Eritrea

In this article, I attempt to summarize some of the recent and fascinating revelations that will someday fill in the gaps in history books describing our part of the world. A search for answers to questions on my mind, inspired by a January 2002 visit with Yoseph Libsekal and staff at the National Museum of Eritrea in Asmara, has taken me on a captivating journey into the history of my troubled homeland and region, the Horn of Africa.

As a part-time student of history, I've always believed one has to grounded on a sound understanding of past events - ancient as well as recent - as a basis for placing into proper context the complex problems and challenges faced by our modern-day societies. The painful, yet rich, shared experiences of Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Greater Horn of Africa are no exception. My journey into the past, superficial as it may seem, helps me maintain cautious optimism for the future, tempered with a sober analysis of the present.

After all, the history of Africa's Horn has been simultaneously filled with glamour and adversity; modest feasts followed by droughts and deadly famines, and vice versa; glorious victories, only to be diluted by dismal failures. It's a region that is home to the most temperate, and the harshest of climates. It has been the playground for cruel emperors, feudal, marxist-communist and religious fanatics alike. Decent, spiritual peoples - Muslims, Copts, and practitioners of other faiths and beliefs - live amongst those who forcefully try to impose on others alien value-systems, be they the 'Lord's Resistance Army' or Jihadists. Armed with nothing but justice and Maoist-inspired tactics, heroic and fierce freedom fighters - women and men - made history, only to be counter-balanced by brutal, power- and greed-driven insurgencies or dictatorships.

Dictators of all stripes have ruled here, aligned to the East or the West during the Cold War. Most oppressed, some even butchered their own people. It's also home to the Nile - aptly referred to by some as the River of Gods - which gave birth to Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Its battlegrounds were witness to the defeat of a European colonial army at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. All took notice, rightly so. An African people had proudly resisted the 'Scramble for Africa', thereby becoming an inspiring symbol to the colonized worldwide. Ironically, instead of a great African nation-state, a colonial empire - Greater Ethiopia - arose instead, successfully emulating the Euro-colonialists, in search of power, prestige, and regional hegemony.

Most of all, the Horn of Africa is home to betrayed innocents, numbering in the scores of millions - living at the mercy of some of the worst governments Africa and the World have ever seen - and in recent times, mainly fed by the West, UN and supra-government NGOs. At times, the region was blessed with progressive governments, seemingly capable of angelic miracles, albeit unsustainable. Or was it mere flashes of brilliance? It's also a region that, at other times, appears cursed by the Almighty (him) self. Witness the droughts, following the 4-year, brutal, senseless, and inhuman 'border' war, which brought nothing but misery to the multitudes in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Decades of refuge and exile, followed by repatriation during peace times. Sadly, the repatriated are sometimes subject, for a second time or more, to war-displacement and life in refuge or exile. The disasters are aplenty, but it wasn't always meant to be so. The Horn of Africa is, after all, intimately linked with the birthplace of mankind. The region is capable, at the same time, of representing the best and worst in humanity: The Horn of Extremes?

OK, enough of present-day lamentations, for the nostalgic journey back in time begins shortly. The first leg begins many years ago, in East Africa's savannahs, and later, the lowlands along the Southern Red Sea Coast of Africa. The local adventurers were not Djiboutian, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Kenyan, Somali, Sudanese, or Ugandan. They were the ancestors of all of mankind.

"Out of Africa": Yes, but How?

On Seafood & Beach Migration: The 'Real Eve' Discovered?

C. Stringer, "Coasting out of Africa", Nature, Vol. 405,
4 May 2000, p.24-27.

"It is now generally accepted that Africa is the ancestral homeland of modern humans, Homo sapiens. But the timing of human dispersal from Africa, and the routes taken, remain controversial."

R. C. Walter et al., "Early human occupation of the Red Sea coast of Eritrea during the last interglacial", Nature, Vol. 405, 4 May 2000, p.65-69.

"The artifacts [hand axes, obsidian stone tools, shellfish] from the Abdur Reef Limestone [Gulf of Zula] are in the right geographical location and of the right age to suggest that the route out of Africa was along the coast of Eritrea."

In support of the "Out of Africa" model, a 1987 scientific paper (Cann et al.) presented genetic evidence that, when coupled with fossil records, solidified Africa's claim to be our collective, ancestral homeland. The authors argued that unique patterns of mitochondrial DNA - passed on from mother to daughter - can be used to trace our genetic lineage as well dispersal patterns across the globe. The theory's logical conclusion suggests all of humanity can trace family roots back to a single woman in Eastern Africa, The Real Eve, highlighted in a recent, discovery.com interactive on-line program. In the companion video documentary, Seife Berhe, geologist and co-author of the landmark Nature report, explains some of the details behind the oldest coastal settlement yet found, a fossilized coral reef in Eritrea, aptly nicknamed "The World's 1st Oyster Bar". The implications are not small; in fact, it's just the opposite.

If more settlements of various ages can be discovered along the coasts of Africa and around the world, it will help fill in the timelines of global human migration. For now, the first successful trip out of Africa appears to be via Eritrea, across the Red Sea into Yemen, many years after a Beach Party, 125,000 B.C. Experts speculate the journey was triggered by a search for food - fish, scallops, oysters and clams - in areas expected to be better for sea-harvesting. Along the way, humans adapted as needed, leading to today's global mosaic of peoples and cultures: Middle Eastern, Asian, Australian, European, and American. The rest is history, as they say.

Land of Punt: Horn of Africa Courts Ancient Egypt

The Unsolved Mystery of the "Southern Red Sea Countries" (3rd - 1st Millenium B.C.)

Ancient Egypt is considered by some to be peer-less among the World's Great Civilizations. Besides trading with an immediate neighbor-rival, Nubia, Egypt's Pharoahs periodically organized several southern expeditions to another contemporary culture called the Land of Punt. It is from this little-known land that Egypt was able to obtain supplies of myrrh, incense, precious stones, minerals, and other exotic materials. The best-documented trade mission was commissioned by Queen Hatshepsut during 15th century B.C. Although the location of Punt has has yet to be verified, Africa's southern Red Sea region appears to be the leading candidate.

Jacke Phillips, "Punt and Aksum: Egypt and the Horn of Africa", Journal of African History, vol. 37, 1997, p. 423 - 457.