Rauso
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Rauso was a region in the
Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...
in
Late Antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...
.


Geography

The ''
Monumentum Adulitanum The ''Monumentum Adulitanum'' is the name for two Greek inscriptions from Adulis, the major port city in the modern day Eritrea Kingdom of Aksum. The two Greek inscriptions are known, respectively, as Monumentum Adulitanum I and Monumentum Adulitan ...
'' is a 4th-century monumental inscription by King
Ezana of Axum Ezana (, ''‘Ezana'', unvocalized ዐዘነ ''‘zn''), (, ''Aezana'') was the ruler of the Kingdom of Aksum (320s – ). One of the best-documented rulers of Aksum, Ezana is important as he first adopted for his country the religion of Chris ...
recording his various victories in war. It is lost, but its text was copied down in the 6th century by
Cosmas Indicopleustes Cosmas Indicopleustes (; also known as Cosmas the Monk) was a merchant and later hermit from Alexandria in Egypt. He was a 6th-century traveller who made several voyages to India during the reign of emperor Justinian. His work '' Christian Topogr ...
in his '' Christian Topography''. It describes how Ezana conquered a land and people called Rauso to the west of
Aromata Aromata (Greek: Αρώματα, lit. "spices, aromatics"), also called the Spice Port,Lionel Casson (ed.), ''The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary'' (Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 115. was an anci ...
. The description of the land is congruous with modern-day Dollo Zone and
Haud The Haud (also Hawd) (, ), formerly known as the Hawd Reserve Area, is a plateau situated in the Horn of Africa consisting of thorn-bush and grasslands. The region includes the southern part of Somaliland as well as the northern and eastern part ...
.
Stuart Munro-Hay Stuart Christopher Munro-Hay (21 April 1947 – 14 October 2004) was a British archaeologist, numismatist and Ethiopianist. He studied the culture and history of ancient Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa region and South Arabia, particularly their his ...
, ''Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity'' (Edinburgh University Press, 1991), p. 187.
Munro-Hay, ''Ethiopia, the Unknown Land: A Cultural and Historical Guide'' (I. B. Tauris, 2003), p. 235. also translated "Land of Incense"Y. Shitomi (1997), "A New Interpretation of the ''Monumentum Adulitanum''", ''Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko'' 55, 81–102. or "frankincense country":
I subjugated the peoples of Rauso who live in the midst of incense-gathering barbarians between great waterless plains.
British Anglican priest William Vincent described the region of Rauso as stretching westwards from Aromata all the way to the hinterlands of the hitherto prospective Adal Kingdom. During its extant existence, the contemporary polity to the north of Rauso was Sesea. The region of Rauso could also be congruous with the
Nugaal The Nugaal () is an intermittent river Intermittent, temporary or seasonal rivers or streams cease to flow every year or at least twice every five years. Such rivers drain large arid and semi-arid areas, covering approximately a third of ...
plains of northern Somalia. Laurence P. Kirwan identified it with the
Danakil Desert The Danakil Desert (or Afar Desert) is a desert in northeast Ethiopia, southern Eritrea, and northwestern Djibouti. Situated in the Afar Triangle, it stretches across of Desert climate, arid terrain. It is inhabited by a few Afar people, Afar, w ...
, inhabited today by the Afar.


Politics

English journalist Frederick Guest Tomlins described Rauso as a Kingdom. Rauso also had an alternative toponym by the epithet of Raitnus. It used to exchange ordained religious ministers with the northern polities. A predominant religion practised during the Rauso period was Waaqism. During the
classical era Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the interwoven civilization ...
, through its contact with Hadhramaut and Himyarite traders, the Rauso kingdom had contact with Abrahamic religions too, in the form of Christianity in the former and Judaism in the latter, and some of these populations had settled and became Somalized. The pre-Rauso era is largely regarded as corresponding with Lowland East Cushite history. It was bordered to the south by various Horner and cushitic tribal groupings such as the Northern Azanians, the Ormas, the Bazrangids, the Tunni, Gabooye and various other Lowland East Cushites. Sometime during the latter half of the
1st millennium File:1st millennium montage.png, From top left, clockwise: Depiction of Jesus, the central figure in Christianity; The Colosseum, a landmark of the once-mighty Roman Empire; Kaaba, the Great Mosque of Mecca, the holiest site of Islam; Chess, a new ...
, Rauso was replaced by the Jabarta and Ximan civilizations. Concurrently, there also existed a predominantly Christian civilization called ''Harli'' towards the north in the Nugaal Valley.


References

{{reflist Ancient Somalia