Gendebelo

History

Gendebelo was a medieval Muslim trading center thought to be lost. It was believed to be situated about 30 km from Ankober. Gendebelo was "a great mercantile city", where camel caravans brought all kinds of spices except ginger (which was grown locally) from the port of Zeila. It was governed by the Walasma dynasty.

In the sixteenth century the city is referenced in the work Futuh al-Habasha by Adalite author Sihab ad-Din Ahmad during Adal's invasion of Abyssinia.

Discovery

In 2009, French archaeologists François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar and Bertrand Hirsch discovered the site as a medieval city now known as Nora, which has been abandoned for years except for the mosque.

An old Ajami manuscript helped the archaeologists determine the city's location. Italian scholar and Ethiopia expert Enrico Cerulli had found the manuscript in the Muslim city of Harar in 1936, where it was being used to wrap sugar. The archaeologists also used the writings of Alessandro Zorzi, a 16th-century Venetian explorer who had found the ruins of Gendebelo in the desert and referred to it as "the place where mules are to be unloaded and camels take over."

References

References

1. "Local History of Ethiopia". Nordic Africa Institute.
2. (8 August 2009). "Lost city, Gendebelo, found in Ethiopia". topix.
3. Pankhurst, Richard. (1997). "The Ethiopian Borderlands, Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century". The Red Sea Press.
4. (2023). "In Search of Gendabelo, the Ethiopian "Market of the World"of the 15th and 16th Centuries". Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée.
5. (2003). "The Conquest of Abyssinia: 16th Century". Tsehai Publishers & Distributors.
6. (29 July 2009). "Ethiopia – Quest For a Lost Muslim City". Daily Trust.
7. (7 August 2009). "Lost city, Gendebelo, found in Ethiopia".