Dahlak Kebir, the largest island in the Dahlak Archipelago, preserves a settlement landscape, water installations, building remains and an exceptional corpus of medieval Arabic funerary inscriptions.
The islands occupied a strategic position beside Red Sea shipping routes. Written sources and archaeology trace changing connections with the Aksumite world, the early caliphates, Yemen, Egypt and the African mainland.
Hundreds of inscribed tombstones record inhabitants and visitors with connections across the medieval Islamic world. Reused architectural pieces and earlier building remains also show that the island's history did not begin with the medieval sultanate.
Why this place matters
Dahlak Kebir's inscriptions and settlement remains make the archipelago one of the most important archives for the medieval Red Sea history of the Eritrean coast.