MEDLAND_HORN.AFRICA · Medieval landscapes in the Horn of Africa. State, territory and materiality of the Adal Sultanate (15th-16th centuries AD).
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-09-01 → 2020-09-30
- EU contribution
- €170,122
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Medieval landscapes in the Horn of Africa. State, territory and materiality of the Adal Sultanate (15th-16th centuries AD).
The project “MEDLANDS: Medieval landscapes in the Horn of Africa. State, territory and materiality of the Adal Sultanate (15th-16th centuries AD)” investigates the cultural landscape of the Sultanate of Adal, a state which during the 15th-16th centuries controlled much of what is now Somaliland and southern Ethiopia and played an important role in some of the most important events in the history of the Red Sea. Focused on the region of western Somaliland and using a combination of disciplines and methodologies, the project explores the relationships between the different communities (nomads, urban dwellers, international traders) that lived in the region and how they built a shared landscape integrated into international economic systems. Raising from previous experience in Somaliland, the project challenges preconceived ideas such as the dichotomies between urban dwellers and nomads or the assumed irreversibility of urbanization processes. It also approaches current challenges in the region: religious conversion, environmental stress and climatic change, perceptions of space and territory, and the relationships between rural and urban populations. Many of these issues were as present during the period of the Adal Sultanate as they are nowadays, and the research conducted by MEDLANDS can shed light on some of the problems affecting the region, leading to better ways of understanding and managing its natural and cultural resources. The Project will also contribute to build a more accurate, historicised discourse on Somalia, a region whose deeper past is poorly known. The objectives of the project are manifold, but can be summarized in three: 1) the acquisition and processing of environmental, archaeological and historical data about the sultanate of Adal 2) the development of methodologies to integrate these data and 3) the development of an interpretative framework for the Sultanate archaeological remains. Aditionally, a parallel goal of the MSCA Individual Fellowship is to foster the development of the individual researcher.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This proposal will study the territory and the material remains of the Sultanate of Adal, a state which during the 15th-16th centuries controlled much of what it’s now Somalia and southern Ethiopia, organizing the international trade routes in the region and challenging the power of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia until its collapse by the end of the 16th century. The history of this state is partially known through written sources, but has never been investigated from an archaeological point of view. This project will analyse how the different communities living in the Adal sultanate (nomads, urban dwellers, international traders) built a shared, cultural landscape and integrated it in one of the most successful trade networks in the world. Following a Landscape Archaeology perspective and using an innovative combination of methodologies and research strategies supported by GIS analytic tools, the project will present alternative interpretations to some of the most important topics in African archaeology: processes of urbanization, relationships between nomads and urban dwellers and continental and international trade routes. Beyond the study of a single archaeological case, the project will address key questions related to current challenges in the region and many other places throughout the world: episodes of religious conversion, environmental stress and climatic change; and will support the existing initiatives to preserve the archaeological and cultural heritage in the Horn of Africa.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS · MadridCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union