Soqotra [ancient Śakrad / Dioscuridês]

The largest island of the homonym archipelago comprising the islands Soqotra, ʿAbd al-Kūri, Samḥa and Darsa. It functioned as an important maritime hub within the Indian Ocean trading networks during the first centuries BCE / CE, and was one of the principal producers of frankincense, aloes, and dragon’s blood resin.

Location

The Soqotra archipelago is located at the juncture between the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea, approximately 250 km northeast of Cape Guardafui, Somalia and 380 km south of Raʾs Fartaq, Yemen. The main island of Soqotra has a surface area of 3,796 sq.km, making it the fifth largest island in the Indian Ocean. Physiographically, the island is comprised of a central granite mountain range, a surrounding karstic limestone plateau, and a series of verdant and arid coastal plains. Soqotra is influenced by several large-scale weather phenomena that includes the seasonally reversing monsoon winds, which have a significant influence on the island’s climate and accessibility.

History of research

In 1834, following the signing of a treaty between the British government and the ruler of Soqotra – Sultan Omar ibn Tuārī of the ʿAfār tribe – an expedition was sent to Soqotra to survey the island and gather information on its fauna, flora, and people. This expedition and the publications by Lieutenant Wellsted (1840) provide the earliest insights into the island’s cultural heritage and are a rich source of information with regards to traditional practices, ancient settlements and burials. The publications of this survey generated a significant amount of interest in the scientific community, and in 1897 the archaeologist Theodore Bent visited the island with the aim of finding evidence for a Ḥimyarite and Christian civilization (Bent 1900). While these aims were not realised, his surveys revealed a wealth of archaeological structures that were recorded in the interior and along the northern coastal plain. Due to Soqotra’s strategic importance during the first and second world wars, archaeological research was only resumed 60 years later. The first of these visits was undertaken by the Oxford University expedition to Soqotra led by Douglas Botting in 1956 (Botting 2006). Expedition members surveying the interior observed several large settlements and numerous wall systems that were believed to be associated with the cultivation of frankincense. While the expedition archaeologist Peter Shinnie, limited by time and the difficulties of excavating on the island, focused his efforts on the northern coastal plain. Whereas attempts at locating remains from classical antiquity were not fulfilled, the expedition did manage to excavate and survey the remains of several mediaeval structures and record several motifs from a petroglyph site (Shinnie 1960). Several years later, in 1967, a joint British military and civilian scientific expedition lead by the military officer and archaeologist Brian Doe visited the island (Doe 1970, 1992). During this expedition 34 archaeological sites were recorded, the majority of which were located along the north-western side of the island. While Doe was also unable to locate remains of classical antiquity, he did excavate a number of mediaeval forts and settlements, wall systems and petroglyphs. With the Soviet involvement in Southern Yemen a number of joint Russian-Yemeni expeditions led by Vitaly Naumkin and Alexander Sedov were undertaken. These expeditions, carried out in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1989, excavated and surveyed a wide range of structures along the north-east, west, and central interior of the island (Naumkin 1993, 2012; Naumkin & Sedov 1993). These included settlements, graves and structures from the Neolithic, classical and mediaeval period. During 2000 the Soqotra Karst Project led by the Belgian speleologist Peter De Geest, discovered a cave on the north coast containing a substantial corpus of inscriptions, drawings, and archaeological objects dated from between the 1st century BCE to the 6th century CE (Strauch 2012). Shortly thereafter, 2002, a University of Sydney expedition led by Lloyd Weeks surveyed the relatively unexplored southern part of the island (Weeks et al. 2001). While no dating evidence was obtained, 79 settlements and cemeteries were recorded. In 2010 a Russian led archaeological mission excavated a site on the west coast, Kosh, in which imported ceramics from the Mediterranean and South Asia dated to between the 2nd and 5th century CE were found (Sedov & Vinogradov 2023). In 2015, the Soqotra Rock Art Project led by Julian Jansen van Rensburg was launched. To date this project has comprehensively recorded several rock-art sites believed to date between the 1st to the 4th century CE (Jansen van Rensburg 2016, 2018). In 2016 a preliminary study using satellite remote sensing data mapped ca. 4,460 km of wall alignments, which are believed to relate to the production and management of frankincense, aloes and dragon’s blood (Jansen van Rensburg & Hopper 2017). Between 2017-2020, the Soqotra Heritage Project led by Julian Jansen van Rensburg, surveyed 410 settlements, cemeteries, and fortifications throughout Soqotra. While no dating evidence was obtained, this survey and the resultant Soqotra Cultural Heritage database is representative of the most complete record of Soqotra’s cultural heritage to date (Fig. 1).

Place name (ancient)

The etymology of the Soqotra archipelago’s name is believed to have originated from Southern Arabian, as attested to by the noun S³krd in Ancient South Arabian inscriptions (CIH 621, BR-Yanbuq 47 – see Müller 2001: 151). The first definite reference for Soqotra’s name during the classical period is from the Peripl. M. Rubr. (mid-1st century CE), when it was known as Dioscuridês (Casson 1989). The popular academic myths that the Soqotra toponym was derived from the Sanskrit word Dvipa Sukhadhara and that it was later corrupted into Sūḳ al-Ḳaṭra “market of the exudations” are both untenable on philological grounds (Strauch 2012: 397-403).

Archaeological remains

Settlements

While a large number of settlements have been recorded throughout Soqotra, few have been dated. The earliest dated settlement on Soqotra is at Hajrya (Fig. 2), two kilometres south of the modern village of Suq (Naumkin & Sedov 1993: 600-602). Two major periods of occupation were outlined: an early phase of red glaze cups and bowls and fragments of a Roman amphora handle that was dated to the early centuries of the first millennium CE, and a later phase of green glazed sherds, brown-slipped red wares and local handmade pottery that was dated to the 10th–13th centuries CE (Naumkin & Sedov 1993: 605). Other settlements that have been recorded include large abandoned rectilinear structures built from worked and squared local limestone found within the interior and believed to relate to the production of frankincense in the early centuries CE; roughly constructed circular and semi-circular structures and subterranean and semi-subterranean dwellings that remain undated (Fig. 3), and walled-off cave dwellings that have been in constant use up until the recent past.

Graves

Throughout the island there are a number of different types of graves, few of which have been dated. Based on a recent ancient DNA study undertaken the earliest dated burial remains, ca. 641–668 cal CE, were taken from one of the many mortuary caves that are found throughout the island (Sirak et al. 2024). The only other dated burial sites are rectangular stone-lined collective burials that are capped with large flat stones (Fig. 4, 5). Collagenous dating of the bone material from these graves in Shibhon puts them within a period between 840 CE and 1160 CE. Whereas, in Qalansiya analogous graves were, according to the finds of pottery, dated to the 12th to 14th century CE. According to Naumkin and Sedov (1993: 608), this grave type, which is found throughout Soqotra, is believed to date from between the early centuries CE up to possibly the 14th century CE. Other, undated grave types include structures on low circular stone platforms, and burials in which large, flat stone slabs cap the grave at ground level (Weeks et al. 2002: 120).

Rock art

The most important archaeological find made on Soqotra is a corpus of c. 250 texts and drawings found in Hoq cave, on the north coast. This corpus includes Indian Brahmi, South Arabian, Ethiopian, Greek, Palmyrene and Bactrian scripts and drawings dated to between the 1st century BCE to the 6th century CE, as well as an inscribed tablet in Palmyrene Aramaic dated to 257−258 CE (Strauch 2012). This cave provides a rare glimpse into Soqotra’s involvement with the multicultural trade that brought together people from throughout the western Indian Ocean (Fig. 6, 7). Within the interior a second corpus of rock art believed to be dated to between the ca. 1st century BCE to the ca. 8th century CE was found within the cave Dahaisi (Fig. 8). A cave that provides a rare glimpse into the socio-religious lives of the indigenous population (Jansen van Rensburg 2016, 2018). The cross-shaped motifs recorded at several rock art sites on the north coast are believed to relate to the historical presence of Christianity on Soqotra (Fig. 9), thereby providing a terminus post quem for these sites of ca. 4th century CE (Jansen van Rensburg 2018).

Walls

Throughout the island there are an extensive array of wall alignments that are believed to have been part of an extensive agricultural and water management system centred on the production of the frankincense, aloes and Dragon’s Blood from the first centuries BCE / CE (Jansen van Rensburg & Hopper 2017).

History/Chronology (Pre-Islamic)

Soqotra’s rich historical narrative is dispersed in a multiplicity of mythological and historical accounts that include: Herodotus (ca. 5th cent. BCE), Hist. (2.3.107-112); Theophr. (ca. 287 BCE), Hist. pl. (2.9.8-10); Agatharchides of Cnidus, (ca. 2nd cent. BCE), On the Erythraean Sea (5. 105a); Diod. Sic. (ca. 1st cent. BCE), Bibl. Hist. (5.41.4; 5.42.5); Philostor. (ca. 170 – ca. 245 CE), The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (3.56-57); Peripl. M. Rubr. (ca. mid-1st cent. CE – 30:10. 11-17, 31:10.19-25); Plin. (ca. 79 CE), HN (6.32.153; 6.34.170; 6.36.153), Ptol. (ca. 168 CE), Geog. (6.7.45; 8.22.17), and Cosmas Indicopleustes (fl. 6th century CE), Topographia Christiana (3.65).

Despite the vivid debates about the identification of Soqotra within some of these earlier accounts it is clear that Soqotra was firmly established within the terra cognita of the Greek / Roman civilisation. This is especially apparent in the Peripl. M. Rubr., which devotes two chapters to describing the island, its people, the products obtainable there, and that it was under the political control of the kingdom of Hadramawt.

Julian Jansen van Rensburg

References and suggested reading

• Bent, T. 1900. Southern Arabia. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
• Botting, D. 2006. Island of the Dragon’s Blood. London: Steve Savage.
• Casson, L. 1989. The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Doe, D.B. 1970. Socotra: An Archaeological Reconnaissance in 1967 (Field Research Projects). Miami: Coconut Grove.
• Doe, D.B. 1992. Socotra Island of Tranquillity. London: Immel.
• Jansen van Rensburg, J. 2016. The maritime traditions of the fishermen of Soqotra, Yemen. Oxford: Archaeopress.
• Jansen van Rensburg, J. 2018. Rock Art of Soqotra, Yemen: A Forgotten Heritage Revisited. Arts 7(4). DOI: 10.3390/arts7040099.
• Jansen van Rensburg, J. & K. Hopper 2017. Incense and imagery: mapping agricultural and water management systems on the island of Soqotra, Yemen. PSAS 47: 129–138. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45163455.
• Müller, W.W. 2001. Antike und Mittelalterliche Quellen als Zeugnisse über Soqotra, eine einstmals Christliche Insel. Oriens christianus 85: 139–161.
• Naumkin, V.V. 1993. Island of the Phoenix: An Ethnographic Study of the People of Socotra. Reading: Ithaca.
• Naumkin, V.V. 2012. Ostrova Arxipelaga Sokotra: Èkspedicii 1974-2010 [The Islands of the Archipelago of Soqotra: 1974–2010 Expeditions]. Moscow: Jazyki Slavjanskoj Kul’tury.
• Naumkin, V.V. & AV. Sedov, 1993. Monuments of Socotra. Topoi 3(2): 569–623. DOI: 10.3406/topoi.1993.1486.
• Sedov A.V. & Y.A. Vinogradov 2023. An important archaeological discovery on the island of Socotra (Republic of Yemen), in I. Gadja & F. Briquel Chatonnet (eds) Arabie - Arabies : volume offert à Christian Julien Robin par ses collègues, ses élèves et ses amis: 341–353. Paris: Geuthner.
• Shinnie, P.L. 1960. Socotra. Antiquity 34: 100–110. DOI: 10.1017/S0003598X00035389.
• Sirak, K., J. Jansen Van Rensburg, E. Brielle et al. 2024. Medieval DNA from Soqotra points to Eurasian origins of an isolated population at the crossroads of Africa and Arabia. Nat Ecol Evol (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02322-x.
• Strauch, I. (dir.) 2012. Foreign Sailors on Socotra: The inscriptions and drawings from the cave Hoq. Bremen: Hempen Verlag.
• Weeks, L., M. Morris, B. McCall & K. Al-Zubairy 2002. A recent archaeological survey on Soqotra. Report on the Preliminary Expedition Season, January 5th–February 2nd 2001. AAE 13(1): 95–125. DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0471.2002.130102.x.
• Wellsted, J.R. 1840. Travels to the City of the Caliphs along the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean: including a Voyage to the coast of Arabia, and a Tour on the Island of Socotra, 2 vols. London: Henry Colburn.

_{Alternate spellings: Socotra, Suquṭrā, Suḳuṭra, Dioscordia, Dioscuridês, Śakrad, S³krd, Sakrad}