I found this interesting map on reddit:
I ofcourse zoomed into the horn of africa to look at Somalia
I did some research and first wanted to establish what time period this is. My first instinct was to check the time period of the Roman empire which was 27 BC – 476 AD, this was too large of a range so I assumed it was at around the middle to early end since this is clearly at the peak of the roman empire. I then got a closer look at the city where mogadishu should have been, its name was “Serapeum”.
Definition of Serapeum
: a place or building or group of buildings sacred to Serapis, an egyptian god
I then searched up when the first appearance of Serapis was and it was at 68 AD so I overlapped it with the end of rome. So this was Somalia around 68 AD to 476 AD roughly speaking.
I then looked at another city called “Aromata” located in modern-day Bari which in latin means “seasoning, spicy and/or fragrant smell”. I’m assuming this place either sold xawaash or frankincense (uunsi), probably the latter.
Opone had no latin meaning and was apparently just a name, here’s what I found on google:
You can see at the top it says “Barbaricus” which at first I thought it was calling isaaqs barbarians
but then I realized this was so ancient that modern-day qabiils probably didn’t even exist yet. Also, the greeks used to call anyone and everyone who wasn’t greek a barbarian, they got the name from the germanic tribes who used to attack them. When they spoke german all the greeks heard were “barbar”, that’s where the name barbaricus originated. So I’m assuming in that area there were just a bunch of hostile people who probably attacked the first romans to explore there so they were called barbarians.
At the bottom you can see something called Azania. This is more than just a city state as it gets a border.
according to wikipedia:
Azania (Ancient Greek: Ἀζανία) is a name that has been applied to various parts of southeastern tropical Africa. In the Romanperiod and perhaps earlier, the toponym referred to a portion of the Southeast Africa coast extending from Somalia and Kenya, to perhaps as far south as Tanzania. This area was inhabited by Southern Cushitic-speaking populations until the wave of Bantu expansion.
so at the time the people of Azania were the forefathers of Rwandans and the cousins of modern-day somalis.
Here’s some more info of Azania:
The 1st century AD Greek travelogue the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea first describes Azania based on its author's intimate knowledge of the area. Chapter 15 of the Periplus suggests that Azania could be the littoral area south of present-day Somalia (the "Lesser and Greater Bluffs", the "Lesser and Greater Strands", and the "Seven Courses").[4]Chapter sixteen describes the emporium of Rhapta, located south of the Puralean Islands at the end of the Seven Courses of Azania, as the "southernmost market of Azania". The Periplus does not mention any dark-skinned "Ethiopians" among the area's inhabitants. They only later appear in Ptolemy's Geographia, but in a region far south, around the "Bantu nucleus" of northern Mozambique. According to John Donnelly Fage, these early Greek documents altogether suggest that the original inhabitants of the Azania coast, the "Azanians", were of the same ancestral stock as the Afro-Asiatic populations to the north of them along the Red Sea. Subsequently, by the 10th century AD, these original "Azanians" had been replaced by early waves of Bantusettlers.
This also helped me confirm that my time period was correct as the first mention of Azania was from the first century of AD and up until the 10th century of AD, which perfectly overlaps with 68 AD - 476 AD.
Try and see if you guys can find some more valuable info from this map.
I ofcourse zoomed into the horn of africa to look at Somalia
I did some research and first wanted to establish what time period this is. My first instinct was to check the time period of the Roman empire which was 27 BC – 476 AD, this was too large of a range so I assumed it was at around the middle to early end since this is clearly at the peak of the roman empire. I then got a closer look at the city where mogadishu should have been, its name was “Serapeum”.
Definition of Serapeum
: a place or building or group of buildings sacred to Serapis, an egyptian god
I then searched up when the first appearance of Serapis was and it was at 68 AD so I overlapped it with the end of rome. So this was Somalia around 68 AD to 476 AD roughly speaking.
I then looked at another city called “Aromata” located in modern-day Bari which in latin means “seasoning, spicy and/or fragrant smell”. I’m assuming this place either sold xawaash or frankincense (uunsi), probably the latter.
Opone had no latin meaning and was apparently just a name, here’s what I found on google:
- Opone
Opone was an ancient Somali city situated in the Horn of Africa. It is primarily known for its trade with the Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Persians, and the states of ancient India. Through archaeological remains, the historic port has been identified with the city of Hafun on the Hafun peninsula in modern-day northeastern Somalia.
You can see at the top it says “Barbaricus” which at first I thought it was calling isaaqs barbarians
but then I realized this was so ancient that modern-day qabiils probably didn’t even exist yet. Also, the greeks used to call anyone and everyone who wasn’t greek a barbarian, they got the name from the germanic tribes who used to attack them. When they spoke german all the greeks heard were “barbar”, that’s where the name barbaricus originated. So I’m assuming in that area there were just a bunch of hostile people who probably attacked the first romans to explore there so they were called barbarians.At the bottom you can see something called Azania. This is more than just a city state as it gets a border.
according to wikipedia:
Azania (Ancient Greek: Ἀζανία) is a name that has been applied to various parts of southeastern tropical Africa. In the Romanperiod and perhaps earlier, the toponym referred to a portion of the Southeast Africa coast extending from Somalia and Kenya, to perhaps as far south as Tanzania. This area was inhabited by Southern Cushitic-speaking populations until the wave of Bantu expansion.
so at the time the people of Azania were the forefathers of Rwandans and the cousins of modern-day somalis.
Here’s some more info of Azania:
The 1st century AD Greek travelogue the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea first describes Azania based on its author's intimate knowledge of the area. Chapter 15 of the Periplus suggests that Azania could be the littoral area south of present-day Somalia (the "Lesser and Greater Bluffs", the "Lesser and Greater Strands", and the "Seven Courses").[4]Chapter sixteen describes the emporium of Rhapta, located south of the Puralean Islands at the end of the Seven Courses of Azania, as the "southernmost market of Azania". The Periplus does not mention any dark-skinned "Ethiopians" among the area's inhabitants. They only later appear in Ptolemy's Geographia, but in a region far south, around the "Bantu nucleus" of northern Mozambique. According to John Donnelly Fage, these early Greek documents altogether suggest that the original inhabitants of the Azania coast, the "Azanians", were of the same ancestral stock as the Afro-Asiatic populations to the north of them along the Red Sea. Subsequently, by the 10th century AD, these original "Azanians" had been replaced by early waves of Bantusettlers.
This also helped me confirm that my time period was correct as the first mention of Azania was from the first century of AD and up until the 10th century of AD, which perfectly overlaps with 68 AD - 476 AD.
Try and see if you guys can find some more valuable info from this map.
