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Post by archaeologist on Sept 12, 2024 8:30:27 GMT -5
In an article referred to in the thread Medieval Chinese skeletons found in Kenya, a Somali archaeologist, Sada Mire is mentioned. Here is a video where she shares her experience of archaeology in Somalia and how Islam, and also their nomadic life, to a degree has made people detached from archaeological monuments. But still many carry an intangible cultural heritage.
Very interesting lecture
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Post by archaeologist on Sept 15, 2024 17:26:09 GMT -5
Another video where Sada Mire tells more about herself and her work.
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Post by djehuti on Sept 28, 2024 18:56:31 GMT -5
I read Mire's paper here on the wagar and stelae when it was first published. I even sent her an email inquiring if the wagar relates to the ancient Egyptian use of sekhem wands/fans and paddle dolls and the ritual action of fanning. One thing I admire about Mire is how she bridges the gap between archaeology and ethnology which is strange paradox since the two should be intimately tied-- archaeology informs ethnology of past cultures using their material remains. One main issue with archaeology is its bias in sedentary cultures and the lack of focus on nomadic ones. It seems the first archaeologists who brought attention to nomadic cultures and the sophistication they possessed were mostly from the Soviet Union and post-Soviet region like the late Viktor Sarianidi and Andrey Belinski who studied the ancient nomadic civilizations of the steppes. I am curious by what those Somalis meant when they say the ancient megaliths don't have anything to do with their ancestors and were a "big boned people". Is this a cultural memory of previous inhabitants??
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Post by archaeologist on Oct 1, 2024 5:38:27 GMT -5
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Post by djehuti on Oct 10, 2024 4:12:20 GMT -5
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Post by anansi on Oct 10, 2024 8:56:33 GMT -5
Just to make certain DJ, the above are not natural rock formation? and thanks for the links.
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Post by djehuti on Oct 10, 2024 12:38:11 GMT -5
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Post by djehuti on Oct 11, 2024 3:28:05 GMT -5
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Post by archaeologist on Oct 11, 2024 7:56:13 GMT -5
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Post by djehuti on Oct 14, 2024 11:41:01 GMT -5
Of relevance to this topic is this paper: The Advent of Herding in the Horn of Africa: New data from Ethiopia, Djibouti and SomalilandABSTRACT: Although early food production is not as well-studied in the Horn of Africa as in other regions of the world, recent archaeological and archaeozoological studies have yielded new data suggesting that pastoral societies emerged at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE – two millennia later than in the neighbouring regions of the Sahel, NW Kenya, and Yemen. Understanding the processes through which herding began in the Horn is a complex task due to region's geographic position between multiple possible sources areas for livestock, and its immense environmental diversity caused by variations in topography and rainfall. Considering new evidence from Djibouti, Somalia, and southwest Ethiopia in tandem with prior data from multiple parts of the Horn, this article proposes that the diffusion of herding occurred via different processes in different areas. Data from northern and western parts of the Horn suggest slow migration of Sudanese groups and/or dense contacts with transfer of techniques and practices, beginning in foothills near today's Sudan border and, at least in the North, slowly spreading deep into the highlands of the Horn. In the eastern part of the Horn of Africa, herding practices and pottery technology may have come from Yemen via contacts across the Red Sea, or from Sudan via contacts through the coastal plain of Eritrea and/or the northern highlands of the Horn; because ceramics are absent or of specific local design it is likely that herding began via selective adoption of domestic animals rather than through in-migration of pastoralists. In the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia, livestock and pottery (with no foreign influence) appear much later, at the end of the 1st millennium BCE. Several environmental factors may have helped maintain southwest Ethiopia as a cultural isolate where people had only a late interest in switching their subsistence to food production and where incorporation of livestock and ceramic production took place in longstanding, highly conservative, technological and economic systems.SitesDates of Sites
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Post by zarahan on Oct 14, 2024 12:56:53 GMT -5
Any similarities between Somali megaliths and Egyptian types over and above general construction? Calendars? Rituals? astro alignments?
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Post by djehuti on Oct 14, 2024 16:50:57 GMT -5
^ None that I know of. I am more familiar with the Ethiopian megaliths than I am with the Somali ones and unfortunately the latter is only recently being investigated and not known as much as the former. Even with the Ethiopian megaliths, I don't know of the calendrical connections if there are any though I do know they are positioned in geodetic lines. As far as calendars I know the Ethiopian Orthodox/Tewahedo Calendar is the same as the Coptic Calendar which is based on the ancient Egyptian solar calendar and using the same New Year's Day of September 11. As for the Somalis, I know they've traditionally used a dual calendar like the ancient Egyptians-- a solar one and a lunar one-- though strangely their solar calendar bears more of a resemblance to the calendar of the Syrian Orthodox Church (which the Greek and Roman Churches use) which is in turn derived from the Jewish Sadducean a.k.a. Enochian Calendar. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_calendarInterestingly, the Somali New Year's Day of July 21 corresponds most closely to the Egyptian Sothic Calendar New Year's Day of July 19. Here's a great paper: The Somali Calendar: An Ancient, Accurate Timekeeping System (2011)
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