Marine Shell Working at Harlaa, Ethiopia, and the Implications for Red Sea Trade

Abstract

Twelve species of marine shell were transported in significant quantities from the Red Sea to the trade centre of Harlaa in eastern Ethiopia between the eleventh and early fifteenth centuries AD. Initially, it was thought that species such as the cowries were imported from the Indian Ocean. Subsequent research has found that all were available from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, c. 120 km east of Harlaa. This suggests that a hitherto largely unrecognised source of marine shells was available, and the Red Sea might have supplied not only the Horn of Africa, but other markets, potentially including Egypt, and from there, elsewhere in North Africa and ultimately West Africa via trans-Saharan routes, as well as Nubia and further south on the Nile in the Sudan, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Arabian/Persian Gulf. This is explored with reference to the shell assemblage from Harlaa, and selected shell assemblages from elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, and trading centres on the Red Sea.

Material cosmopolitanism: the entrepot of Harlaa as an Islamic gateway to eastern Ethiopia

“…Abdal mosque, Aw Abadir shrine, Aw Meshed mosque, Dine Gobena mosque, Fakhredine mosque and shrine, Jami mosque) indicate that they were all established after the late fifteenth century (Insoll & Zekaria 2019). The results from Harar suggest a direct chronological link with Harlaa and affirm the continued importance of the urban environment as a context for Islamic conversion, as the city was to have a significant impact in furthering the Islamisation of the surrounding Oromo population (Insoll 2017;Insoll & Zekaria 2019).…”

“…Archaeological research on Islamic sites in Ethiopia, and more generally in the Horn of Africa, has been limited. This is a significant omission, as Ethiopia was in contact with the earliest Islamic communities in western Arabia from the early seventh century AD, and Muslims were soon established in the Horn of Africa (see Insoll 2003Insoll , 2021a. Excavations at Harlaa in eastern Ethiopia, completed as part of the Becoming Muslim project (ERC-2015-AdG BM694254), have begun to redress this lack of research, establishing occupation and material sequences, reconstructing the chronology of Islamisation and assessing its material markers.…”

Stringing Together Cowrie Shells in the African Archaeological Record with Special Reference to Southern Africa

“…moneta) from the last two millennia CE in Africa. Note that the map is not a complete record of all archaeological occurrences of cowries (map based on Phillipson, 1968;Fagan, 1967b;de Maret, 1977;Rudd, 1984;Maggs & Whitelaw, 1991;Pwiti, 1996;Plug, 1997;Plug, 2000;Denbow et al, 2008;Giblin et al, 2010;Walz, 2010;Badenhorst et al, 2011;Mumford, 2012;Boivin et al, 2013;Then-Obłuska, 2015;Shenjere-Nyabezi 2006;Klehm, 2017;Moffett, 2017;Nyamushosho, 2017;Biginagwa and Ichumbaki 2018;Faulkner et al, 2018;Christie et al, 2019;Juwayeyi 2020;Insoll, 2021) addition, two cowrie 'hoards' have been variously documented at the iconic Swahili sites of Songo Mnara (Tanzania) and at Shanga (Kenya) Horton et al, 1996) (Fig. 10).…”

Local Ceramics from the Islamic Trade Center of Harlaa, Eastern Ethiopia: Markers of Chronology and Contacts

“…It is possible that some of the trade goods found in the tumuli were obtained from Harlaa. These include Cypraea (cowries) and Oliva bulbosa marine shell, which were extensively worked in Harlaa (Insoll, 2021;Insoll et al, 2021). However, differences also exist, such as the funerary practices.…”

“…Archaeological excavations have been ongoing at Harlaa since 2015 (Insoll et al, 2016, 2021. Significant quantities of locally made ceramics were recovered from these excavations, with 20,534 sherds found as of the 2019 season, of which 12,506 have been analyzed as the focus of a recently completed Ph.D. thesis (Tait, 2020).…”