct these cities passed down or written? Saylac is described so majestically and today it is a small town town with a hundred shitty houses, there are barely any remains of Somali civilization.

civilization collapse most likely

 

[Shimbiris]

Have you thoughts on this

Yeah, there was a big study on Bari too a while back. Lost the link. I'll find it sometime and share it. It seems the northeast was somewhat more fertile and well irrigated in the Middle-Ages. These medieval tuuloyin usually didn't have walls, from what I remember reading, which imparts a strong connection with the local nomads (not being scared to be raided or attacked by them) and some of the coastal market-towns were probably a bit bigger back then.

 

[Curtana]

We need to start investing in excavation, people described Punt as being a majestic rich land with advanced cities and civilization, wallahi imagine the tourism we would get, xaafun would be very easy to excavate.

 

[Dima&Damo]

Yeah, there was a big study on Bari too a while back. Lost the link. I'll find it sometime and share it. It seems the northeast was somewhat more fertile and well irrigated in the Middle-Ages. These medieval tuuloyin usually didn't have walls, from what I remember reading, which imparts a strong connection with the local nomads (not being scared to be raided or attacked by them) and some of the coastal market-towns were probably a bit bigger back then.

Surely civilization collapse happnened in the horn a couple of times

 

[Curtana]

Yeah, there was a big study on Bari too a while back. Lost the link. I'll find it sometime and share it. It seems the northeast was somewhat more fertile and well irrigated in the Middle-Ages. These medieval tuuloyin usually didn't have walls, from what I remember I reading, which imparts a strong connection with the local nomads (not being scared to be raided or attacked by them) and some of the coastal market-towns were probably a bit bigger back then.

That explains why Punt probably fell, it was described as being a fertile tropical land with rivers and a wide variety of exotic animals which was one of the most powerful empires, a drought probably happened which destroyed the land, the arabs have a similar history with sabca being described in the Quran as a beautiful land and arabs then became nomadic clans men like us.

 

[Curtana]

Surely civilization collapse happnened in the horn a couple of times

Who knows if a prophet was sent to guide as and we went against him then Allah punished our lands by making it barren, maybe Samale was a prophet and he tried to guide his people and they were destroyed, this is evident by 1 haplogroup being dominant throughout Somaliweyn (excluding Somaliland) and I heard other haplogroups were all over Somalia which disappeared.

 

[Somalib]

Ancient and Medeival Somali cities are described as being grand in size with glamerous advanced architecture, what the hell happened to them? Why are there no remains and why wasn't the techniques they used to construct these cities passed down or written? Saylac is described so majestically and today it is a small town town with a hundred shitty houses, there are barely any remains of Somali civilization.

There are obviously ruins of those ancient cities. Of course lol do you think it vanished or something?

 

[Shimbiris]

Surely civilization collapse happnened in the horn a couple of times

Definitely to some extent. Northern Ethiopia definitely experienced one as Aksum gradually collapsed. Urbanism took a massive hit in that region by the Middle-Ages to a point where the Xabashi Emperors were, ironically enough, essentially nomadic for much of their existence as a dynasty. Going from province to province of their realm with a camp court all year round. That started shifting at times with settlements like Gondar but reverted at times until Addis, from what I remember.

But I don't think anything really "collapsed" along the Somali Peninsula, just sort of contracted due to trade somewhat moving way, the Muslim world being less dominant, and increasing aridity. As for us forgetting a lot of things about our dhaqan... it's pretty uniform. I bet you'd be hard challenged to find a single person who knows how to make a Dhow like the people pictured below:

Or meet many Gabooye or Tunni who remember the old masonry crafts that were employed in the coastal towns:

As far as i know some of the artisan groups did masonry. For example Yibir are not only magician peddlers, but they are also tanners and masons according to Sade Mire and Kirk.

Even though the bigger Somali clans acknowledge that the Yibir are good tanners and skilled in masonry, they are generally looked down upon in Somali society.

These seems to hold through when you read the biography of The Yibir of Las Burgabo


He settled in a town very far away , where nobody knew him ... , “ He was a skilled mason . But now he was ready to start at the bottom as a handyman for masons ... People soon found out he was good at his work.

When it comes to Benadiry coast like Barawa , it was Tunnis who were builders and they were using indigenous techniques to do it.

The coastal Tunni, the artisans of the Banadir region, are famous for their crafts: weaving the ulindi (plain and colored textile for clothing) and making jewelry and shoes. They are also builders and manufacturers of traditional arms (daggers, spears and shields)


Barawa has many two-story houses with bridges constructed over the streets, built so that women or the elderly could visit other houses without going down into the street....Coral was transported by camel cartts and burned to make lime for buildings, a wise use of skills that was more economical than using imported cement

Historical Dictionary of Somalia ​

Despite advances in modern communication and the proliferation of information, there remain areas of the world about which little is known. One such place is Somalia. The informed public is aware of a political meltdown and consequent chaos there, but few comprehend the causes of this tragic...

https://books.google.ca/books?id=J6nODwAAQBAJ&pg=PP49&dq=Yibir+Masonry&hl=no&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7yrml-8X4AhUB2KQKHcnnA3QQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=Yibir Masonry&f=false

Many don't even remember having kept dogs just 100-150 years ago:

Dogs are actually, funnily enough, an original part of our culture. They seem to have been lost and forgotten rapidly after the 1800s or early 1900s due to the mentality in the magaalo spreading throughout the country in time:



But during the 1800s it seems most nomadic Somali and even some reer Tuulo had dogs so much so that you could tell they were nearby through the sound of barking:











Source: First Footsteps in East Africa by Richard Burton. He travelled across much of the north all the way to Harar and many times was a guest to different local leaders, meeting everything from various different Daroods, Isaaqs, Dirs and even Hawiyes so it's interesting how he describes the presence of dogs like this as a normal part of Somali culture and not isolated to one tribe.

There is also the fact that dogs were part of the original Cushitic cultural package when our ancestors began migrating from Sudan as early as 3000 BCE. They brought cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys and dogs with them and display as much in several of their cave paintings:

Sada Mire interviewed by CNN: ‘First-aid’ needed for 5,000-year-old Somali cave paintings | Sada Mire

www.sadamire.com

Arabians were similarly laden with dogs historically. They even have a specific and currently well-known breed the Bedouin used to be quite affectionate toward to the point of letting them into their tents:



But with them as well the Reer Magaal (Xadhar) mentality toward them, that I think grew more extreme since movements like that of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, spread and became more uniform. Nowhere is it stated they are xaraan, saaxiib. It's just their saliva and getting it on you requiring you redo your ablution before praying. The only mention of dogs in the Qur'an itself, from what I remember, is like one story that was actually positive.



They are good, loyal and useful beasts especially for one on a farm/ranch. Somalis need to let this absurd fear and hatred of them go, I reckon.

A lot's been lost due to modernization, the civil war and other influences but a lot more than you think is remembered and survives.

 

[Curtana]

There are obviously ruins of those ancient cities. Of course lol do you think it vanished or something?

No, it's just very peculiar that all countries with recorded ancient kingdoms have various sights scattered across their country with ancient cities and monuments and they still maintain that ancient architecture, whereas Somalia oddly does not have a single ancient building ruin, nor is there any oral or written record of our ancient kingdoms which we kept, without foreign records, no one would know about Punt or Macrobia.

 

[Garaad diinle]

Definitely to some extent. Northern Ethiopia definitely experienced one as Aksum gradually collapsed. Urbanism took a massive hit in that region by the Middle-Ages to a point where the Xabashi Emperors were, ironically enough, essentially nomadic for much of their existence as a dynasty. Going from province to province of their realm with a camp court all year round. That started shifting at times with settlements like Gondar but reverted at times until Addis, from what I remember.

But I don't think anything really "collapsed" along the Somali Peninsula, just sort of contracted due to trade somewhat moving way, the Muslim world being less dominant, and increasing aridity. As for us forgetting a lot of things about our dhaqan... it's pretty uniform. I bet you'd be hard challenged to find a single person who knows how to make a Dhow like the people pictured below:

Or meet many Gabooye or Tunni who remember the old masonry crafts that were employed in the coastal towns:




Many don't even remember having kept dogs just 100-150 years ago:



A lot's been lost due to modernization, the civil war and other influences but a lot more than you think is remembered and survives.

The collapse of aksum was due to gudit in the 10th century.

 

[Shimbiris]

The collapse of aksum was due to gudit in the 10th century.

I agree but it does also feel like it was gradually declining. I think she was just the death blow.

 

[Hamzza]

Definitely to some extent. Northern Ethiopia definitely experienced one as Aksum gradually collapsed. Urbanism took a massive hit in that region by the Middle-Ages to a point where the Xabashi Emperors were, ironically enough, essentially nomadic for much of their existence as a dynasty. Going from province to province of their realm with a camp court all year round. That started shifting at times with settlements like Gondar but reverted at times until Addis, from what I remember.

Even at the time of Axum, there was no tangible urbanization in Abyssinia, Ethiopia was basically a civilization without towns.

Peasantries and Elites without Urbanism: The Civilization of Ethiopia on JSTOR

Frederick C. Gamst, Peasantries and Elites without Urbanism: The Civilization of Ethiopia, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Oct., 1970), pp. 373-392

www.jstor.org

 

[Garaad diinle]

I agree but it does also feel like it was gradually declining. I think she was just the death blow.

Yeah your probably right. It's easy to think that it's was solely gudit from the apocalyptic account
of arab and coptic books.