Archaeology Somali Archaeologist was a
Somali polymath who was active as a writer, scholar, linguist, poet, historian, anthropologist, and meteorologist. He is notable for being chairman of the Somali Language Committee. One of the earliest examples of
archaeology in Somalia can be traced back to the 19th century when
George Revoil a
French explorer excavated several ancient sites in northern Somalia where he found large quantities of
glass and
pottery, including
Roman pottery. After independence, Somali government officials in collaboration with
Soviet and
British archaeologists began excavating various parts of Somalia during the 1970s. In late 1975,
Neville Chittick led a British-Somali archaeological expedition in the northern half of Somalia. Financed by the Somali authorities, the reconnaissance mission found numerous examples of historical
artefacts and structures, including ancient coins, pottery,
drystone buildings,
cairns,
mosques, walled
enclosures,
standing stones and
platform monuments. Many of the finds were of pre-Islamic origin and associated with ancient settlements described by the 1st century
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, among other documents.
Anthropology Somali anthropology studies the way of life of the Somali people. Somalist anthropologists have in various books and papers documented traditional Somali social systems such as the ancient
Xeer (
customary law) and the
clan system, and examined their role within Somali society. In the field of
Somali Islamic studies, scholars like
Ioan Lewis,
Said Sheikh Samatar and
Lee V. Cassanelli have written on the traditional Muslim structure of Somali society in books such as
A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa (1961), ''Oral poetry and Somali nationalism: the case of
Sayyid Mahammad 'Abdille Hasan (1982) and The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600 to 1900
(1982). Enrico Cerulli and Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi in their respective works Somalia: scritti vari editi ed inediti
(1957) and Culture and Customs of Somalia'' (2001) have also summarized the origins and
ethnogenesis of the Somali people.
Linguistics In terms of
linguistics, Somali studies examines the inter-relationships between the
Somali language and other related
Afro-Asiatic languages. Somali is the best documented language from the
Cushitic branch of Afro-Asiatic, with academic studies of it dating from before 1900. Linguists such as
Bogumil Witalis Andrzejewski,
Giorgio Banti, Annarita Puglielli, Cabdalla Cumar Mansuur,
Mohamed Haji Rabi,
Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi and
Martin Orwin are considered among the foremost scholars on the study of the Somali language and the relation it has to the tongues spoken by related neighboring ethnic groups, such as the
Afars,
Oromos and
Bejas. Mustafa Abdullahi Feiruz also focuses on the standardization of written Somali, and Somali language's links with
Arabic.
Georgi Kapchits, a Russian scholar, is the leading scholar studying Somali
proverbs. He has analyzed Somali proverbs and also published a collection of Somali proverbs. ==Organizations==