An illustrated historical scene of a bustling 14th-century port on the Red Sea, with men carrying reddish blocks and beams by a coral-stone pier as a dhow bobs in the turquoise water, framed by sun-bleached houses, a mosque, and gulls overhead.

Cinematic, historically grounded illustration: Late-afternoon light on the Red-Sea coast of 14th-century Zeila. Foreground: six Somali men in simple white cotton tunics, rolled-up sarongs, and turbans, barefoot on a low coral-stone pier. One man swings a wooden mallet, another hoists a coral-limestone block onto his shoulder, a third heaves a bundle of mangrove beams over the pier; white spray erupts where the wood hits turquoise water. Middle-ground: more stacked columns, baskets of lime, and carved coral blocks ready to be dumped; a narrow crowd of townspeople—women in bright shawls, children, elders—watch from the shadowed alley between sun-bleached, flat-roofed houses. Background: a single Rasulid dhow flying a small red flag with white crescent bobs in the harbor; above the town a slender mosque minaret and domed roof catch the golden light; gulls wheel overhead. Style: warm palette, high-detail linework, slight desaturation for aged look, subtle film-grain, 3-point perspective, dramatic rim-lighting on flying dust and spray. Mood: determined civic defiance, urgency, salty breeze. 4-K resolution, 16:9 landscape.” Hit “Generate” (or send to your illustrator) and you’ll have the moment the people of Zeila threw the would-be occupiers’ building materials into the sea. See more