Statehorn is an European Research Project that analyses the reasons for failure in the contemporary states in the Horn of Africa through the archaeological study of their historical dynamics during the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age. This period of time under study –approximately from the 11th to the 16th centuries CE- witnessed the emergence and consolidation of a score of Muslim states which for 500 years were able to control large regions, provide stability and prosperity to their citizens and establish complex diplomatic and economical links with the Mediterranean, the Near East, Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The former stability of these states contrasts with the challenges that face the states in the region today, with Somalia being the epitome of a failed state.
The project is organised around five core research themes (political territoriality and cultural landscape, material culture, written and oral sources, urbanisation, and trade). Combining archaeological information with written historical sources, oral traditions, historical linguistic data and ethnography, it will present the most comprehensive study of statehood in the Horn of Africa during the medieval period. StateHorn studies how medieval states controlled or exerted influence over territory, and how they interacted with the different communities -nomads, urban dwellers, international traders, ethnic minorities- which inhabited the Muslim territories of the Horn of Africa. To do so, the project studies the material culture of the medieval communities of the Horn of Africa from different perspectives -regional, settlement, domestic, individual- aiming to reconstruct the material, economic, social, religious and identity parameters of these groups. The final objective is to reconstruct, as accurately as possible, the historical dynamics of this region during the Medieval period, and the role states played in them.
The StateHorn Project focuses primarily on the medieval states of the Horn of Africa. Yet, its goals extend beyond the study of a society long time gone. Indeed, the project aims to formulate questions and to propose alternative ways to understand the functioning of the states in Africa and in other places where states face problems of legitimacy and authority. In so doing, the project can contribute to elaborate new approaches that help in improving the lives of millions of people in the Horn of Africa and in other regions of the world.
