Antiquity and Middle Ages in
Hafun. Ras Hafun is home to numerous ancient structures and ruins. The
peninsula is believed to be the location of the old trade emporium of
Opone. The latter is mentioned in the anonymous
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in the first century
CE. Opone is described therein as a busy port city, strategically located on the
trade route that spanned the length of the
Indian Ocean's rim. Merchants from as far afield as
Indonesia and
Malaysia passed through the settlement. As early as 50 CE, the area was well known as a center for the
cinnamon trade, along with the barter of
cloves and other
spices,
ivory, exotic
animal skins and
incense. In the 1970s, a Somali-British archaeological expedition in Hafun and other parts of northern Somalia, led by
Neville Chittick, recovered numerous examples of historical
artefacts and structures, including ancient coins,
Roman pottery,
drystone buildings,
cairns,
masjids, walled
enclosures,
standing stones and
platform monuments. Many of the finds were of pre-
Islamic origin and associated with city-states and trading centers described in ancient documents. The
Damo site, in particular, was suggested by Chittick to correspond with the
Periplus' "
Market and Cape of Spices". Some of the smaller artefacts that the company found were subsequently deposited for preservation at the
British National Museum. A later expedition in Hafun, led by an archaeological team with the
University of Michigan, excavated
Ancient Egyptian, Roman and
Persian Gulf pottery. In the 1980s, the
British Institute in Eastern Africa also recovered pre-Islamic
Partho-
Sassanid ceramics from the peninsula, which were dated to the first century BCE and the second through fifth centuries CE. Archaeological excavations at the western Hafun site have yielded
ceramics from ancient kingdoms in the
Nile Valley,
Near East,
Persia and
Mesopotamia, as well as some sherds of possible derivation from the
Indian subcontinent. Among this ware is a late
Ptolemaic lamp fragment,
Parthian glazed sherds, and
Hellenistic lagynos wares. Smith and Wright have dated the finds to sometime between the 1st century BCE and the early first century CE. Additionally, some ceramics affiliated with green glazed ware from
Sohar on the
Omani littoral have also been found in the area. These pieces have been dated to between the 1st century BC and the 5th century BCE. Hafun is also home to an ancient
necropolis. Similar historical structured areas exist in various other parts of the country.
Early modern and present (Migiurtinia) in Hafun. During the pre-
independence period, Hafun was governed by the
Majeerteen Sultanate (Migiurtinia) and was the seat of the polity's capital,
Alula. It later formed a part of
Italian Somaliland, when the area was known as
Dante. In December 2004, Hafun was struck by a
tsunami caused by the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. It was the
most affected area on the continent, and the only location west of the
Indian subcontinent where the waves pulled away from the shore before rushing in. In November 2020, Hafun was struck directly by
Cyclone Gati as a Category 2 equivalent cyclone or a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm in Indian Ocean scale with windspeeds of 165 kmph and 140 kmph. This remains the strongest cyclone to hit the
Horn of Africa and the nation of
Somalia since reliable records began. ==See also==