Ambassador
An ambassador is an official envoy a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sovereign or appointed for a special and temporary diplomatic assignment. The word is often used more liberally for persons who are known, without national appointment, to represent certain professions and fields of endeavor such as sales. An ambassador is the ranking government representative stationed in a foreign capital; the host country allows the ambassador control of specific territory called an embassy, whose territory and vehicles are afforded diplomatic immunity in the host country. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an ambassador has the highest diplomatic rank. Countries may choose to maintain diplomatic relations at a lower level by appointing a chargé d'affaires in place of an ambassador; the equivalent to an ambassador exchanged among members of the Commonwealth of Nations are known as High Commissioners.
The "ambassadors" of the Holy See are known as Apostolic Nuncios. The term is derived from Middle English ambassadour, Anglo-French ambassateur of Latin origin from the word Ambaxus-Ambactus, meaning servant or minister; the first known usage of the term was recorded around the 14th century. The foreign government to which an ambassador is assigned must first approve the person. In some cases, the foreign government might reverse its approval by declaring the diplomat a persona non grata, i.e. an unacceptable person. This kind of declaration results in recalling the ambassador to their home nation. In accordance with the Congress of Vienna of 1815 and the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the ambassador and embassy staff are granted diplomatic immunity and personal safety while living abroad. Due to the advent of modern technologies, today's world is a much smaller place in relative terms. With this in mind, it is considered important that the nations of the world have at least a small staff living in foreign capitals in order to aid travelers and visitors from their home nation.
As an officer of the foreign service, an ambassador is expected to protect the citizens of their home country in the host country. Another result of the increase in foreign travel is the growth of trade between nations. For most countries, the national economy is now part of the global economy; this means increased opportunities to trade with other nations. When two nations are conducting a trade, it is advantageous to both parties to have an ambassador and a small staff living in the other land, where they act as an intermediary between cooperative businesses. One of the cornerstones of foreign diplomatic missions is to work for peace; this task can grow into a fight against international terrorism, the drug trade, international bribery, human trafficking. Ambassadors help stop these acts; these activities are important and sensitive and are carried out in coordination with the Defense Ministry of the state and the head of the nation. The rise of the modern diplomatic system was a product of the Italian Renaissance.
The use of ambassadors became a political strategy in Italy during the 17th century. The political changes in Italy altered the role of ambassadors in diplomatic affairs; because many of the states in Italy were small in size, they were vulnerable to larger states. The ambassador system was used to protect the more vulnerable states; this practice spread to Europe during the Italian Wars. The use and creation of ambassadors during the 15th century in Italy has had long-term effects on Europe and, in turn, the world's diplomatic and political progression. Europe still uses the same terms of ambassador rights as they had established in the 16th century, concerning the rights of the ambassadors in host countries as well as the proper diplomatic procedures. An ambassador was used as a representative of the state in which they are from to negotiate and disseminate information in order to keep peace and establish relationships with other states; this attempt was employed in the effort to maintain peaceful relations with nations and make alliances during difficult times.
The use of ambassadors today is widespread. States and non-state actors use diplomatic representatives to deal with any problems that occur within the international system. Ambassadors now live overseas or within the country in which it is assigned to for long periods of time so that they are acquainted with the culture and local people; this way they are more politically effective and trusted, enabling them to accomplish goals that their host country desires. The Congress of Vienna of 1815 formalized the system of diplomatic rank under international law: Ambassadors are diplomats of the highest rank, formally representing the head of state, with plenipotentiary powers. In modern usage, most ambassadors on foreign postings as head of mission carry the full title of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. "Ordinary" ambassadors and non-plenipotentiary status are used, although they may be encountered in certain circumstances. The only difference between an extraordinary ambassador and an ordinary ambassador is that while the former's mission is permanent, the latter serves only for a specific purpose.
Among European powers, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary was regarded as the personal representative of the Sovereign. The custom of dispatching ambassadors to the h
Alma mater
Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university, school, or college that one attended. In US usage it can mean the school from which one graduated; the phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Fine arts will depict educational institutions using a robed woman as a visual metaphor. Before its current usage, alma mater was an honorific title for various Latin mother goddesses Ceres or Cybele, in Catholicism for the Virgin Mary, it entered academic usage when the University of Bologna adopted the motto Alma Mater Studiorum, which describes its heritage as the oldest operating university in the Western world. It is related to alumnus, a term used for a university graduate that means a "nursling" or "one, nourished". Although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele and other mother goddesses, it was not used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. In the Oxford Latin Dictionary, the phrase is attributed to Lucretius' De rerum natura, where it is used as an epithet to describe an earth goddess: After the fall of Rome, the term came into Christian liturgical usage in association with the Virgin Mary.
"Alma Redemptoris Mater" is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary. The earliest documented use of the term to refer to a university in an English-speaking country is in 1600, when the University of Cambridge printer, John Legate, began using an emblem for the university's press; the device's first-known appearance is on the title-page of William Perkins' A Golden Chain, where the Latin phrase Alma Mater Cantabrigia is inscribed on a pedestal bearing a nude, lactating woman wearing a mural crown. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is cited in 1710, when an academic mother figure is mentioned in a remembrance of Henry More by Richard Ward. Many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name; the University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. Other European universities, such as the Alma Mater Lipsiensis in Leipzig, Germany, or Alma Mater Jagiellonica, have used the expression in conjunction with geographical or foundational characteristics.
At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, an international university founded by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2010, uses the term as its official name. In the United States, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, has been called the "Alma Mater of the Nation" because of its ties to the country's founding. At Queen's University in Kingston and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the main student government is known as the Alma Mater Society; the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses. For example, in the United States: there is a well-known bronze statue of Alma Mater by Daniel Chester French situated on the steps of Columbia University's Low Library. An altarpiece mural in Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library, painted in 1932 by Eugene Savage, depicts the Alma Mater as a bearer of light and truth, standing in the midst of the personified arts and sciences.
Outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. The statue was cast in 1919 by Mario Korbel, with Feliciana Villalón Wilson as the inspiration for Alma Mater, it was installed in its current location in 1927, at the direction of architect Raul Otero. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, formally known as the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern Bloc satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe; the Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954, but it is considered to have been motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO. Instead, the conflict was fought in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs, its largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than a month later.
The Pact began to unravel in its entirety with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland and its electoral success in June 1989. East Germany withdrew from the Pact following the reunification of Germany in 1990. On 25 February 1991, at a meeting in the Hungarian People's Republic, the Pact was declared at an end by the defence and foreign ministers of the six remaining member states; the USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991, although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. Throughout the following 20 years, the seven Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO, as did the three Baltic states, part of the Soviet Union. In the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship and Mutual Assistance is called the Warsaw Pact military alliance—abbreviated WAPA, Warpac and WP. Elsewhere, in the former member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as: Albanian: Pakti i miqësisë, bashkëpunimit dhe i ndihmës së përbashkët Armenian: Բարեկամության, համագործակցության եւ փոխադարձ օգնության պայմանագիր Romanized Armenian: Barekamut’yan, hamagortsakts’ut’yan yev p’vokhadardz ognut’yan paymanagir Azerbaijani: Dostluq, Əməkdaşlıq və qarşılıqlı yardım müqaviləsi Belarusian: Дагавор аб дружбе, супрацоўніцтве і ўзаемнай дапамозе Romanized Belarusian: Dagavor ab druzhe, supratsoŭnitstve i ŭzaemnaŭ dapamoze Bulgarian: Договор за дружба, сътрудничество и взаимопомощ Romanized Bulgarian: Dogovor za druzhba, satrudnichestvo i vzaimopomosht Czech: Smlouva o přátelství, spolupráci a vzájemné pomoci Slovak: Zmluva o priateľstve, spolupráci a vzájomnej pomoci Estonian: Sõprus, koostöö ja vastastikune abi Georgian: მეგობრობის, თანამშრომლობისა და ურთიერთდახმარების ხელშეკრულება Romanized Georgian: megobrobis, tanamshromlobisa da urtiertdakhmarebis khelshek’ruleba German: Vertrag über Freundschaft, Zusammenarbeit und gegenseitigen Beistand Hungarian: Barátsági, együttműködési és kölcsönös segítségnyújtási szerződés Kazakh: Достық, ынтымақтастық және өзара көмек туралы келісім Romanized Kazakh: Dostıq, ıntımaqtastıq jäne özara kömek twralı kelisim Kyrgyz: Достук, кызматташтык жана өз ара жардам көрсөтүү жөнүндө келишим Romanized Kyrgyz: Dostuk, kızmattaştık jana öz ara jardam körsötüü jönündö kelişim Latvian: Līgums par draudzību, sadarbību un savstarpēju palīdzību Lithuanian: Draugystės, bendradarbiavimo ir savitarpio pagalbos sutartis Polish: Układ o przyjaźni, współpracy i pomocy wzajemnej Romanian: Tratatul de prietenie, cooperare și asistență mutuală Russian: Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимной помощи Romanized Russian: Dogovor o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoy pomoshchi Tajik: Шартномаи дӯстӣ, ҳамкорӣ ва кӯмаки мутахассис Romanized Tajik: Şartnomai dūstī, hamkorī va kūmaki mutaxassis Turkish: Dostluk Antlaşması, İşbirliği ve Karşılıklı Yardımlaşma Ukrainian: Договір про дружбу, співробітництво і взаємну допомогу Romanized Ukrainian: Dogovir pro druzhbu, spivrobitnitstvo i vzaêmnu dopomogu Uzbek: Do'stlik, hamkorlik va o'zaro yordam shartnomasi The Warsaw Treaty's organization was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw, Poland.
Furthermore, the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization which commanded and controlled all the military forces of the member countries was a First Deputy Minister of Defence of the USSR, the Chief of Combined Staff of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was a First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces; the strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviets wanted to keep their part of Europe and not let the Americans take it from them; this policy was driven by geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism and act as the leader of the global socialist movement. A corollary to this idea was the necessity of intervention if a country appeared to be violating core s
Naturalization
Naturalization is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen in a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e. without any effort on the part of the individual, or it may involve an application or a motion and approval by legal authorities. The rules of naturalization vary from country to country but include a promise to obeying and upholding that country's laws and subscribing to the oath of allegiance, may specify other requirements such as a minimum legal residency and adequate knowledge of the national dominant language or culture. To counter multiple citizenship, most countries require that applicants for naturalization renounce any other citizenship that they hold, but whether this renunciation causes loss of original citizenship, as seen by the host country and by the original country, will depend on the laws of the countries involved; the massive increase in population flux due to globalization and the sharp increase in the numbers of refugees following World War I created a large number of stateless persons, people who were not citizens of any state.
In some rare cases, laws for mass naturalization were passed. As naturalization laws had been designed to cater for the few people who had voluntarily moved from one country to another, many western democracies were not ready to naturalize large numbers of people; this included the massive influx of stateless people which followed massive denationalizations and the expulsion of ethnic minorities from newly created nation states in the first part of the 20th century, but they included the aristocratic Russians who had escaped the 1917 October Revolution and the war communism period, the Spanish refugees. As Hannah Arendt pointed out, internment camps became the "only nation" of such stateless people, since they were considered "undesirable" and were stuck in an illegal situation, wherein their country had expelled them or deprived them of their nationality, while they had not been naturalized, thus living in a judicial no man's land. Since World War II, the increase in international migrations created a new category of migrants, most of them economic migrants.
For economic, political and pragmatic reasons, many states passed laws allowing a person to acquire their citizenship after birth, such as by marriage to a national – jus matrimonii – or by having ancestors who are nationals of that country, in order to reduce the scope of this category. However, in some countries this system still maintains a large part of the immigrant population in an illegal status, albeit with some massive regularizations, for example, in Spain by José Luis Zapatero's government and in Italy by Berlusconi's government; the People's Republic of China gives citizenship to persons with one or two parents with Chinese nationality who have not taken residence in other countries. The country gives citizenship to people born on its territory to stateless people who have settled there. Furthermore, individuals may apply for nationality if they have a near relative with Chinese nationality, if they have settled in China, or if they present another legitimate reason. In practice, only few people gain Chinese citizenship.
The naturalization process starts with a written application. Applicants must submit three copies, written with a ball-point or fountain pen, to national authorities, to provincial authorities in the Ministry of Public Security and the Public Security Bureau. Applicants must submit original copies of a foreign passport, a residence permit, a permanent residence permit, four two-and-a-half inch long pictures. According to the conditions outlined in the Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China, authorities may require "any other material that the authority believes are related to the nationality application"; the Indian citizenship and nationality law and the Constitution of India provides single citizenship for the entire country. The provisions relating to citizenship at the commencement of the Constitution are contained in Articles 5 to 11 in Part II of the Constitution of India. Relevant Indian legislation is the Citizenship Act 1955, amended by the Citizenship Act 1986, the Citizenship Act 1992, the Citizenship Act 2003, the Citizenship Ordinance 2005.
The Citizenship Act 2003 received the assent of the President of India on 7 January 2004 and came into force on 3 December 2004. The Citizenship Ordinance 2005 was promulgated by the President of India and came into force on 28 June 2005. Following these reforms, Indian nationality law follows the jus sanguinis as opposed to the jus soli; the Italian Government grants Italian citizenship for the following reasons. Automatically Jus sanguinis: for birth. Following declaration By descent. Indonesian nationality is regulated by Law No. 12/2006. The Indonesia
Somalia
Somalia the Federal Republic of Somalia (Somali: Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya. Jumhūrīyah aṣ-Ṣūmāl al-Fīdirālīyah, is a country located in the Horn of Africa, it is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djabuti to the northwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north, the Guardafui Channel and Somali Sea to the east, Kenya to the southwest. Somalia has the longest coastline on Africa's mainland, its terrain consists of plateaus and highlands. Climatically, hot conditions prevail year-round, with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall. Somalia has an estimated population of around 14.3 million. And has been described as the most culturally homogeneous country in Africa. Around 85% of its residents are ethnic Somalis, who have inhabited the northern part of the country. Ethnic minorities are concentrated in the southern regions; the official languages of are Arabic. Most people in the country are Muslim, with the majority being Sunni. In antiquity, Somalia was an important commercial centre, it is among the most probable locations of the fabled ancient Land of Punt.
During the Middle Ages, several powerful Somali empires dominated the regional trade, including the Ajuran Empire, the Adal Sultanate, the Warsangali Sultanate, the Sultanate of the Geledi. The toponym Somalia was coined by the Italian explorer Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti. In the late 19th century, the British and Italian empires established the colonies of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland. In the interior, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan's Darwiish repelled the British four times, forcing a retreat to the coast, before succumbing in the Somaliland campaign. Italy acquired full control of the northeastern and southern parts of the area after waging the Campaign of the Sultanates against the ruling Majeerteen Sultanate and Sultanate of Hobyo. In 1960, the two regions united to form the independent Somali Republic under a civilian government; the Supreme Revolutionary Council seized power in 1969 and established the Somali Democratic Republic, which collapsed in 1991 as the Somali Civil War broke out.
During this period most regions returned to religious law. The early 2000s saw the creation of interim federal administrations; the Transitional National Government was established in 2000, followed by the formation of the Transitional Federal Government in 2004, which reestablished the military. In 2006, the TFG assumed control of most of the nation's southern conflict zones from the newly formed Islamic Courts Union; the ICU subsequently splintered into more radical groups such as Al-Shabaab, which battled the TFG and its AMISOM allies for control of the region. By mid-2012, the insurgents had lost most of the territory that they had seized, a search for more permanent democratic institutions began. A new provisional constitution was passed in August 2012; the same month, the Federal Government of Somalia was formed and a period of reconstruction began in Mogadishu. Somalia has maintained an informal economy based on livestock, remittances from Somalis working abroad, telecommunications, it is a member of the United Nations, the Arab League, African Union, Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Somalia has been inhabited since at least the Paleolithic. During the Stone Age, the Doian and Hargeisan cultures flourished here; the oldest evidence of burial customs in the Horn of Africa comes from cemeteries in Somalia dating back to the 4th millennium BCE. The stone implements from the Jalelo site in the north were characterized in 1909 as important artefacts demonstrating the archaeological universality during the Paleolithic between the East and the West. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the ensuing Neolithic period from the family's proposed urheimat in the Nile Valley, or the Near East; the Laas Geel complex on the outskirts of Hargeisa in northwestern Somalia dates back 5,000 years, has rock art depicting both wild animals and decorated cows. Other cave paintings are found in the northern Dhambalin region, which feature one of the earliest known depictions of a hunter on horseback; the rock art is in the distinctive Ethiopian-Arabian style, dated to 1,000 to 3,000 BCE.
Additionally, between the towns of Las Khorey and El Ayo in northern Somalia lies Karinhegane, the site of numerous cave paintings of real and mythical animals. Each painting has an inscription below it, which collectively have been estimated to be around 2,500 years old. Ancient pyramidical structures, ruined cities and stone walls, such as the Wargaade Wall, are evidence of an old civilization that once thrived in the Somali peninsula; this civilization enjoyed a trading relationship with ancient Egypt and Mycenaean Greece since the second millennium BCE, supporting the hypothesis that Somalia or adjacent regions were the location of the ancient Land of Punt. The Puntites traded myrrh, gold, short-horned cattle and frankincense with the Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians and Romans through their commercial ports. An Egyptian expedition sent to Punt by the 18th dynasty Queen Hatshepsut is recorded on the temple reliefs at Deir el-Bahari, during the reign of the Puntite King Parahu and Queen Ati.
In 2015, isotopic analysis of ancient baboon mummies from Punt, brought to Egypt as gifts indicated that the specimens originated from an area encompassing eastern Somalia and the Eritrea-Ethiopia corridor. In the classical era, the Macrobians, who may have b
United Nations Security Council Resolution 746
United Nations Security Council resolution 746, adopted unanimously on 17 March 1992, after reaffirming Resolution 733, noting a ceasefire agreement in Mogadishu and a report by the Secretary-General, the Council urged the continuation of the United Nations humanitarian work in Somalia and supported the Secretary-General's decision to dispatch a technical team there. The Council urged the Somali factions to uphold the ceasefire agreement of 3 March 1992, further asking them to co-operate with the Secretary-General, the United Nations and international organisations to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need, it supported his decision to dispatch a technical team to Somalia that would establish mechanisms for aid delivery and called on Somali factions to respect the safety and security of the team. Resolution 746 encouraged co-operation between the Organisation of African Unity, Arab League and Organisation of the Islamic Conference and Secretary-General with the hope of convening a conference for national reconciliation and unity in Somalia.
History of Somalia List of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 701 to 800 Somali Civil War Text of the Resolution at undocs.org
Djibouti
Djibouti is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, Somalia in the southeast; the remainder of the border is formed by the Gulf of Aden at the east. Djibouti occupies a total area of 23,200 km2; the state of Djibouti is predominantly inhabited by two ethnic groups, the Somali and the Afar people, the Somalis being the major ethnic group of the country. Djibouti has always been a active member in the African Union and the Arab League. In antiquity, the territory together with Somalia was part of the Land of Punt. Nearby Zeila, now in Somalia, was the seat of the medieval Ifat Sultanates. In the late 19th century, the colony of French Somaliland was established following treaties signed by the ruling Somali and Afar sultans with the French and its railroad to Dire Dawa allowed it to supersede Zeila as the port for southern Ethiopia and the Ogaden, it was subsequently renamed to the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas in 1967.
A decade the Djiboutian people voted for independence. This marked the establishment of the Republic of Djibouti, named after its capital city. Djibouti joined the United Nations the same year, on 20 September 1977. In the early 1990s, tensions over government representation led to armed conflict, which ended in a power-sharing agreement in 2000 between the ruling party and the opposition. Djibouti is a multi-ethnic nation with a population of over 942,333 inhabitants. Somali and French are the country's three official languages. About 94% of residents adhere to Islam, the official religion and has been predominant in the region for more than a thousand years; the Somali and Afar make up the two largest ethnic groups. Both speak Afroasiatic languages. Djibouti is strategically located near some of the world's busiest shipping lanes, controlling access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, it serves as a key refuelling and transshipment center, is the principal maritime port for imports from and exports to neighboring Ethiopia.
A burgeoning commercial hub, the nation is the site of various foreign military bases, including Camp Lemonnier. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development regional body has its headquarters in Djibouti City. Djibouti is known as the Republic of Djibouti. In local languages it is known as Yibuuti, جيبوتي, Jībūtī, Jabuuti; the name of the country is derived from the city of the epynomous country's capital. The etymology of the city of Djibout is disputed. Several theories and legends exist regarding varying based on ethnicity. One theory derives it from the Afar word gabouti, meaning "plate" referring to the geographical features of the area. Another connects it to gabood, meaning "upland/plateau". From 1862 until 1894, the land to the north of the Gulf of Tadjoura was called "Obock". Under French administration, from 1883 to 1967 the area was known as French Somaliland, from 1967 to 1977 as the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas. Djibouti area has been inhabited since the Neolithic. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during this period from the family's proposed urheimat in the Nile Valley, or the Near East.
Other scholars propose that the Afroasiatic family developed in situ in the Horn, with its speakers subsequently dispersing from there. Pottery predating the mid-2nd millennium has been found at Asa Koma, an inland lake area on the Gobaad Plain; the site's ware is characterized by punctate and incision geometric designs, which bear a similarity to the Sabir culture phase 1 ceramics from Ma'layba in Southern Arabia. Long-horned humpless cattle bones have been discovered at Asa Koma, suggesting that domesticated cattle were present by around 3,500 years ago. Rock art of what appear to be antelopes and a giraffe are found at Dorra and Balho. Handoga, dated to the fourth millennium BP, has in turn yielded obsidian microliths and plain ceramics used by early nomadic pastoralists with domesticated cattle. Additionally, between Djibouti City and Loyada are a number of phallic stelae; the structures are associated with graves of rectangular shape that are flanked by vertical slabs, as found in central Ethiopia.
The Djibouti-Loyada stelae are of uncertain age, some of them are adorned with a T-shaped symbol. Together with northern Somalia and the Red Sea coast of Sudan, Djibouti is considered the most location of the territory known to the Ancient Egyptians as Punt; the first mention of the Land of Punt dates to the 25th century BC. The Puntites were a nation of people who had close relations with Ancient Egypt during the reign of the 5th dynasty Pharaoh Sahure and the 18th dynasty Queen Hatshepsut. According to the temple murals at Deir el-Bahari, the Land of Punt was ruled at that time by King Parahu and Queen Ati. Through close contacts with the adjacent Arabian Peninsula for more than 1,000 years, the Somali and Afar ethnic groups in the region became among the first populations on the continent to embrace Islam; the Ifat Sultanate was a Muslim medieval kingdom in the Horn of Africa. Founded in 1285 by the Walashma dynasty, it was centered in Zeila. Ifat established bases in Djibouti and northern Somalia, from there expanded southward to the Ahmar Mountains.
Its Sultan Umar Walashma is recorded as hav
