Dahlak Archipelago

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1 History
2 References
3 External link

For the fictional Dr.Who aliens, see Dalek.

The Dahlak Archipelago is an island group located in the Red Sea near Massawa, Eritrea. It consists of two large and 124 small islands. The pearl fisheries there were known to the Romans and still produce a few pearls. Only four of the islands are permanently inhabited, of which Dahlak Kebir is the largest and most populated. The islands are a home for diverse marine life and sea-birds, and attract some tourists.

The people of the archipelago speak Dahlik. Some of the islands can be reached by boat from Massawa.

Other islands of this archipelago, besides Dahlak Kebir are: Dhuladhiya, Dissei, Dohul, Erwa, Harat, Hermil, Eritrea, Isra-Tu, Nahleg, Norah and Shumma.

[edit] History

G.W.B. Huntingford has identified a group of islands near Adulis called "Alalaiou" in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which were a source of tortoise shell, with the Dahlak archipelago. According to Edward Ullendorff, the Dahlak islanders were amongst the first in East Africa to convert to Islam, and a number of tombstones in Kufic writing attest to this early connection. In the 7th century an independent Muslim state emerged in the archipleago, but it was subsequently conquered by Yemen, then later by the Emperor of Ethiopia, and about 1559 by the Ottoman Turks, who placed the islands under the rule of their Pasha at Suakin.

In the late 19th century, the islands became part of the Italian colony of Eritrea, which was formed in 1890. The Islands were home to little else except a prison operated by the Italy Colonial forces.

After Ethiopia allied itself with the Soviet Union during the Cold War after the rise of the Derg, the Dahlak Archipelago was the location of a Soviet Navy base^[1]. In 1993, Ethiopia relinquished control of Eritrea, and the Dahlak Archipelago became a part of Eritrea.