Turtle shells, Frankinsence, and Myrrh: Trade between the nomads of Somaliland and the empires of the ancient world.
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Nomadic pastoralists are known to have been important to the economics of the ancient world, operating both within political units such as the Roman Empire and beyond their borders, where they formed an important part of international trade networks. Despite this, these communities have received little attention from historians and archaeologists, compared to more settled groups. This is particularly true of pastoralists living in arid regions of Africa and the Middle East, who traded with, and were economically bound to, entities such as the Roman and Parthian empires, but spent much or all of their time beyond the borders or control of these states. In North Africa the spread of the Roman Empire was linked to a decrease in fueding between pastoralist and settled communities, and integration into a more formal trading system. Beyond the borders of Roman-controlled Egypt pastoral groups appear to have traded with Roman frontier towns, mining communities in the interior, the Aksumite Kingdom on the Red Sea coast, and traders from the Indian Ocean.