Chinese (Song Dynasty) Trade Mission In Somalia (995-1081)

[Garaad diinle]

“I subjugated the peoples of Rauso who live in the midst of incense-gathering Barbarians between great waterless plains, and I subjugated the people of Solate, whom I ordered to guard the coasts of the sea. All these people, enclosed by mighty mountains”

This could be an even older mention, it’s from an Adulite throne which dates back to the 3rd century.

I've actually considered this a while back but it's hard to argue that solate is the same thing as somali. At best it might've been the name of a clan if anything.

As for the text itself it's clearly mentioning a part of northern somalia but the extend of it's claims cannot be ascertained. For one this is the only text to claim any kind of control over these lands and ezana who came less than a century later didn't include these lands as part of his domain.

The kings of axum were also known to claim land they had no control over for example again ezana who claimed to be king of thu raydan, himyar and saba all of whom were independent kingdoms. If anything the text could at most be talking about a simple raid especially since there is no mention of permeant settlement on the lands of frankincense.

 

[Himmler]

I've actually considered this a while back but it's hard to argue that solate is the same thing as somali. At best it might've been the name of a clan if anything.

Solate definitely sounds like an early reference to Somalis IMO, keep in mind this text is from the 3rd century.

As for the text itself it's clearly mentioning a part of northern somalia but the extend of it's claims cannot be ascertained. For one this is the only text to claim any kind of control over these lands and ezana who came less than a century later didn't include these lands as part of his domain.

The Northern Highlands(Eritrea and Tigray) were dominated by small Kingdoms who often wrestled with each other for power. You can see this in the Adulis and Aksum inscriptions where they mention conquering regions in Eritrea and Ethiopia using terms they still use today.

“I waged war on the following peoples: I made war on the Gaze, then, having conquered Agame and Sigyene, I seized half their property and peoples. Aua, Zingabene, Aggabe, Tiamaa, Athagous, Kalaa and the people of Samen who live across the Nile in inaccessible and snowbound mountains where storms and icy cold persist and the snowfall is so deep that a man sinks in it up to the knees; I subdued them after crossing the river.”

Agame is a place in Eastern Tigray, Gaze(Agazi) is most likely a reference to Akele Guzai in South East Eritrea, this term later on became an identifier among all Tigrinya speakers. Aua was a place in between Aksum and Adulis based on Byzantine accounts. Samen is a clearly somewhere in the Simien mountains.

There is also a stele in the Eritrean highlands called Hawulti in Matara dating back to the 3rd century.

“This is the obelisk which had (caus) made Agaz for his fathers who have carried off the youth of “W”, “LF” as well as of “SBL.”

Matara was a city on the route between Aksum and Adulis and this proves they engaged in conquest with neighbours too, W, LF and SBL are all believed to be place names.

So we can clearly see the Northern Highlands were made up of multiple polities, polities which often warred with each other, they weren’t all as united as many people here think, they were often independent, the inscriptions in Adulis were from an independent local ruler there’s no evidence of him being directly from Aksum. We have foreign texts that mention Adulis alone completely independent of Aksum. After a certain point though the highlands were unified under the King of Kings who was based in Axum and allowed for petty kings who still had some power over their kingdoms. A similar system was applied in medieval Eritrea and Ethiopia. We can even see this in pre Axumite times in D’mt the system was a federation.

The kings of axum were also known to claim land they had no control over for example again ezana who claimed to be king of thu raydan, himyar and saba all of whom were independent kingdoms.

I mostly agree with you that Axum would claim land they didn’t own but those regions of Arabia they claimed weren’t random there is good evidence they had previously conquered those areas so they probably still felt like they had a right to it or something which motivated them to continue to claim it. Also the Sabean settlement of the Eritrea and North Ethiopia happened from around 900BC to 500BC, so that would still be within there historical memory, I wonder if that also somehow made them feel like they had a right to claim South Arabia, the “Ethio-Sabean” period only ended around 7/800 years before Ezana was around.

If anything the text could at most be talking about a simple raid especially since there is no mention of permeant settlement on the lands of frankincense.

Axum generally wouldn’t interfere with local affairs in the areas they conquered. They’d collect tax and thats pretty much it, the only exception was 6th century Yemen where Axumites repaired the Marib dam, built a church and maintained a community. Some elements of Yemeni architecture can be traced back to Axumite influences.

Commanding Somalis to guard the seas would have been the extent of Axumite control aswell as calling on soldiers/mercenaries.

“whom I ordered to guard the coasts of the sea.”

 

[Himmler]

"Three deserted cities inland in the former British Somaliland were also investigated, the most interesting of which is Amud. Here there
are from 250 to 300 houses and a temple, which had been converted roughly into a mosque at some later date. It was built of carefully dressed masonry, and the building techniques, pottery, and lamps seem
to suggest a close connection with Axumite sites of the second to fifth centuries a.d. "

 

[Garaad diinle]

Solate definitely sounds like an early reference to Somalis IMO, keep in mind this text is from the 3rd century.

The Northern Highlands(Eritrea and Tigray) were dominated by small Kingdoms who often wrestled with each other for power. You can see this in the Adulis and Aksum inscriptions where they mention conquering regions in Eritrea and Ethiopia using terms they still use today.

“I waged war on the following peoples: I made war on the Gaze, then, having conquered Agame and Sigyene, I seized half their property and peoples. Aua, Zingabene, Aggabe, Tiamaa, Athagous, Kalaa and the people of Samen who live across the Nile in inaccessible and snowbound mountains where storms and icy cold persist and the snowfall is so deep that a man sinks in it up to the knees; I subdued them after crossing the river.”

Agame is a place in Eastern Tigray, Gaze(Agazi) is most likely a reference to Akele Guzai in South East Eritrea, this term later on became an identifier among all Tigrinya speakers. Aua was a place in between Aksum and Adulis based on Byzantine accounts. Samen is a clearly somewhere in the Simien mountains.

There is also a stele in the Eritrean highlands called Hawulti in Matara dating back to the 3rd century.

“This is the obelisk which had (caus) made Agaz for his fathers who have carried off the youth of “W”, “LF” as well as of “SBL.”

Matara was a city on the route between Aksum and Adulis and this proves they engaged in conquest with neighbours too, W, LF and SBL are all believed to be place names.

So we can clearly see the Northern Highlands were made up of multiple polities, polities which often warred with each other, they weren’t all as united as many people here think, they were often independent, the inscriptions in Adulis were from an independent local ruler there’s no evidence of him being directly from Aksum. We have foreign texts that mention Adulis alone completely independent of Aksum. After a certain point though the highlands were unified under the King of Kings who was based in Axum and allowed for petty kings who still had some power over their kingdoms. A similar system was applied in medieval Eritrea and Ethiopia. We can even see this in pre Axumite times in D’mt the system was a federation.



I mostly agree with you that Axum would claim land they didn’t own but those regions of Arabia they claimed weren’t random there is good evidence they had previously conquered those areas so they probably still felt like they had a right to it or something which motivated them to continue to claim it. Also the Sabean settlement of the Eritrea and North Ethiopia happened from around 900BC to 500BC, so that would still be within there historical memory, I wonder if that also somehow made them feel like they had a right to claim South Arabia, the “Ethio-Sabean” period only ended around 7/800 years before Ezana was around.




Axum generally wouldn’t interfere with local affairs in the areas they conquered. They’d collect tax and thats pretty much it, the only exception was 6th century Yemen where Axumites repaired the Marib dam, built a church and maintained a community. Some elements of Yemeni architecture can be traced back to Axumite influences.

Commanding Somalis to guard the seas would have been the extent of Axumite control aswell as calling on soldiers/mercenaries.

“whom I ordered to guard the coasts of the sea.”

Regardless of the nature of the raid we can be sure it wasn't long lasting especially since no other king of the kingdom of axum ever claimed it afterward. Axum were known for raids on costal areas and they even raided an area in hijas which prompted the khalifa to launch a retaliatory attack that led to the muslim control of dahalk archipelago. Since the ocean is mentioned in the inscription it might've been a sea raid rather than a land raid through the danakil desert.

 

[Garaad diinle]

"Three deserted cities inland in the former British Somaliland were also investigated, the most interesting of which is Amud. Here there
are from 250 to 300 houses and a temple, which had been converted roughly into a mosque at some later date. It was built of carefully dressed masonry, and the building techniques, pottery, and lamps seem
to suggest a close connection with Axumite sites of the second to fifth centuries a.d. "

Can you share the source for this i'm curious to see the material in question. I'm sure there were trade between axum and other coastal areas in both the arabian coast and the african coast, If this information can be confirmed amud could be one of the oldest interior settlements in somalia that lasted up until the medieval era around the 15th century.

 

[Himmler]

Can you share the source for this i'm curious to see the material in question. I'm sure there were trade between axum and other coastal areas in both the arabian coast and the african coast, If this information can be confirmed amud could be one of the oldest interior settlements in somalia that lasted up until the medieval era around the 15th century.

I tried to upload a pdf of the book but it was too large for the site,

https://sciarium.com/file/330346/

Make an account on this site and you can download it for free, it doesn’t go in depth on the material, what I posted is pretty much it ngl.

 

[𐒁𐒚𐒒𐒂𐒘𐒂𐒗 𐒎𐒚𐒗𐒗𐒒]

@Bari🐍 @Garaad Chinese @Three Moons
Chinese sources are cool icl, could this be the earliest description of the boqortoyo?
Or another independent monarchy existed in the region?

Yes, the same monarchy that existed until Italy ruined everything (Majeerteenia).

 

[الناخوذة ويكان الزيلعي]

Already did immediately after my post kkk. While we might not know how the twitter user came upon this valuable piece of information but i just had to try to look for more info on this. While i might want to write a lot including some of my theories i'm sure no one wants to read a novel size text so i'll summarize. Turns out my theory was right, well sort of. Somali and chinese contact goes back all the way to the tang empire in the 8th century around the latter half of the umayyad dynasty which is crazy but there is something even more crazier in store.

In the text of Jia Dan a cartographer of the tang dynasty describe zeila as western most port of chinese trader so it's not a description of somali sailors in china but chinese sailors in the somali coast, still it's very significant non the less. What i find fascinating is the description of a kingdom called the kingdom of samalan and it had zeila as it's capital. This kingdom of samalan proceeded ifat by centuries and so far the oldest mentioned kingdom in east africa aside form axum.

Is there any Arabic record of it?

 

[Garaad diinle]

Is there any Arabic record of it?

Not to my knowledge but not all arab manuscripts are found online. Perhaps there is a manuscript in a library somewhere in the meddle east that contains an account similar to this one.

 

[daljirkadahsoon]

I thought you guys might like this. Apparently there is an account of Chinese trying to attack Saylac