Gondershe
Encyclopedia
Somali people
Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...
stone city built on an oasis
Oasis
In geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...
in southern Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
. The city's ruins consist of typical Somali architecture
Architecture of Somalia
Somalian architecture is the engineering and designing of multiple different construction types such as stone cities, castles, citadels, fortresses, mosques, temples, aqueducts, lighthouses, towers and tombs during the ancient, medieval and early modern periods in Somalia, as well as the fusion of...
such as coral stone houses
Coral
Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...
, fortifications, tombs and mosques. It is said to date from the Ajuuraan period
Ajuuraan State
The Ajuuraan state or Ajuuraan sultanate was a Somali Muslim empire that ruled over large parts of East Africa in the Middle Ages. Through a strong centralized administration and an aggressive military stance towards invaders, the Ajuuraan Empire successfully resisted an Oromo invasion from the...
, when it became a center of trade that handled smaller vessels sailing from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Arabia, Persia and the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
.
Gondershe was also a popular tourist attraction during the 1970s and 1980s in Somalia. In addition, the film La Conchiglia
La Conchiglia
La Conchiglia , or The Conch, is a short film from Somali writer and director Abdulkadir Ahmed Said.-Plot:A female artist is painting a seascape on a deserted beach when she discovers a beautiful conch. Curious, she puts her ear to it and listens to the echoes and sounds of the ocean waves...
(1992) by the award-winning Somali filmmaker Abdulkadir Ahmed Said
Abdulkadir Ahmed Said
Abdulkadir Ahmed Said is a prominent Somali film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor.-Biography:Said was born in 1953 in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. In 1970, he began working for the Somali Film Agency as a photographer assigned to international relations and as a...
was shot here, and features the town's local residents.