Descripción de ERITREA - ERITREAN HISTORY - PART 1:

Eritrean history part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v249alOhs5A ===================== GASH GROUP 3,500 A "complex society" of pastoral people, who lived from the Gash (Mareb) River to the Red Sea hill and coast of Eritrea took rise in 3,500 B.C. Based on archaeological evidence, the Gash people held extensive trades and contacts with Ancient Egypt, Nubia and the Arabian Peninsula. SOURCE: The development of urbanism in the northern Horn of Africa in ancient and medieval times by Rodolo Rattovich P. 4 ============== LAND OF PUNT in ERITREA In around 2490 2477 BC, the earliest the first definite record of contact with Land of Punt was found on a Palermo stone of the reign of Sahura of the Fifth Dynasty. The Land of Punt to the ancient Egyptions was often referred to as Ta netjer, which means, the "land of the god". Punt was known for producing and exporting Gold, African blackwood, ebony, ivory, wild animals, frankincense and aromatic resins. Sources: Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt By Kathryn A. Bard, Steven Blake Shubert. P. 637 Although the exact location of Punt is still uncertain, most scholars today do however agree that Punt was located in much of Eritrea and eastern Sudan. In fact, evidence confirms that an interchange circuit between Ancient Egypt and modern Eritrea did take place. At Agordat in the middle Barka valley of Eritrea, an Egyption Style,Ceramic ear-plug and some stone celts which imitate bronze prototypes of the 17-18th dynasties of Egypt have been excavated that date between mid-second millennium BC. On the Eritrean coast at Adulis, two fragments of glass vessels typical the New Kingdom of Egypt have been found in a level dating to the late second millennium BC. Source: Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt By Kathryn A. , Steven Blake Shubert. P. 637 ==================== FIRST KNOWN INHABITANTS One of the first inhabitants of Eritrea are the Kunama and Nara. They came from the southern Nile vally and settled in the southwest lowlands and expanded into the interior of the country. Roy Pateman, "Eritrea - Even the Stones are Burning". p.31 But according to Kunama elders, they came from the north, east, and south. Hence they are a mixed people, which is how they received their name, "Koa" meaning people and "Nama" meaning blended. Around 2,000 B.C. early Beja pastoral people from southern Egypt and Northern Sudan entered the Barka Valley and northern highlands of Eritrea. Moving the first wave of Kunama and Nara people southwards. Source: Dictionary of Languages By Andrew Dalby p.81; Roy Pateman, "Eritrea - Even the Stones are Burning". p.31 The Bejas are believed to have existed since 4,000 B.C. Paintings in Ancient Egyptian tombs show Bejas with the same distinct hairstyle called the "Tiffa" as early as the 12th Dynasty. Source: Beja pastoralist from 12th Dynasty Tomb Mier. From the book A Modern History of the Sudan, P.M. Holt, 1961 According to C.G. Seligman and A. Paul, the Beja People are a modern link to the ancient Egyptians. Sir E.A. Wallis Budge believes that the Beja languages of Eritrea and Eastern Sudan were the best ones to study in order to learn ancient Egyptian language. Paul, A. A History of The Beja Tribes of the Sudan. Source 1: London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd., 1971. Source 2: Seligman, C.G. Races of Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. ==================== ONA SITE - EARLY ASMARA SETTLEMENTS From 800 BC and 400 BC, the highlands around Asmara supported the oldest settled pastoral and agricultural community known in the Horn of Africa: an indigenous culture. The settlement's inhabitants lived in stone houses ate cows, goats, drank beer, farmed fertile land and wore animal skins. Tools for tanning and for softening hides have been discovered, along with needles, stone implements for punching leather, and bronze. These permanent villages and towns around Asmara predate, and were also contemporaneous with, even the pre-Aksumite settlements in the highlands of southern and northern Ethiopia. "Dating back as 800 BC, it is they [Early Asmara settlements] - not sites in Arabia - that were the vital precursors to urban developments in the southern highlands of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia later in the first millennium BC." Prof. Richard Greenfield