Maduna | |
|---|---|
Archaeological site | |
  Maduna  Maduna | |
| Coordinates: 9°30′04″N47°09′21″E / 9.50121°N 47.15578°E | |
| Country |  Somaliland |
| Region | Sanaag |
| District | El Afweyn District |
| Time zone | UTC+3 (EAT) |
Maduna (Somali : Maduuna) is a medieval town in western Sanaag region of Somaliland, near El Afweyn. [1] [2]
The ruined Islamic city of Maduna is considered the most substantial and most accessible ruin of its type in Somaliland. [1] [2] The main feature of the ruined city includes a large rectangular mosque, its 3 metre high walls still standing and which include a mihrab and possibly several smaller arched niches. [2] The mosque is surrounded by several old houses, most of whom being partially intact. [2] The houses include roofed rooms, as well as compounds of dome-shaped structures lacking doors or windows. [3] Just on a slope below the ruined city stands a baobab tree, large enough to suggest that it was planted while the city was inhabited. [2]
Not much is known about Maduna's history, with its dry-stone architectural style suggesting that Maduna was a contemporary of other ruined cities in Somaliland like Amoud and Abasa, meaning that Maduna was presumably part of the Adal sultanate. [2] Swedish-Somali archaeologist Sada Mire dates the ruined city to the 15th–17th centuries. [3]
Somaliland, officially the Republic of Somaliland, is an unrecognised state in the Horn of Africa, recognised internationally as de jure part of Somalia. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the east. Its claimed territory has an area of 176,120 square kilometres (68,000 sq mi), with approximately 5.7 million residents as of 2021. The capital and largest city is Hargeisa. The Government of Somaliland regards itself as the successor state to British Somaliland, which, as the briefly independent State of Somaliland, united from 1960 to 1991 with the Trust Territory of Somaliland to form the Somali Republic.
Sanag is an administrative region (gobol) in north eastern Somaliland. Sanaag has a long coastline facing the Gulf of Aden to the north, and is bordered by the region of Sahil to the west, Sool to the south and Somalia to the east. The region is disputed by the self-declared Republic of Somaliland and Puntland, a Federal Member State of Somalia. Its capital city is Erigavo. Sanaag is the largest region of Somaliland, accounting for 35% of Somaliland's total land area.
Hargeisa is the capital and largest city of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, a de facto sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still considered internationally to be part of Somalia. It is also the regional capital of the Maroodi Jeex province of Somaliland.
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El Afweyn is a town in the Sanaag region of Somaliland.
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Sada Mire is a Swedish-Somali archaeologist, art historian and presenter from the Arap clan, who is currently a professor of Heritage Studies at University College London. She is a public intellectual and heritage activist who has argued that cultural heritage is a basic human need in her 2014 TEDxEuston talk. In 2017, Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts selected Mire as one of their 30 international thinkers and writers. She became the Director of Antiquities of Somaliland in 2007. Raised in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, Mire fled the country at the start of the civil war at the age of 15. She then traveled to Sweden seeking asylum. She has since returned to the Horn of Africa as an archaeologist.
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