Draft:Barbaria civilization

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Pottery artifacts excavated from the coastal site of Heis, a town known to the Greco-Romans as Mundus, part of Barbaria in northern Somalia. They showcase ancient Somali craftsmanship and represent the material culture of the ancient Barbaria civilization, dating to the 1st–3rd centuries CE. Produced locally and involved in long-distance trade, they illustrate the sophistication of Barbaria society during late antiquity.

The Barbaria civilization was a Late Classical and Late Antique civilization (fl. c. 1st–9th centuries CE) that thrived along the northern Somali coast of the Somali Peninsula (in modern-day Djibouti and northern Somalia). Centered in the historic region known to the Greco-Romans as Barbaria (Ancient Greek: Βαρβαρία; Latin: Barbaria), its heartland extended from the Ras Siyyan peninsula in northern Djibouti in the west to the Guardafui Channel in northeastern Somalia in the east. The civilization was established by a people known to the ancient Greeks, Persian and Romans as Barbaroi or Barbar. In Greco-Roman usage, the name Barbaria was formed from Barbar with the suffix -ia, meaning “land of.” In parallel, the Sasanians referred to the same region as Barbaristan, a name recorded in the 6th-century Sasanian text Letter of Tansar, where Barbar designates the people ( ethnonym) and -stan is the Persian suffix for “land of. [note 1] The Barbar or Barbaroi were identified to have been the ancient Somali, a Cushite-speaking people who were a maritime trading society based on the northern Somali coast during antiquity, who saw its major development in the 1st millennium BCE and 1st millennium CE, when urbanization developed in northern Somalia ( Kaktumo, Somaliland and Puntland regions) and Djibouti.

Literary accounts of the Barbaria civilization span approximately 800 years, from its first historical mention in the 1st century CE in the famous Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which recorded the region, its cities, people, and trade activities, to the 9th century CE, when the last known account appears in the work of the Christian Syriac writer Ishodod of Merv, who grouped Ethiopia (not to be confused with modern Ethiopia, but rather referring to Nubia), Egypt, and Barbaria together in the same geographic vicinity. In the same period, Eutychius of Alexandria (9th century CE) lists “the Egyptians, the Nigritae, the Ethiopians (not to be confused with modern Ethiopians), and the Barbar.”[1] He also identifies the Barbar as descendants of Ham, son of Noah, alongside the Copts and Nubians, though in some accounts they are grouped with the descendants of Canaan, alongside the Canaanites and Philistines.[2] Barbaria was home to a series of coastal city-states numbering twelve. These were Diere, located at Ras Siyyah promontory in northern Djibouti; Avalite, Malao, and Mundus in the Gulf of Aden in northwestern Somalia; and Mosylon, Opone, Accane ( either Qandala or Alula), Pano, Kabo, and Taba in northeastern Somalia. Each of these city-states specialized in the export of high-value goods, including spices, incense resins, fragrant gums, cassia, gum arabic, aromatics, ivory, and tortoiseshell.[note 2]Together, they formed a network of highly specialized maritime trading centers and were socially, linguistically, religiously, and culturally interconnected, though politically fragmented, with each city-state governed by its own king or chief. The city-states of Barbaria were renowned as centers of international trade, maintaining trading partnerships with Arabia, ancient Persia, India, Egypt, Nubia, Mediterranean Europe, and Mesopotamia. They primarily traded with the Indian states, the Roman/Byzantine Empire, the Sasanian Empire, the pre-Islamic polities of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the Celtic of Mainland Europe such as the Gauls and Anciet Greece.

The development of the Barbaria civilization can be traced back to the Bronze Age and Iron Age, long before its height in the Late Classical and Late Antiquity periods. The region and its people were well known as seafarers and traders, particularly renowned for aromatic resins and spices. Cosmas Indicopleustes, in his Christian Topography (6th century CE), described Barbaria as bordering the Aksumite Kingdom to the east and Arabia Felix across the Gulf of Aden. He emphasized its economic wealth and role in supplying ancient Egypt with incense resins used in mummification and spices. Barbaria was also a major trading partner of Arabia Felix during the Sabean period. According to his account, the legendary Queen of Sabeans sent a trade expedition to Barbaria to acquire large quantities of aromatic resins and spices, which were then transported to Ma’rib, the Sabean capital, for re-export to the Levant across Arabia deserta and famously delivered to King Solomon during her visit. As a result, the queen held sway over trade with Barbaria and maintained strong commercial ties between the two regions, earning her title as the “Queen of the South.”" or the the Queen of the southern region.

The decline of the Barbaria civilization took place between the late 9th and early 10th centuries with the rise of Islamic polities in the Somali Peninsula, notably the Awdal or Adal Kingdom centered in Zeila, which held sway over the northern Somali coast and inland regions, and the Sultanate of Mogadishu, centered in southern Somalia with its capital Mogadishu in the 10th century. This marked the transition from late antiquity to the rise of the medieval era.

References

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  1. ^ L. Cheikho (ed.), Eutychii patriarchae Alexandrini: Annales (Beirut, 1906), CSCO 50, Scriptores Arabici 6, p. 14, lines 19–21; Pococke’s Latin translation in PG 111.917B, sec. 41–43.
  2. ^ "Eutychius of Alexandria". Medieval Nubia. Medieval Nubia Project. Retrieved 22 September 2025.

Notes

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  1. ^ The term Barbar or Barbaroi, as used by the Greco-Romans, referred to the inhabitants of the territory of Barbaria and carries multiple meanings. First it denoted non-Greek people (or non-Greek speakers), and second functioned as an exonym based on the sound of their language, which sounded like “bar-bar” or “ber-ber” to the Greco-Romans. The name of the people and their Barbaria is etymologically unrelated to the Greek term barbaros (“barbarian”), a distinction confirmed by later Greek authors such as Stephanus of Byzantium in the 6th century CE in his work Ethnica who mentioned Barbaria as nation in Northeast africa. Thus the terms “Barbarian” and “Barbaria” are completely distinct in meaning, origin, and roots.
  2. ^ The region and its city-states were mentioned by several ancient authors such as Strabo in Geographica (17 BCE–23 CE); Pliny the Elder in Natural History (77–79 CE); Ptolemy in Geographia (c. 150 CE); Galen in On the Natural Faculties (2nd century CE); Diodorus Siculus in Bibliotheca historica (60–30 BCE); Marcus Aurelius in Meditations (161–180 CE); Marcian of Heraclea in Periplus of the Outer Sea (4th century CE); Dioscorides in De Materia Medica (1st century CE).