Dahlak Archipelago - Definition and Overview

The Dahlak archipelago is an island group located in the Red Sea off Massawa. It consists of two large and 124 small islands. The pearl fisheries there were known to the Romans and still produce a few pearls.

G.W.B. Huntingford has identified a group of islands near Adulis called "Alalaiou" in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which were a source of tortoise shell, with the Dahlak archipelago. In the 7th century the group formed an independent Muslim state, but it was subsequently conquered by Yemen and later by the Ottoman Turks. Long part of Ethiopia, the islands became part of Eritrea following that country's independence in 1993.