Was Mecca the true Macrobia?

[zeila2wajir]

Weren’t the Macrobians described as the tallest of men? That’ll automatically rule out most Arabs instantly.

 

[Mohamedamiin120]

Weren’t the Macrobians described as the tallest of men? That’ll automatically rule out most Arabs instantly.

YO I JUST TRANSLATED THE LATIN IN THE MAP (SUPPOSEDLY MACROBIA) TO GREEK AND IT'S THE WORD FOR ADULTRRY


Malichea (latin)->Μαλιχέα (Greek)-> Adultery (English)


What is he REALLY saying about the Arabs

 

[Mohamedamiin120]

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I cannot see, screenshot it and then post (jpg is not a acceptable format here)

 

[Midas]

For the longest time ever ppl used to call cap on the Greek accounts that Gold was produced in Macrobia, people often used to say it was suugo science and never existed because Somalia has no gold... right?

Well in recent times, a plentiful amount of gold has been discovered and incredibly it is exactly in the location of the old Macrobia. Infact two Macrobian ports (Mundus and Mosyllum) described by the Greeks seem to actually be in the perfect position to export Gold- they are both on the opposite ends of the gold-producing regions of SL and Harti Waqooyi so theoretically one group of Somalis could have divided it half and half.

Secondly many Somali population centers that exist today have been described by the Greeks. Mundus=Xiis, Malao=Saylac, Mosyllum=Boosaaso, Cape of Spices=Ras Xaafuun.

The Greeks said that we mummify ppl and placed them erect in crystal pillars, now there is no proof of this today as we have not found any of this yet (he might have been capping here to sell da book, especially on the crystal pillars part) but a site in Jabuuti has uncovered that pre-islamic Somalis actually did bury people, try to preserve them, and most strikingly tied their legs together with rope and placed straight (if repeated elsewhere throughout the body this could easily translate to them being kept erect, unfortunately rope decomposes easy we were lucky to even find a single one)
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article302997374.html

Wow I didn't know they found evidence of their legs being tied. If they could find tombs that massive in djobuti then they'll definitely be able to find much larger stuff in the rest of somalia

 

[Idilinaa]

Macrobia was just greek's mythologizing NorthEast Africans from what i've gathered. Ill find the post i shared about it later once the search bar comes up.

Edit : Found it

btw Macrobian was more or less greek mythology in which the name was at times applied to different african populations(Aethopians).

To be more exact it was an Ancient Greek literary term rather than a specific, historically attested ethnic or political group. It was often used mythologically to describe an idealized "long-lived" African people, much like how "Aethiopians" was a broad term for dark-skinned peoples in Greek thought.

There wasn't actually real group that went by that name or were known by it, thats why it remains rather illusive to try and identify with certaintity. .But trying to firmly equate them with any one historical group is difficult since they were more of a mythical construct than a distinct civilization.

Medieval Mythography, Volume One: From Roman North Africa to ..​

Here is a text that talks about how its a literary term that refers to a classical myth in the mythography.

Wow I didn't know they found evidence of their legs being tied. If they could find tombs that massive in djobuti then they'll definitely be able to find much larger stuff in the rest of somalia

Amateurs are digging random stuff up or people find objects at random like what @Emir of Zayla showed in that Xiis thread.

They did 10 minutes of digging at 0.025% of hafun and found 2.100 year old building foundations with courtyards and a sculpture and few other trade items.


So safe to say there is a lot to discover in Somalia especially around or near the coast where there the sand creates excellent preservation.

You can tell that ancient Somalis were extremely wealthy because they had a near monopoly on items considered luxury in the ancient world.

Here is a thread that goes through classical sources that mention trade with the Somali coast during antiquity

From a now deleted X account it shared how Somali merchants became incredibly wealthy through their monopoly of certain luxury items, such as a dye they used to colour their clothing with and the colour purple they produced was especially luxurious and considered the colour royalty in ancient times.

HISTORY - 1st century Greek papyrus details what Somali textiles would have looked like.

https://x.com/AromataMerchant/status/1748850979624100283?s=20

www.somalispot.com

I only managed to save a bit of the post through google cache and not the whole part unfortunately. The colour purple was rare and extremely expensive

Why is Purple Considered the Color of Royalty? | HISTORY

The original dye was prized because of supply and demand: It came from the mucous of an exceedingly rare sea snail sh...

www.history.com

Tyrian purple: The lost ancient pigment that was more valuable than gold

For millennia, Tyrian purple was the most valuable colour on the planet. Then the recipe to make it was lost. By piecing together ancient clues, could one man bring it back?

www.bbc.com

Tyrian purple from the Phoenicians is well-documented, but if the Somali coast had its own unique dye that was similarly rare and expensive, that would only reinforce the idea of these merchant elites accumulating immense wealth and influence.

Btw i have been meaning to ask you both @Shimbiris @The alchemist What your thoughts are on this.

Because i believe they might have been city states governed by a council of rich merchant aristocracies with family clan council, much like how some Somali cities operated during early modern period. There is no reason to assume otherwise.

They also probably operated similar to other independent city states in the ancient world described here:

Given the extensive trade networks Somali merchants controlled spices, incense, textiles, and possibly even rare dyes , it would make sense that governance was in the hands of a merchant aristocracy rather than a single centralized king. These merchant kings and urban bureaucrats likely managed trade, banking, and diplomatic relations much like their counterparts in Carthage and Tyre.

In that case there is a possibility that these formed loose federations or alliances.

It would be fascinating to see if more archaeological or textual evidence could support this comparison. We have textual evidences from medieval period until the early modern period supporting this.

 

[Midas]

Macrobia was just greek's mythologizing NorthEast Africans from what i've gathered. Ill find the post i shared about it later once the search bar comes up.

Edit : Found it





Amateurs are digging random stuff up or people find objects at random like what @Emir of Zayla showed in that Xiis thread.

They did 10 minutes of digging at 0.025% of hafun and found 2.100 year old building foundations with courtyards and a sculpture and few other trade items.


So safe to say there is a lot to discover in Somalia especially around or near the coast where there the sand creates excellent preservation.

You can tell that ancient Somalis were extremely wealthy because they had a near monopoly on items considered luxury in the ancient world.

Onw realiztion that to me somewhat confirmed macrobians were undoubtedly somali is that heredotus was writing at a time when the ethio-semetic civilization had only been around for a couple centuries.

Agriculture in the Highlands requires clearing the land. But before the arrival of sabeans in the Highlands it was likely impossible to clear the land since it was a bunch of thick dense forests.

The implications of this are that the lowland pastoral somali regions of the horn had a much higher pouplation since farming wasnt possible without the invention of iron metal plows and axes to farm the land .

 

[Idilinaa]

Onw realiztion that to me somewhat confirmed macrobians were undoubtedly somali is that heredotus was writing at a time when the ethio-semetic civilization had only been around for a couple centuries.

Agriculture in the Highlands requires clearing the land. But before the arrival of sabeans in the Highlands it was likely impossible to clear the land since it was a bunch of thick dense forests.

The implications of this are that the lowland pastoral somali regions of the horn had a much higher pouplation since farming wasnt possible without the invention of iron metal plows and axes to farm the land .

He could have been referring to Northern Sudan, but they certainly weren’t describing the Highlands, since those populations were not maritime or seafaring people, excluding them from that description.

It’s quite clear that parts of the northern Somali coastline experienced the earliest and most intensive civilizational activity. This sustained human presence and use of the land contributed to its increasing dryness and aridity, much like what occurred in the Fertile Crescent, which eventually turned into desert through overuse, and in parts of ancient China near the Yellow River or indus valley, where once productive lands were degraded by intensive cultivation.

In contrast, if you look at the Ethiopian Highlands, similar processes occurred much later, particularly in and around Tigray. This environmental strain contributed to the decline and eventual abandonment of major settlements around the 6th century and the shift towards the central highlands.