Gendebelo

Gendebelo was an ancient Muslim trading city in Ifat. Its location was discovered in 2009 by a team of French archaeologists.

History

Gendebelo was a medieval Muslim trading center thought to be lost. It was believed to be situated about from Ankober. Gendebelo was "a great mercantile city", where camel caravans brought all kinds of spices except ginger 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."