Opone was an ancient seaport and trading city on the Indian Ocean coast of what is now Hafun in Somalia, active from around the first millennium BC to about 500 AD with peaks of activity in the first century BC and the third to fifth centuries AD. The first century Periplus of the Erythraean Sea records that the greatest quantity of cinnamon was produced there along with fine tortoiseshell, and archaeologists have recovered Egyptian, Roman and Persian Gulf pottery along with Mycenaean-era pottery and the remains of drystone walls, courtyards and harbor structures, reflecting trade with Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece, Persia, Yemen, Rome, Indonesia and Malaysia. Some scholars identify Opone with the ancient Egyptian Land of Punt.
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