Erigabo/Ceerigaabo, 14 August 2026
Arawelo is a mythical Somali queen. She is the guardian spirit of my frankincense and myrrh essential oils company 2Mages. I heard there was a place supposed to be her palace near Erigabo (Ceerigaabo in Somali) and have long wanted to see it. Today, Friday, I had a day off, and I went to see it. I was curious if I could find any archaeological evidence that her palace really was here.
Locals know about this place and my driver could find it without a problem. We diverged from the road between Erigabo and Maydh after the Karin checkpoint and drove along a stony path through the brush, up to an altitude of 2080m. We stopped next to a pile of stones along the roadside: this was supposedly her palace. Men throw stones on it, making the pile higher, and women put ‘flowers’ (meaning anything green ripped from a nearby tree or bush) because Arawelo is remembered differently by both genders. Women remember a magnificent, wise queen who empowered women, while men remember a queen who castrated male prisoners and whose grudge against all men, including her husband, grew during her reign. Today an overtly assertive Somali girl is called ‘an Arawelo’.
Did Arawelo really live? I assume most legends have a basis in reality, when they are told as historic stories – not for example stories of the Gods. Moreover, increasing evidence is emerging that the Northern Somali coast along the Gulf of Aden shared in the prosperity of the early Southern Yemeni and Ethiopian kingdoms, roughly from 1000 B.C.E. to 500 C.E. Historic evidence that the resin trade flourished in that period is abundant; why would frankincense and myrrh only have come from ancient Yemen, as is often supposed? The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written by Greek sailors in the 1st century C.E, gives accurate descriptions of ports along the Somali coast that were already in use for a long time. The Al Madow mountains that stretch from Northern Sanaag to North East Bosaso, and the Al Miskad mountains in Puntland further towards the tip of the Horn of Africa, have always been prime production areas for both resins. If one removes the racist bias in Euro-centred historiography (‘Black Africans cannot have had high levels of culture in the past’) then there’s no reason to doubt that the northern Somali coast participated in the wealth of that period. Archaeological evidence, such as Sabaean (ancient Yemeni) or ancient Hebrew inscriptions and the presence of stone towns in this mountain range, increasingly supports this view.
A trip in the 15th Century BCE to ‘the Land of Punt’ to obtain frankincense, myrrh, ivory and other valuables is documented on the walls of the palace of the Egyptian Queen Hatsheput. There is ample reason to believe that Puntland is meant, despite the mentioned racist bias among Western archaeologists. A King and a Queen with their two sons and daughter are depicted greeting the Egyptian expedition leader on the coast of the Land of Punt. Going further back, the rock art at Laas Geel in Somaliland (3000 BCE) suggests that this region used to be much greener, and had a more varied fauna than today, besides showing high levels of abstract artistry. In an even more remote past, DNA research suggests that genes associated with the Cushitic people may have their origin, some 26,000 years ago, in this same northern coastal region of Somalia – now Eastern Somaliland and Puntland.
For a description and analysis of pre-colonial Somali history, see chapter 2 of my PhD.
I have earlier described some statues presented to me, supposedly found in the Somaliland province of Saahil, that must date from the pre-Islamic period. This all leads me to believe that Arawelo is likely a historic queen from the first millennium before Christ. The Somali archaeologist Sada Mire told me that Arawelo is simply the Somali version of the Queen of Sheba, called Bilqis by the Arabians, just like Makeda is the Ethiopian version. The Queen of Sheba would have reigned around 1000 BCE, in the times of King Solomon/Suleiman. What is very likely, in any case, is that the source of Arawelo’s mythical wealth and power would have been frankincense and myrrh, traded at that time with ancient Egypt, Persia, the Phoenicians and probably already China and other locations along the later Silk Route.
Somalis are curiously reticent to consider that there was anything of value in their culture before they were touched by the light of Islam, equivalent to divine grace. All Somali clans trace their ancestry to the family of the Prophet Muhammad; before that, they believe, there was nothing in Somalia but some dark-skinned ‘Dir’ people whose women intermarried with the prophet’s male descendants, thus forming the Somali people. They have incorporated the very racist view Arabs historically have of black Africans, seen as natural slaves that may be redeemed by Islam, as the story of Bilal suggests. Valuing Somalia’s pre-Islamic past is tantamount to idolatry, in this religious view. If one unearths a finely executed statue of that past, many Somalis consider it should be quickly destroyed.
The historic evidence Somali historians, anthropologists and archaeologists uncover about pre-Islamic Somalia is thus largely ignored, or at least not integrated into the national narrative. Just like in Gulf States. However, as Professor Hussein Bulhan points out in a book documenting the ‘social amnesia and triple heritage of the Somali people’, the ancient Somali folk beliefs live on in the Somali unconscious despite the double repression by Islam and Western rationalism. This explains why men throw stones at the supposed remains of Arawelo’s palace while women lay flowers – they still respond to this ancient identity.
The 2-man police escort, driver and drone operator accompanying me dutifully threw a couple of stones to scorn this evil queen who would not submit to men. I had wanted to bring flowers, but could find none in Erigabo. So I did like the locals, and composed a bouquet of broken off branches and a few flowering plants, and laid it on the pile of stones. My travel mates did not make fun of this womanly behaviour, but their presence didn’t allow me to sit in meditation, as I desired; I did a very quick one, trying to connect to the spirit of the place.
We then used the drone to scout around the area. I sought to know in which direction I should start exploring the site. There seemed to be heaps of stone and puzzling straight stone lines everywhere and the drone couldn’t read the elevation or slope of places; so I started wandering around the forest, even managing at one point to escape my escort, who resorted to the drone (unsuccessfully) to find me.
I walked around quite a bit in the forest surrounding the palace. I was misled by finding what I first thought were the remnants of ancient walls. Later I understood they were quite recent constructions by Somali environmental organizations to stop soil erosion. Still, the site reminded me of the ruins of ancient towns, partially because of the ubiquitous presence of chipped stones – the same ones used to build the soil erosion retention walls – and partially because the site is perfect for a town. It overlooks the fertile plain to the South, is nestled just beyond the ridge of the escarpment that leads down to the Gulf of Aden to the North, and commands a strategic view over what is still the main road threading its way down this escarpment to the natural harbours of Xiis and Maydh. The former is easily identifiable as Mundu in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. The gentle slopes of this entire stretch of forest would have been a magnificent site for the construction of a large town.
As the Google Earth image above shows, the site is also exceptionally green to Somali standards, and pleasantly high up in the mountains, escaping the unbearable heat along the coast. It is not surprising that the British built a colonial residence near the escarpment edge (in olive green in the image above). The British presence here makes it less likely that there were any remains of a town here. They would have noticed. The British were keen amateur archaeologists, and in the 1930s a colonial cartographer described the ruins of stone towns he had discovered in British Somaliland; no mention was made of a town here. On the other hand, dense vegetation does obliterate all signs of human activity above ground after 3,000 years, and no excavations have been attempted.
Whether there was a palace here for Queen Arawelo or not, one should be built here, as a testament to the strength of Somali women. And next to it, 2Mages will build a distillery for the resins of the frankincense and myrrh trees that are endemic to this coastal mountain range – fully operated by women, such as those from the cooperative Beeyo Maal from whom 2Mages buys its resins.