The Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period: Definite places, translocal exchange 9781407300092, 9781407330570

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Preface
One: Definite Places, Translocal Exchange
Two: What Happened in the Near East CA 2000 BC?
Three: Sumhuram: A Hadrami Port on the Indian Ocean
Four: Strabo and the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan
Five: Water Harvesting in the Eastern Desert of Egypt
Six: Roman Coins as a Source for Roman Trading Activities in the Indian Ocean
Seven: Ports, Ptolemy, Periplus and Poetry - Romans in Tamil, South India and on the Bay of Bengal
Eight: Early Indian Ocean Trade with Zanzibar: Archaeological Evidence

Citation preview

BAR S1593 2007 SELAND (Ed)

The Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period Definite places, translocal exchange Edited by

THE INDIAN OCEAN IN THE ANCIENT PERIOD

B A R

Eivind Heldaas Seland

BAR International Series 1593 2007

The Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period Definite places, translocal exchange Edited by

Eivind Heldaas Seland

BAR International Series 1593 2007

ISBN 9781407300092 paperback ISBN 9781407330570 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407300092 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

Contents

Preface

1 Anders Bjørkelo

Definite places, translocal exchange – an introduction Anders Bjørkelo, Jørgen Christian Meyer, Eivind Heldaas Seland

3

What happened in the Near East ca 2000 BC? David Alan Warburton

9

Sumhuram: a Hadrami port on the Indian Ocean Alessandra Avanzini

23

Strabo and the Eastern Desert og Egypt and Sudan Richard Holton Pierce

33

Water harvesting in the Eastern Desert of Egypt Jonatan Krzywinski

45

Roman coins as a source for Roman trading activities in the Indian Ocean Jørgen Christian Meyer

59

Ports, Ptolemy, Periplus and Poetry – Romans in Tamil South India and on the Bay of Bengal Eivind Heldaas Seland Early Indian Ocean trade with Zanzibar – archaeological evidence Else Johansen Kleppe

69 83

Maps The Indian Ocean at the time of the Periplus

8

Caravan routes in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

46

India at the time of the Periplus

58

Southern India and Sri Lanka in the ancient period

68

PREFACE In 2001 a project entitled ”Trade, migration and cultural change in the Indian Ocean” was launched at the Department of History, University of Bergen, with funding from the Norwegian Research Council. The encouragement to join forces behind such a project came from many quarters both within and outside the department. The project was planned to be the first joint project in a program called “The Indian Ocean History Program”. The main researchers were professor Anders Bjørkelo (project leader) and professor Jørgen Christian Meyer, but other researchers with separate funding including professor R.S. O’Fahey, doctoral student Eivind Heldaas Seland (MA), and post. doc. researcher, Dr. Anne K. Bang became important participants. Some master students wrote their dissertations in association with the project. Right from the beginning, the project invited interested researchers in other disciplines at the university (mainly in archaeology, anthropology and classics) to take part in our research seminar series in 2001-2002 in which work in progress and completed papers were presented. Foreign scholars were also invited to visit Bergen and to present papers at these seminars. In addition, the project sought to establish more permanent research links with foreign researchers and research institutions concerned with the Indian Ocean. In order to promote international cooperation in the field of Indian Ocean research, we organised three workshops in Bergen, 2001, 2002, 2004, in which papers on a broad range of topics were presented and discussed. The individual projects span from the study of “Non-Greco-Roman networks in the Indian Ocean before Islam” (J.C. Meyer’s project), to “The financing and organisation of coastal and trans-oceanic trade in East Africa, South Arabia and India in the 19th Century” (Anders Bjørkelo’s project), and “Islamic Literature and Culture in Eastern Africa” (R.S. O’Fahey’s project). In addition we have Anne K. Bang’s post. doc. project on “Integration or cosmopolitanisation? Family history and identity in East Africa and Southern Arabia, ca. 18501940”, and Eivind H. Seland’s doctoral project “Indian Ocean in Antiquity: trade and the emerging state”. What binds these individual projects together is the focus on the movement of commodities, people, cultural features and ideas, and the durable networks and links that these created and the local impact around the Indian Ocean. The areas most focused on have been East Africa centred on Zanzibar, the Red Sea Region, the Persian Gulf and Southern Arabia, and finally on western and southern India. The project’s vision of the Indian Ocean is one of historical continuation. Thus we have found it very fruitful to study the ancient, medieval and early modern periods together. In this way the historical breaks that supposedly came with the Arabs and Islam and later with the Europeans, appear less dramatic when we see Indian Ocean history from a local perspective. Trade routes and trading networks crossed the Indian Ocean in the Greco-Roman period and continued to do so in the Muslim period. The Arabs were there before the advent of Islam; they only became more numerous thereafter and put an Arab-Muslim imprint on their diaspora. The local seafaring technology did not change much, nor did the seasonal routes. However, the migration of Arabs and the spread of Islam along oceanic trade routes, mostly in the form of sufism and sufi networks, have over time added a new dimension to Indian Ocean History by implanting a common culture on key points on the Ocean’s rim. This in turn added strength to commercial networks. This volume shows parts of the research that has been undertaken by project members and associates. Most of the articles in this anthology were presented at the 2004 workshop. They focus on the Indian Ocean in the ancient period and represent partly the contributions of scholars and students from Bergen, partly the contribution of our international guests. I wish to thank the Norwegian Research Council for funding the project, the Department of History,

1

University of Bergen, for their support, my research partners and all those who have taken part in our seminars and workshops, and those who have allowed us to publish their articles here. Finally, I wish to thank Eivind H. Seland (MA) for collecting the articles and editing this volume. Anders Bjørkelo. Professor, Project leader

Bergen March 1st, 2006

2

DEFINITE PLACES, TRANSLOCAL EXCHANGE Anders Bjørkelo, Jørgen Christian Meyer and Eivind Heldaas Seland

Fig. 1: Sea-going ship under sail on the Ganges, 1964. (Photo: Jens Bech). ”Jetzt machen sie diese Reise mit der größten Sicherheit, vornehmlich da man von Bombay noch zwey Grad nach Westen Grund findet, und da sich oft noch weiter westlich viele kleine Schlangen, 12 bis 18 Zoll lang, auf der Oberfläche der See zeigen. Wenn also die Schiffer nur 24 Grad nach Osten von Bab el Mandeb zurück gelegt haben, so suchen sie nach diesen Schlangen, und sind versichert, daß sie ohngefehr noch 2 Grad von der Küste entfernt sind, wenn sie selbige zuerst erblicken *). Wir sahen die Wasserschlangen zum erstenmal am 9ten September gegen Abend. *) Schon Arrianus erwähnt diese Wasserschlangen in seinem Peripl. mar. Erythr. p. 22 p. 23.“ (sic). Niebuhr, C. 1774. Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern. Kopenhagen: Nicolaus Möller. Vol 1: 452. “An indication to those coming from the sea that they are already approaching land in the river’s vicinity are the snakes that emerge from the depths to meet them; there is an indication as well in the places around Persis mentioned above, the snakes called graai.” Periplus Maris Erythraei 38, ed. / transl. Casson, L. 1989. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

biographer Arrian, as Niebuhr and his contemporaries believed, but by an anonymous Egyptian merchant or captain of the first century AD. The Periplus is not only a geographical guide providing sailing directions from the Roman Red Sea ports to India and East Africa. It also gives a wealth of political, ethnographic and commercial information on the regions surrounding the western Indian Ocean, often referred to as the Arabian Sea by modern geographers.

On September the 9th 1763 the Danish explorer Carsten Niebuhr entered in his diary the appearance of sea-snakes on the surface as an indication that the ship he was travelling on was approaching the Indian shore after a 16 day crossing of the Indian Ocean from Mocha in Yemen. Niebuhr had obviously brought a copy of the ancient Greek work known as the Periplus Maris Erythraei on his voyage. A work which we now know was written, not by Alexander’s famous

3

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange south-east, and to the Ganges plain. In Oman monumental structures disappear from the archaeological record, and new and dynamic powers, the Assyrians and the Hittites, emerged to the north-west of Mesopotamia. Kuprios (copper) means metal from Cyprus, and Cyprus replaced Oman as the main suppliers of this vital metal to the civilisations of the Near East. Unfortunately it is not possible to establish the exact chronological correlation between the different regions, and the reasons for the decline of this network remain obscure. Whatever the actual causal relations, these changes in the Near East and the regions bordering the Indian Ocean and Gulf fall within only, let us say, 100 years. This must be more than mere coincidence, and if it is, what we witness is an early example of regional interdependence, where changes in one part of a system affected the developments in other parts. D.A. Warburton addresses these issues in his contribution to this anthology and asks the critical question “what happened in the Near East ca. 2000 BC?” His conclusion is that economic integration gives better answers than imperial politics or climatic changes. In this way he connects the events in the Near East with the development on the Persian Gulf – Indian Ocean axis: Bahrain – Oman – Indus.

1700 years separate the two authors, and when Niebuhr set sail for Bombay, much had changed since the time of the Periplus. The Roman and Parthian / Sassanian empires had given way to the Arab and later the Ottoman Empire. New dynasties had established themselves in India. Islam was now not only a dominant religion, but also a cultural force, uniting a huge area stretching from North Africa to Indonesia and including the East African coast. Notwithstanding these changes, the Periplus Maris Erythraei was still an excellent guide to bring along in the 18th century. Ship technology was essentially the same as in the ancient period, and the steady monsoons still ensured a relatively safe voyage from west to east during the summer months and from east to west during the winter months. Ivory, precious stones, silk, rare woods, frankincense and myrrh, pepper, cinnamon and other spices and aromatics still filled the hulls of merchant ships. 1700 years separate Carsten Niebuhr from the author of the Periplus, but the Indian Ocean networks go back at least another 3000 years before that. Millet, including sorghum, a plant indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, spread via the Arabian Peninsula to the Indian Subcontinent. Cattle breeds of Indian origin were well suited to tropical climate and became a mainstay of African pastoralism. In the third millennium BC a sophisticated network developed in the north-western part of the Indian Ocean, involving the civilisations of Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. Mesopotamia lacked important resources like timber and metals. In the Bronze Age, tin from Afghanistan and copper from Oman, known as Magan, were essential for the existence of the Sumerian culture, and the Sumerian kings included seaborne connections to the East, to Magan and the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley, Meluhha as they called it, in their hymns and panegyrics. Smaller societies in the Persian Gulf, like Bahrain and Oman experienced for the first time the rise of complex societies to deal with this foreign exchange.

Our knowledge of the history of the Indian Ocean until the age of the Periplus is extremely scanty because of the scarcity of written sources. Egyptian records from the Old Kingdom onwards mention the land of Punt, which cannot be identified precisely, as a supplier of gold, myrrh, ivory and exotic animals. Trade with incense, combined with the introduction of irrigation, were probably also central factors in the emergence of more complex societies in Yemen, but our sources are too meagre to elucidate the relations with other regions of the Indian Ocean in the Bronze Age. In the Iron Age the importance of the caravan trade with the Near East and the Mediterranean is well documented, and a local coinage imitating Athenian owl coins, was introduced. Imitations, more or less precise, of these “Athenian owls” were issued by rulers of South Arabian kingdoms down to the first century AD. The contribution of A. Avanzini addresses the regional interaction of one of these kingdoms, Hadramawt, as reflected at the remarkable site of Khor Rori /

This world experienced gradual disintegration from around 2000 BC. In the Indus valley a period of de-urbanisation started, and the centre of gravity eventually moved to the

4

Introduction where merchants and shipowners from Palmyra were active. Roman authorities levied duties as high as 25% ad valorem on eastern imports. Before the silk, spices, drugs, incense, ivory, pearls and precious stones reached their Mediterranean markets, the Roman government had secured a sizeable share of the profit for itself.

Sumhuram on the coast of modern Oman. Her article based on the excavations of the Italian Mission to Oman shows how regional exploitation of natural resources went hand in hand with interregional exchange between Southern Arabia, India, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean in the centuries around the turn of our era. In the second half of the first millennium Hellenistic and later Parthian rulers established themselves in the northern part of the Indian Subcontinent. Greek mariners began to explore the Indian Ocean. A much discussed passage in the Periplus, gives a Greek captain named Hippalos the credit for revealing to Mediterranean merchants how to exploit the monsoons. The Roman conquests of Egypt and Syria opened a new era in this trade. Merchants from the Roman Empire now took direct part in the lucrative trade, and the empire became a huge market for Indian Ocean products. Trade goods entered the Mediterranean via two main routes. The first one started in Alexandria, went south down the Nile to Coptos, crossed the eastern Egyptian desert to the Red Sea ports, of which Berenice was perhaps of the most important. The caravan route from Coptos to the Red Sea was secured by a chain of military strongholds. R.H. Pierce takes us to this Eastern Desert of Egypt, which served as an interface between Mediterranean and Red Sea / Indian Ocean networks. His contribution explores the sources and contents of the description of this region contained in the Geography of Strabo, exemplifying how past mixed with present, myth with reality and theory with data, when Mediterranean geographers tried to come to grips with a rapidly expanding world. J. Krzywinski addresses a more practical problem encountered by Ptolemaic and Roman authorities in the same region: the water supply to caravan stations along the Nile - Red Sea route. Krzywinski argues that in addition to wells, these stations also utilized flexible systems of water-harvesting in order to exploit the meagre resources of surface water.

Fig. 2: Relief depicting ship on the Persian Gulf / Indian Ocean, 2nd Century AD. Note the similar sail arrangement to the modern ship on the picture above. National Museum, Palmyra. (Photo: J.C. Meyer).

It is important to stress that Roman merchants and sailors did not create new networks in the Indian Ocean. They entered a sea where indigenous networks had been in existence for centuries, and their main concern was the commerce with the Indian Subcontinent, where they found not only goods produced in India, like pearls and pepper, but also silk products from China, brought to Indian markets by other entrepreneurs. The trade with the Roman Empire was only one of many commercial flows. Other cargoes, including foodstuffs, metals, textiles, slaves and woodwork were part of an extensive maritime exchange between regions with markedly different hinterlands and resources at their disposal. The Periplus lists imports and exports to local ports around the Indian Ocean, which have nothing to do with Roman trade. Local rulers and elites were purchasers of the same luxury goods imported by the Roman Empire. Cabotage, primarily carried out by local entrepreneurs, was a usual sight throughout the history of the Indian Ocean, well documented not only in the Periplus, but also in the Medieval Arabian Nights. J.C. Meyer and E.H. Seland approach points of interaction between such networks and the Roman trade. Meyer argues that Roman coins found in Southern India are of little or no value as

The second main route went through the province of Syria: from Antioch at the Mediterranean coast down to Palmyra, across the semi-desert down to the mouth of Euphrates and Tigris in the Persian Gulf,

5

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange In the Red Sea the Aksumite kingdom slowly took control of the trade between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. By the 6th century AD it seems that the highly appreciated goods from the Eastern world entered the Roman Empire only by way of intermediaries. The Sassanian conquest of Southern Arabia after 570, which destroyed the Empire of Himyar, must also have disrupted the trade of Aksum and probably led to increased emphasis on the Persian Gulf axis of the Indian Ocean system at the expense of the Red Sea network.

sources to Roman history or even to the history of the monsoon trade, but all the more so to South Indian history. Seland argues that a past tendency to inflate the Roman role in the trade with Southern India has blurred our understanding of how the various networks interrelated. While overarching patterns remained unchanged, direct contacts between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean must have intensified some of the networks and increased the regional demand in Arabia, India and Africa for products suitable for the Roman market. It offered new opportunities to local rulers if they could get a share in the profit involved, either through taxes levied in the ports, trade monopolies, control with the production of merchandise like myrrh, frankincense or pearls, or protective duties along the main trade routes. In modern Ethiopia / Eritrea, this period sees the rise of the kingdom of Aksum, the first complex society in this region in centuries. In Southern Arabia, the old inland states of Saba and Qataban were gradually marginalized and eventually vanquished by Hadramawt and Himyar, states with access not only to key resources in the maritime trade, but also to extensive coastlines and suitable ports. Himyar would go on to conquer Hadramawt as well and become a major regional power in the Indian Ocean together with Aksum. In Southern India three dynasties, the Chera, the Chola and the Pandya rose from seemingly unexceptional origins to form a three state structure that remained stable through centuries. While these polities all followed their own course of development, the monsoon trade on the Indian Ocean is the common backdrop which allows us to see wider patterns of trans-regional change and interdependence.

Commercial contacts are cultural contacts. The monsoon offered the possibility of swift and relatively safe passage from most coasts of the Indian Ocean and back again in the course of less than a year, but also meant that people had to stay abroad for extended periods of time. Captains had to refit and repair their ships. Traders frequently settled in foreign ports to serve as intermediaries between local populations and visiting merchants from home. People from all coasts of the Indian Ocean must have been shipwrecked, caught by pirates or sold as slaves. Happier circumstances caused people to maintain commercial ties, make friends and marry within their host societies. Through the monsoon trade the Indian Ocean formed a cultural environment with elements of all participating cultures. In the classical period, Roman merchants were resident in Southern India and their Tamil colleagues resided in Berenice at the Red Sea coast. Arab merchants and mariners intermarried and formed friendships with the local population in East Africa. The Arabian ties with this region continued up until modern times and are still very much alive. The diaspora originally established in the ancient period came to be represented by a mixture of Arabian, Swahili and Indian elements in art and architecture. Else J. Kleppe’s contribution to this volume survey the archaeological evidence of Indian Ocean trade from East African Zanzibar, which shows just how structures remain while actors change, in this case from the Roman era and well into the Islamic period.

Mediterranean contacts with the Indian Ocean continued up through the ancient period, but our sources do not permit us to follow them in details. The crisis of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD, and the rise of the Sassanian Empire meant a heavy blow to Palmyra and her trade connections to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. At the end of the century, the flourishing centre of eastern trade was reduced to a military stronghold on the Strata Diocletiana, a system of roads and forts constructed to meet the new threat in the east.

With trade followed religion. In the first centuries AD a Buddhist network followed the trade routes along the Indian east coast, up the Ganges River valley, across the Khyber Pass and eastwards to China along the Silk

6

Introduction interesting laboratories of ancient world history. The Indian Ocean allows us to study processes of cultural interaction, standardization and change in an empirical setting free of the political and military coercion which was instrumental in forming Roman, Persian and Chinese identities in the same period.

Road. In the sixth century, the Byzantine traveller Cosmas described an Indian Ocean with Christian communities in Sri Lanka, India, Persia, Arabia and Africa. Christianity still thrives in Southern India and in Eritrea / Ethiopia. Kerala in southern India housed a considerable Jewish community until after 1947. The Islamic expansion in the Indian Ocean proper was a mixture of commerce, religion and culture. It intensified cultural coherence from Southeast Asia, to the shores of the Mediterranean and the East African coast. Mecca became a frequent destination for Muslims from remote areas and pilgrims also became part of the cargoes that followed the cycle of the monsoon.

When Carsten Niebuhr crossed the Indian Ocean in September 1763, the English captain of the ship he travelled on and his compatriots relied on the same phenomena as the author of the Periplus and other Greek navigators did when they approached the same shallow Indian west coasts in equally rainy Septembers seventeen centuries earlier. The brief report of Niebuhr conveys the most important lesson to be learned by Indian Ocean history: actors and appearances change, the monsoon remains. The contributors to this little book approach the Indian Ocean from angles of philology, archaeology and history. They are concerned with people, places and historical problems separated by more than three millennia, but united by the ocean.

Fig. 3: Doorway from East African Lamu with Arabian, Indian and Swahilli elements. (Photo: J. Bech).

In contrast to the Mediterranean the Indian Ocean was never united politically neither in the ancient, nor in the Islamic period. While according to the Periplus, the East African coast was subject to the kingdom of SabaHimyar and the Sultan of Oman claimed suzerainty of Zanzibar and part of the African coast in the 18th and 19th century, empires and larger states as such border on the Indian Ocean; they do not encompass it. Both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean were huge areas of transit, uniting regions with diverse hinterlands, but an important difference is that the regions bordering on the latter cannot be connected effectively by land, as the Romans did in the Mediterranean through their extensive network of roads and strongholds. Infrastructure and communication in the Indian Ocean depended on the sea, and thereby the cycle of the monsoon. It is this close cultural and commercial interaction over millennia together with the lack of political unification, which makes the Indian Ocean one of the most

7

Aksum

Adulis

Leukê Kômê

Kanê

” Ports Side ”Far-

Eudaimôn Arabia Bab al-Mandeb

Muza

Sab a Him yar

awt ram Had Shabwa

Spasinou Charax

Rhapta

Pa rth ian

Socotra / Dioscuridês

Khor Rori / Sumhuram / Moscha Limên

Em pir e

Map 1:The Indian Ocean at the time of the Periplus (1st century CE)

Ak su m

Berenikê

Myos Hormos

Clysma

Roman Empire

Palmyra

Western Indian Ocean

Arabian Sea /

Barbarikon

Sky thia

Sa tav

an

as

ya nd a P

Chola

Kaveripattinam

Arikamedu

ah

Cape Comorin

Nelkynda

Muziris

Barygaza

Ar iak ê

era Ch

EHS

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NEAR EAST CA 2000 BC? D. A. Warburton – University of Aarhus The paper will concentrate on three themes: chronology, interaction and change. We will also touch on the issue of climactic change before stressing the importance of markets and political power as decisive features emerging around 2000 BC.

(1) When was 2000 BC? The real meaning of the question “when was 2000 BC?” is not that of the date, but rather the challenge of aligning a date which corresponds to roughly 4000 years before the present with a specific historical context.1 To understand the situation, we must quickly review the givens. Originally, a set of astronomical observations recorded on a tablet which bore a date corresponding to the reign of Ammisaduqa of the first dynasty of Babylon seemed to suggest that the observations could be linked to cycles recording the position of the planet Venus which repeated themselves every 56 or 64 years. This allowed the date of the year 1 of Ammisaduqa to be assigned to one of three sets of years which could be linked to both the reign of Hammurabi of Babylon and the Hittite conquest of Babylon, and thus gave birth to the debate of the three alternative chronologies. These can be viewed as the canonical chronologies based on the 56/64year cycles of the visibility of the planet Venus. Huber and Gasche et al. also used the lunar eclipses of the third Dynasty of Ur as a control for the Venus dates, but whereas Huber maintained the 56/64 year cycles, Gasche et al. discarded the 56/64-year cycles, and proposed an ultra-low chronology. There are also other chronologies which are higher, but these lack astronomical and archaeological support.2 Thus the usual version of the alternatives currently available looks something like this:

Event

High

Middle

Low

UltraLow

End of Ur III Hammurabi

2053 18481806

2004 17921750

1940 17281686

1911 16961654

Ammisaduqa 1 Fall of Babylon

1702 1651

1646 1595

1582 1531

1550 1499

As far as the history of Mesopotamia was concerned, the choice of the chronology made no difference, since the entire chronology of the first half of the second millennium BC could be linked to the First Dynasty of Babylon: Assyrian texts indicated that Shamshi-Adad had died in second decade of the reign of Hammurabi, and the Isin-Larsa period provided links with the third dynasty of Ur. From an archaeological standpoint, the High Chronology never appeared probable, and Huber’s lunar eclipses proved to be incompatible with the givens, so that debate centred on the Middle and the Low for most of the last years of the 20th century AD. As further agreement was neither possible nor necessary, the Middle Chronology was accepted as a convenient compromise; without any argument being adduced in favour of that chronology. Although it eventually became evident that that chronology was inadequate, the debate continued. A similar situation prevailed in Egypt, where several different dates could be used for the kings of the Middle and New Kingdoms, with variations that looked roughly like this:

1

For most of the chronological discussion here, readers are referred to Warburton 2000, 2004. 2 E.g. Eder 2004.

9

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange Subject Dynasty XII (Middle Kingdom) Sesostris III, year 1 Dynasty XVIII (New Kingdom) Thutmosis III, year 1 (Dynasty XVIII) Dynasty XIX (New Kingdom) Ramesses II, year 1 (Dynasty XIX)

19911793 1872 15701315 1504

19551759 1837 15521306 1490

1938-1759

13151201 1304

13081194 1290

1292-1190

1837 1550/15391292 1479

1279

For Egypt, astronomical and historical indicators likewise defined certain dates. One point was a sighting of the heliacal rising of Sirius which could be linked to the lunar calendar and also to the reign of Sesostris III, but this left open several different possibilities (of which only two are listed). For the later chronology, crucial was the fact that, due to lunar dates, the reigns of Ramesses II and Thutmosis III began exactly 200 years apart from one another. Although some suggested that it is now relatively certain that Dyn. XII began ca. 1950 BC and that the accession date for Ramesses II can not really be changed from 1279, several different chronologies were nevertheless available. The debate in the literature seemed unending, and seemed to imply that there was actually a vast range of chronologies to choose from. Therefore, hitherto, it has generally been assumed that to get an idea of what civilizations were contemporary at any given time, it sufficed for any of a number of different chronologies to be randomly selected to provide a comprehensive system of alignments. The result can be seen in the charts published in numerous museum halls and introductory text books, taking e.g., the “Middle Chronology” for Mesopotamia and the higher chronology for the Egyptian Dyn. XII, and combining these with dates for the Gulf, the Indus, the Levant, the Aegean and Syria (and even Europe, China and Mesoamerica). It was widely recognized that the resulting dates might be historically inaccurate, but they would allow a rough “ball-park figure”, generally assumed to be sufficient for anyone who was casually interested in the question of roughly what was going on at any given time. One (1) fundamental assumption was that none of the chronologies could be viewed as

definitive, and thus it was simply not realistic to propose any means of actually synchronizing the chronologies. Another (2) fundamental assumption upon which the method was built was that each of the chronologies was independent of the others, and thus that inherent contradictions were impossible, since the matters were not related. It followed that such alignments could disregard Cypriot pottery in Anatolia and Egypt, and links between the Levant and Mesopotamia. Only where a letter was written by a king in the Near East to a king in Egypt was the possibility of a synchronism unavoidable, but even here there was a tendency to simply choose a chronology which would allow this, rather than to realize that the link might prove valuable in an argument. Furthermore, (3) the widely assumed lack of connections between the various cultures meant that any synchronization was not terribly important, because the correlations were merely intended to give an idea of what was going on somewhere else at the same time. This very lack of connections could also serve as a basis for arguing that the fundamental problems of the chronological systems could only be resolved through the use of “scientific” means (by which one usually means astronomy, chemistry, physics and not, e.g., archaeological stratigraphy or typology). This approach neglected several important facts. One problem was the degree to which each one of the various chronologies was based on some premises which might be potentially thrown into doubt. Another problem was that some of the chronological frameworks were actually based on figures which were merely convenient, rather than scientifically based. The greatest problem of all, however, was that many of the overarching systems ultimately included elements which were incompatible. Before reviewing the data, we will just provide an example of the problem. According to the projections of the widely used Middle Chronology, the end of the First Dynasty of Babylon was followed by the Kassites, and the Old Babylonian Period associated with the First Dynasty of Babylon was assigned to the Middle Bronze Age and the Kassites to the Late Bronze Age.

10

D.A. Warburton: What happened in the Near East ca 2000 BC?

Diagnostic pottery and seals from Syria could be linked to southern Mesopotamia, and thus the fall of Babylon in 1595 BC, according to the Middle Chronology, could be used to argue that the end of the MB and the start of LB should be set ca. 1600 BC. This was then applied to Syria. However, any system dealing with the Levantine coast was also tied to the Egyptian chronology, and the Egyptian chronology included Dyn. XV, which could be assigned the historical dates of ca. 1630-1520 BC. As it happened, the “Hyksos” kings of Dyn. XV were intimately linked to the archaeological material of Palestine, and associated with classic Middle Bronze Material, and their demise, linked to Dyn. XVIII, could be dated to ca. 1530 or 1520 BC.3 The end of the Middle Bronze Age could thus not antedate ca. 1550 BC. Thus, the archaeologists along the Levantine coast tended to prefer the Mesopotamian “Low Chronology” which dated the fall of Babylon to 1531 BC, and the start of Late Bronze nearer 1500 BC than 1600 BC. However, even though the material from the Levant and Syria is roughly identical and should thus be roughly contemporary, the evidence from the Levant was not viewed as evidence in favour of an argument against the Middle Chronology, but rather as an indication that all of the various systems were merely conventions. Thus, even after it was generally recognized that the Middle Chronology was unsuitable, both the Low and Middle Chronologies remained in usage. Therefore, authorities working in the heart of Mesopotamia and inland Syria tended to prefer the Middle Chronology,4 and archaeologists working in the Gulf region would tend

3

The end of the Hyksos dynasty depends upon the dates for the New Kingdom, and here recent argument has only confirmed the underpinnings for the lunar dates demonstrating that Thutmosis III ascended the throne in 1479, and this provides the basis for the beginning of Dyn. XVIII, and thus also for the Hyksos who were defeated ca. 1520 and began their reign ca. one century earlier. In this fashion the classic MB II phase can be assigned both absolute dates and relative dates via the Egyptian chronology. 4 E.g. Charpin 2004: 35f.; Akkermans and Schwartz 2003: 12f.

to use that chronology as their reference 5 since their chronology could not be linked to the Levant, and thus had to match that of Mesopotamia and the Indus, and could not float independently of these. The result was that archaeologists working in the Levant used the Low Chronology, while those in the Gulf used the Middle Chronology. These various chronologies could thus be mixed in a single table, without anyone conscious of the fact that the Middle Chronology for Mesopotamia was incompatible with the dates given for the archaeological material from the Levant. This is the true point of departure for any archaeological argument. The result was that scholars working in the Aegean or the Gulf could use the Middle Chronology as a point of reference in chronological arguments. The confusion was such that scholars from outside the field could point to the data from the Gulf, and stress that the dates there confirmed the Middle Chronology, without appreciating that the dates in the tables used for the archaeology of the Gulf were based on the assumption of the validity of the Middle Chronology. At the same time, defenders of the Middle Chronology could always point to the lack of proofs underlying the alternative chronological frameworks, and deflect attention away from the lack of evidence in support of the Middle Chronology. In the event, the decisive moment came when the Aegean archaeologist Manning and the dendro-expert Kuniholm concluded that certain dendro dates from Anatolia confirmed the Middle Chronology. 6 This was immediately followed by the publication of an article in which an Assyriologist confirmed that the solar eclipse linked to the birth of Shamshi-Adad required that the Middle Chronology be diminished by 15 years or so.7 This was followed by another article confirming that the Middle Chronology could not be altered by 15 years (since it was dependent upon cycles of 56 or 64 years, and not the 8 year Venus cycles) and that the 5

E.g. Potts 1990; Andersen and Højlund 2003: 210. 6 Manning, et al. 2001. 7 Michel 2002.

11

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

dendro-dates did not support Manning’s claim that they supported the general framework of the Middle Chronology.8 At the same time, the Cypriot expert Merrillees9 stressed that the Cypriot material was incompatible with the Middle Chronology, based on the Egyptian dates. The only means for Manning to oppose this was to oppose the Egyptian chronology.10 Thus, the Aegean chronology served as a basis for arguing against the virtually incontestable evidence from Egypt and the Near East, and this is not a sound basis. It was clear that the Middle Chronology had to be abandoned. However, the same solar eclipse linked with the birth of Shamshi-Adad also excluded the Low Chronology, and thus it was evident that an alternative scheme was required. The current author 11 has argued at length that the only alternative is that ultralow chronology proposed by Gasche et al.12 The result of these various considerations is that in the year 2000 BC, we have the PrePalatial period in Crete, Dyn. XI in Egypt, 8

Warburton 2002. Merrillees 2002. 10 Manning 1999: 367ff. The current author (Warburton 2000: 56f.) has already pointed to the contradiction of Manning’s argument since he stresses that he desires to change the dates for the predecessors of Thutmosis III, based on uncertainties in the reigns of the successors of Thutmosis III (which is impossible, since the dates for Thutmosis III and Ramesses II are linked and certain, cf. Hornung, et al. forthcoming). Thus Manning’s claims are not based on Egyptological material, but rather his arguments about Aegean chronology are the origin of an effort to change the Egyptian material, as was the case with Manning’s argument in favour of the Middle Chronology. None of this has any impact on Manning’s chronology for Thera, although the current author is inclined to suspect that the evidence from Tell Ajjul (http:// w07sfb.sfb.oeaw.ac.at/sciem2000/ajjul/season00/ conclusio00.html) favours a later date, possibly the date of ca. 1565-1534 BC suggested by Manning (http://individual.utoronto.ca/manning/ testoftime.htm#Chronology) as an unlikely alternative to the 1687-1603 BC date Manning favours. 11 Warburton 2000, 2002, 2004. 12 Gasche et al. 1998a, 1998b. 9

very early Middle Bronze I in Syria and the Levant, the start of Ur III in Mesopotamia, Qa’alat al-Bahrain Ib and late Umm an-Nar in the Gulf, and late urban Harrapan in the Indus. Hitherto, the Near East could not be linked to other fields. With the astronomical data, the dates for Mesopotamia and Egypt provide a chronological framework which is not dependent upon any single individual phenomenon, and cannot be swept away by a single change. Hitherto, the chronology itself has been involved in arguments about historical developments. Now, the history should be based on the chronology. It means that history can be written. (2) Interaction & Development Throughout the second half of the third millennium BC, Mesopotamia enjoyed links with the Indus. Over the course of these centuries, trade shifted increasingly from a land route across the Iranian plateau to a navigational route through the Gulf, which also attracted the attention of Akkadian military campaigns. Akkadian kings also campaigned in Syria and Anatolia, as well as Iran. Aside from diminished campaigning, the Ur III period witnessed a shift in export patterns, as Mesopotamia shifted to textiles and finished products rather than raw wool.13 The Egyptian campaigns in Palestine ended with the end of the Old Kingdom, but gradually resumed with the reunification under Monthuhotep II of Dyn. XI. Although some tentatives towards Imperial rule in Nubia might be discerned, it is clear that for most of the period after the end of the Old Kingdom, Egypt had a foreign policy which relied upon a limited amount of military force and substantial trade. It would appear that even in the early period towards the renewal of urbanization in Syria and before the appearance of the first palaces in Crete, Egyptian products can be viewed as evidence of exchange. This trading activity certainly contributed to an increase in silver production, initially in Anatolia 14 and subsequently in the Aegean. The textile industry in Ur III Mesopotamia 13 14

Heimpel 1987: 65. Prag 1978.

12

D.A. Warburton: What happened in the Near East ca 2000 BC?

was largely based on exports, 15 and the subsequent activity of the Assyrian merchants in Cappadocia can be viewed as an element in this system by which south Mesopotamian textiles were introduced into a cycle bringing silver from Anatolia to south Mesopotamia. There is no question that tin mining in Anatolia was abandoned at roughly this time,16 with the Assyrians apparently able to funnel tin from Central Asia17 into Anatolia. Eventually the Anatolian silver would spur on the development of silver exports from the Aegean; just as the Mesopotamian textiles would provide a model for the later textile production of the Cretan palaces. These developments had a relatively rapid impact on prices. Initially the price of copper shifted from a broad range of prices in the third millennium to a very tight band around 1 : 90 around 2000 BC and then to ca. 1 : 140 sheqels of silver: copper in the early second millennium BC. 18 This was followed by a doubling of the value of grain in terms of silver from the late third millennium to the mid-second millennium.19 The prices of copper, silver and grain were gradually aligned by the market as the institutions of the various different centres (let us say the Indus, southern Mesopotamia and Egypt) of this world were ultimately competing in the markets of the periphery (let us say the Aegean, Anatolia, the Levant, Syria, northern Mesopotamia, the Gulf). As none of the institutions could determine prices and activity in any of the regions of the periphery, this had an impact on the price of labour and land in Mesopotamia, quite aside from spurring textile exports throughout the second millennium BC.

innovation took place rapidly in the mining industry. 21 It is shortly after the start of the Wadi Suq phase (which must now be redated according to the ultra-low chronology, to begin after 1900 BC) that Omani copper production ceased. This was roughly the point when Cypriot production began, and the price fell to levels which made both Anatolian and Omani copper uncompetitive in export markets. The relationship between these developments (the end of Omani exports and the fall in the Cypriot export price) to the demise of the urban Indus civilization is not clear.22 Paradoxically, during a period of rapid technological change and economic growth in peripheral regions, the Southern Mesopotamian institutions were able to revert to agriculture, and their power shifted gradually to central land holdings which augmented their export power. Even if agricultural prices slipped, their power increased since wages remained at the same level in grain, although valued differently in silver.23 These developments were based exclusively upon the intensifying market interaction from the end of the third millennium BC. On the whole, the current author would suggest that neither imperialism nor military activity played a fundamental role in the realignments just around 2000 BC. The crucial elements were the states and their institutions which adjusted to and took advantage of the markets. Within two centuries, military activity would again have a decisive impact, as power was gradually consolidated in both Mesopotamia and Egypt, and competition between the various entities assumed a highly political character.

These exchanges would lead to sorghum and millet being transported from their African homeland to the Indus region, where they would be cultivated. 20 It also had an impact on industrial development throughout the world as the centres in the periphery would be competing for exports, and thus technological

(3) Historical Perspective Defining the spatial and temporal parameters of the various activities allows for an understanding of the changes which distinguish activity in the third millennium from the second millennium. The problem is

15

21

16

22

Waedtzoldt 1972. Yener 2000. 17 Alimov et al. 1998. 18 Reiter 1997: 132ff. 19 Zaccagnini 1997. 20 Possehl 1997.

E.g. Yener 2000. One could suppose that the demise of the Indus market had an impact on Omani production, but it is necessary to reflect further on the demise of the Indus civilization, which is beyond our scope here. 23 Farber 1978.

13

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

to determine which criteria represent decisive change, and which are superficial. Archaeology recognizes several revolutions: Childe’s Neolithic revolution, Andrew Sherratt’s 24 Secondary Products Revolution, the Urban Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Linked with these is the process of state formation and stratified societies; and these in turn were to be associated with the development of property relations and markets, all of which were decisive for urbanrural relations. There is general agreement on all of these issues, the only matter of serious dispute being the exact moment at which each of these was decisive – yet this is the only means of identifying a change For our purpose, it can be assumed that around the year 2000 BC, in the Near East, urban and rural relations were dominated by tensions over property and access to urban power. Depending upon one’s approach, one can argue that the period represents a unique historical situation or part of a longer development. For example, Stone 25 assumes that the general context of Mesopotamian cities meant that the decisive changes took place in the course of urbanization and state formation in the fourth millennium BC, and that the basic elements were in place from that time onwards. The cities and the institutions – along with the technology – will have meant that the basic foundations of the rural and urban economies will have gradually developed as the effects of the “Secondary Products Revolution” took hold. Zaccagnini 26 notes that certain prices in the region around Nuzi in the second millennium BC corresponded to those Zaccagnini actually encountered in the villages of the region within our own lifetime. This tends to support the notion that the rhythms of the countryside can be projected back to an age before the invention of writing, but after the appearance of the states which provided the security and the urban markets which are the foundation of the pastoral economy.

The current author argues that attention to the longue durée is justified in so far as some of the elements visible in the second millennium BC survived until the end of the second millennium AD. However, the current author argues that several very important distinctions must be made because of the impact of the markets and the exchange systems. It is entirely possible that the economies before the urban revolution were largely subsistence economies in which the individual institutional members (households, villages) will have been largely independent with their own animals and crops. The exchange of ideas such as the manufacture of mud bricks, the hoe, the plough and the potter’s wheel will not have had a fundamental impact changing the relations of exchange since even a specialization of labour will have had a limited regional impact, since the materials and the techniques will not have had a fundamental impact on the way of life. The exchange of valuables, such as lapis lazuli and carnelian (since the fifth or sixth millennium BC) may have indicated an expansion beyond the horizon familiar from the Neolithic obsidian trade, but again these will have had little impact on social relations, even if the possession of the articles could be used to argue in favour of social stratification long before the appearance of states and cities. The real break in the distribution of lapis lazuli comes in the second half of the third millennium BC.27 While this is simultaneous with the appearance of massive quantities of silver, 28 it does not otherwise appear to be related to the development of either states or cities, except insofar as a new urban civilization appears on the island of Bahrain. During the early second millennium BC, the island of Bahrain would be associated with the copper trade between Oman and Mesopotamia. A hint at this intermediary role can be seen in the “Dilmun shekel” known at Ebla which corresponded to the Indus system of weights.29 In the first quarter of the second millennium BC, the island of Bahrain ceased to

24

27

25

28

Sherratt 1981. Stone 2005. 26 Zaccagnini 1997: 367.

Casanova 2001. Prag 1978. 29 Potts 1990: 186ff.

14

D.A. Warburton: What happened in the Near East ca 2000 BC?

participate in the copper trade, as this was taken over by the island of Cyprus with its mainland trading partner Ugarit. During the main period of the Omani copper trade in the first half of the second millennium, Assyrian merchants were purchasing and selling copper in Anatolia, and not exporting the copper to Mesopotamia. Dercksen 30 has suggested that the reason for this was the high price of Anatolian copper which prohibited Assyrian merchants from making a profit, had they attempted to sell the copper they had acquired in their homeland. It is evident that one can read two significant changes in this situation. The first is that even if one were to assume that Algaze’s31 fourth millennium “Uruk world system” was designed to assure the supply of raw materials, it should be evident that in the second millennium, trade was no longer organized with a view to acquiring raw materials. The success of fourth millennium Anatolian copper exports must be set beside the failure of second millennium copper exports. The initial success of the Omani copper exports must be set aside the later decline, which matched the rise of Cypriot exports. These developments can be directly associated with trading cities at Bahrain and Ugarit 32 where local powers were able to dominate a trade in an international environment. Thus the core powers had lost whatever power over the sources of the raw materials that they might once have had, but this power was actually increased by the second development. This second is that trade was at least partially based upon price differentials. The competing sources of copper in Oman, Anatolia, Cyprus, Iran and the Aegean all had materials sought by the political powers of the core – but they were now in competition with each other. Rather than being the object of military attention directed at the acquisition of raw materials, the peripheral regions were the recipients of textile exports. Since the third millennium, land, grain and copper had been priced in silver, and thus the utilization of silver and the existence of prices

did not reflect a new development. One significant change was the transformation from the prices in the third millennium to those of the second. The other was the adjustment of the institutions to the laws of the market. Prices could not be dictated by the institutions, as these reflected market forces, but the productive forces of the institutions could be directed towards production for the market. In this fashion, the institutions responded to the market forces in a fashion which strengthened their capacity to exploit the very market which effectively threatened their capacity to determine activity. In effect, it will be noted that the radius of military action was significantly reduced at precisely this same time. A distinction must be made between the areas into which power was projected, and those which were actually subjected to the rule of a major power. The contrast can be seen in that, while the Akkadian kings sent military missions deep into Syria, Iran, Anatolia and the Gulf, Babylonian kings could not aspire to even remotely comparable exploits. The Babylonian kings of the second millennium BC were barely able to project their power into regions actually ruled by the Akkadians (such as the Khabur region of Syria and Susa in Iran). This was not only beyond the capacity of the second millennium Babylonians, but it was likewise beyond the capacity of the second millennium Elamites to conquer and rule Babylonia. (The contrast with the situation of the third and first millennia should be evident). As a rule, this can be specifically linked to the emergence of numerous competing powers, as is visible in the Mari texts,33 where dozens of kings appear. However, it can also be linked to a type of organization in which private property and trade play important roles. Documentation from the Old Babylonian period onwards is dominated by the acquisition of property and questions of inheritance. These stress the importance of law with regard to property. The palace at Mari owned parcels of land well beyond the frontiers of the kingdom. 34 The Assyrian merchants in Anatolia operated well beyond

30

Dercksen 1996: 81. Algaze 1993. 32 Cf. e.g. Sanmartin 1995. 31

33 34

Durand 1997-2000; Charpin 2004. Durand 2000: 21f.

15

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

the region over which the city of Assur exercised political power or military influence.35 These activities testify to the importance of law along with material wealth and political power. It should be evident that the large variety of states and the importance of the markets will have both benefited from, and had an influence on, the development of legal systems. These will have reflected a transformation in the landscape whereby markets became more important and political power less so. In the second half of the second millennium, the situation would change again, as independent kingdoms were gradually eclipsed, being obliged to bind themselves into treaty arrangements with the major kingdoms of Hatti, Mitanni, Egypt, etc. 36 In the first millennium, this tendency would change again as the Assyrian Empire formed the base for the larger multi-ethnic state which formed the core of the Babylonian, Persian, Seleucid and Roman empires. During this entire period, the peripheral trading communities continued to ply their trade, with increasing interaction, as merchants from within and without the empires crossed the borders. We are not therefore talking about a steady evolution in one direction, either towards a diffusion or concentration of power, or towards a dominance of the markets. What can be seen is a tendency for the power of the political entities to become associated with legal systems. The legal systems themselves depended upon the power of the states, and yet in the form of treaties and recognition of property rights, they permitted law to pass beyond the boundaries of any one individual state. Warfare could always change the character of the law, but the concept of legality could no longer be excluded. Whereas kings of the third millennium could act uninhibited by law, those of the second millennium and later would find themselves constrained by law. These transformations are clearly visible in the written records, which gradually come to include documents recording land transfers, 35 36

Dercksen 1996. Warburton 2003b.

wage payments, textile production and export – and war. Thus, the current writer concludes that the year 2000 BC represented the beginning of a period during which a transformative change took place – but merely one of many. This fundamental change involved the integration of the entire Near East into a market system, which would be associated with a growing power of law and a diminished scope for military political activity. An Excursus on the climatic change argument Rather than proceed to a discussion of the means by which the basis for lasting territorial political empires was created, 37 or take issue with the role of institutions and continuity, we will now break off and take a glance at one fundamentally different interpretation of these events: namely that which eliminates the role of humans in the creation of human history: climatic change. In recent years, Weiss has attempted to argue that the wars and markets of this age were not the decisive feature, but rather that climatic change was responsible for those changes which took place. 38 There are many difficulties with this argument. We will merely stress two. (1) Chronology The first is that it is a chronological mirage, i.e., similar changes did not take place simultaneously in different parts of the world. We will not deny that climatic change did take place: there can be no question that the world of the second millennium was warmer and drier than that of the third.39 We will merely stress that the alignment of these events must be viewed in terms of chronology. Weiss originally linked the climatic change to the collapse of the Akkadian empire; using the Middle Chronology, he dated the event to ca. 2200 BC, with the collapse ending, ca. 1900 BC, with the resettlement of the Khabur in the Old 37

The current author has proposed the start of this type of analysis in Warburton 2001, 2003b. 38 E.g., Weiss and Courty 1993; Weiss et al. 1993; Weiss et al. forthcoming. 39 For a relatively recent discussion with diagrams and references, cf. Staubwasser et al. 2003.

16

D.A. Warburton: What happened in the Near East ca 2000 BC?

Assyrian/Old Babylonian period. Above, we argued the demise of the Middle Chronology (based on the solar eclipse and the Levantine links with Egypt), and we can thus project the end of the Akkadian period to ca. 2050 BC, whereas Weiss uses the dates from the Middle Chronology, indicating ca. 2200 BC. The date of ca. 2200 BC would appear to correspond to a climatic change of some kind: of this there can be no doubt.40 The end of the urban Indus civilization did not come until ca. 1900 BC, 41 and thus roughly a century later than the end of Agade according to Gasche’s ultra-low chronology, and almost three centuries after Weiss’s own dates based on the Middle Chronology. Not only can the collapse of the Indus not be placed contemporary with the Akkadian collapse, but the demise of the Indus corresponds to the date Weiss assigned to the revival of the Khabur region. Not only cannot the two be linked, but the doubts thrown on the Middle Chronology above would suggest that not even the end of Agade can be linked to these events.42 It could be argued that these various dates are debatable, but it is precisely this contention which has fuelled the enterprise until now. However, in terms of relative – rather than absolute chronology – the contacts between Gudea of Lagash with the Indus civilization43 in the years immediately after the fall of Agade would indicate that when Agade did disappear, the Indus did not. (Although 40

However, while there is general agreement on change, there are problems in identifying its precise character. In the specific discussion of the Habur hiatus, Weiss et al. 1993, 1001 specifically state that the hiatus 2200-1900 BC is characterized by “heavy rain spells”, whereas in Weiss and Courty 1994, 33 they state that the same period was characterized by “desertification” and “aridification from the Nile to the Indus”. 41 E.g. Possehl 2002, 29, 239. 42 It is significant that the same date (4.2 ka BP, i.e., c. 2200 BC) appears in recent publications concerning both Mesopotamia and the Indus (Weiss et al. in press, and Staubwasser et al. 2003), whereas 2200 BC was indisputably in the middle of mature urban Harrapan, even if it could be the end of Agade according to the indisputably irrelevant Middle Chronology. 43 E.g. Heimpel 1987: 60.

chronologically inadmissible, reverting to the Middle Chronology would not alter the situation, since it would merely increase the gap between the demise of the Indus civilization and the Akkadian empire by a century).44 The Umm an-Nar material of the Gulf overlaps with Qa’alat Bahrain II-III, and the end of the Akkadian period does not coincide with a significant hiatus in Bahrain, merely a change in the material culture on Bahrain. Trade relations in the Gulf flourish throughout the centuries following the collapse of Agade. The decline of urban Palestine begins centuries before the kingdom of Agade, already around the middle of the third millennium, 45 and the revival of the Syrian cities of the Hurrian kingdom in the Khabur, in Middle Bronze I, begins only a few decades after the collapse of Agade,46 rather than centuries later. There is also a problem with the interpretation of the archaeological evidence for the hiatus at Leilan.47 At present, there is some slight dispute about the exact dates for Dyn. XII, but it can be argued that present sources would indicate that the end of the reign of Pepi II and Old Kingdom in Egypt can be assigned to the period ca. 2100/2050.48 Thus the beginning of 44

And, N.B., the current author argues that it is precisely this form of argumentation which prevents historical discussion. 45 Dever 1987. 46 Dohman-Pfälzner and Pfälzner 1999. 47 The section published in Science (Weiss et al. 1993: 999) does not show signs of abandonment in the relevant parts of the section, but would appear instead to be discarded debris (e.g., the brick lying at an angle in the middle of the photo), which the current author identifies as related to the construction of the city wall in the early second millennium. 48 Dyn. XII probably began ca. 1955 BC and the reunification of Egypt under Dyn. XI is to be dated to ca. 2000 BC The aspect of the absolute dates does not change the fact that the reign of Pepi I (Dyn. VI) probably antedates Naram-Sin given the presence of his name on an inscribed object at Ebla. Since the name of Pepi II is represented at Byblos, it is probable that both Egypt and Byblos flourished during the reign of that ruler, and this in turn diminishes the length of

17

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

the decline in Egypt can be assigned to exactly the reign of Naram-Sin, one of the greatest and most successful Akkadian kings. The First Intermediate Period in Egypt actually began to end at roughly the time that Agade fell (according to the ultra-low chronology), so that the economic difficulties recorded from the end of the Old Kingdom can hardly be posited to be contemporary with these. In any case, Seidlmayer 49 has shown that even the decline in the First Intermediate Period has been exaggerated. And finally, it is worth noting that the disappearance of the urban Indus civilization, at ca. 1900 BC is contemporary with the rise of the palaces in Crete (with MM IB contemporary with Dyn. XII),50 while there is no trace of a major alteration in China at this time, 51 when the urban basis of the future Shang Dynasty was gradually forming. Were one to posit some generalized change, one would have to stress that the declines must be matched by recognizing other regions which reveal continuity or indeed development. Thus, there was no synchronized collapse of civilizations. This synchronized collapse can only be achieved by aligning up a series of arbitrary chronologies and associating these with the climatic data. The current writer does not deny the fact of climatic change, but would argue that the changes in the various civilizations cannot be linked to the climatic change alone. It is essential to carefully examine the chronological basis of the climatic claims, and to recognize the evidence for climatic change, but to place this into the perspective of the chronological developments. (2) Politics and economics We have stressed above that the decline of the third millennium urban civilizations was not simultaneous. The cities in southern Palestine were abandoned before Ebla was destroyed, and the destruction of Ebla must have taken any collapse in Egypt to roughly a century, rather than the three century collapse originally argued by Weiss. 49 Seidlmayer 1990. 50 http://individual.utoronto.ca/manning/testoftime. htm#Chronology 51 Chang 1972: 193.

place either before or in the middle of the Akkadian period (since Agade does not appear in the Ebla texts, whereas, e.g., Kish does). Egypt had begun to recover from the First Intermediate period as the Akkadian empire ended, and the urban Indus civilization only came to an end a century or more after the end of Agade when the Shang Dynasty was gradually consolidating its role, and the Palaces on Crete began their existence. In case there is any doubt about the dates of the absolute chronology, again the relative chronology is supported by references contemporary with the lifetime of Hammurabi of Babylon mentioning Oman, the Indus, Bahrain and Crete in the Mari letters.52 It is significant that the Indus region is mentioned in the Mari letters several centuries after the end of the mature Harrapan Civilization (again, regardless of chronology), and thus it is evident that the end of the major political power did not apparently put an end to economic activity in the region. Thus, it would appear that the lack of archaeological evidence for a major urban civilization from this period should be taken as a warning that one should not confuse the demise of those political organizations which leave magnificent archaeological traces with the end of economic activity. This economic aspect is highly important because, crucially, Weiss’s original argument about the demise of Agade was based upon a specific economic analysis of the base of the Akkadian empire: that the need for grain drove Akkadian control of the breadbasket of the Khabur plains, and that this dependence became a fundamental weakness once the climate changed.53 There are necessarily two fundamental difficulties with this argument. (1) It should be evident that the dependence of the Akkadians on the Khabur grain supplies is not demonstrated. (2) It should be equally evident that an argument based specifically upon the organization of the Akkadian empire and its grain supplies cannot be used as a basis for suggesting that a climatic change which threatened this highly specific (and N.B. 52 53

Durand 1983: 516. Weiss & Courty 1993: 139ff.

18

D.A. Warburton: What happened in the Near East ca 2000 BC?

highly hypothetical) organization could possibly have had a similar impact upon other political systems elsewhere, and particularly systems which were far less revolutionary and far older (as in the case of Egypt and the Indus). Thus Weiss implicitly changes his hypothesis from a specific form of economic organization to one of generalized climatic collapse, when he aligns the specific character of the Akkadian empire with an alleged generalized collapse linked to climate. Thus Weiss is arguing that a political system is dependent upon its economic basis and that a climactic change undermines the system. It is logical that any political system must have a solid economic basis, and clearly the agrarian basis of the ancient economies cannot be doubted, but the dependence on grain does not depend upon crops linked to climate alone, but also to the specific means by which the agricultural sector is anchored in the economy. Conclusions An approach which assigns the decisive role to climatic change renders it impossible to perceive the types of economic and political change that have been described above, since human activity is viewed as a response to climatic change, rather than reflecting changing social conditions, where markets and military formations and law began to play a more important role, decisively changing human life. While the chronological discussion means that the lack of the synchronized political collapse renders Weiss’s hypothesis untenable, the actual evidence – in the archaeological monuments, the texts and the distribution of sites – does accord with the model proposed by the current author here. This model (which was admittedly developed on the base of the evidence) assumes that the interaction of the various entities of the ancient world was determined by military activity and market forces, and that these had a decisive impact both on behaviour and law, as well as setting limits on the power of the individual actors. The economic impact of these various exchanges led to the planting of African crops in the Indus and the abandonment of the

copper industry in Oman. The radius of military action apparent in the activities of the Egyptians and the Near Eastern powers in the early second millennium reveals the extent to which power relations changed substantially, and this can be related to changes in military and economic power, and need not be ascribed to climatic change. It is possible (although highly unlikely) that Weiss is correct about some part of the grain dependence of the Akkadian empire linked to the Khabur. However, it is not only impossible that Egypt and the Indus both had the same weakness, but also demonstrably wrong to link the superficial importance of the political system (visible in the monumental archaeology and the textual record) with the economy as a whole. As Seidlmayer 54 has argued with substantial documentation, the case of Egypt clearly shows that the economic system clearly shifted to a different basis when the central power structures disappeared. The absence of the central power system is reflected in the paucity of monuments (in Egypt and in the Indus), but society did not fall apart completely, and any changes can hardly be linked to climactic change alone. We have tried to argue that the era of state formation in the fourth and third millennia was followed by an era of market formation in which market forces came to the fore. This era began towards the end of the third millennium and increased during the first centuries of the second millennium, as prices and markets came to play a greater role. Most of the attention to the general history of the Ancient Near East has either stressed the fates of the great political powers or the continuity or cyclical tendencies visible in the longue durée. We have argued that the evidence provides substantial support for adjusting our vision to include economic developments visible in prices and employment patterns, quite aside from taking account of changes in the importance of property rights and the legal recognition of the inheritance of material goods which clearly form a more important part of the written heritage after the end of the Ur III period.

54

Seidlmayer 1990.

19

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

The ancient world of the period from 25001500 BC had a number of major economic players – in Anatolia, Central Asia, the Levant and the Gulf – which never achieved major political status, but were nevertheless highly important on an economic level. These actors are clearly visible in the archaeological record – and equally lacking in the era before the emergence of the integrated Near Eastern market system. Clearly, some of these actors assumed political roles (such as Mari) while others tended to maintain commercial roles (such as Byblos and Ugarit). These entities were in turn dependent upon the trade system purveying silver into and out of Mesopotamia. This network depended upon and consisted of the individual members which each played their own specific role. Without organizing a chronology on an empirical basis, and without recognizing the markets in the documentation, and the exchange patterns visible in the archaeological material, it is impossible to understand this system. Tin mines in Central Asia must be set into a context of Assyrian merchants in Anatolia and textile production in Babylonia, and these must be lined up with silver mines and textile production in the Aegean at the same time. The increase in the supply of silver as both Anatolia and the Aegean shipped silver into Mesopotamia can be linked to the fall in the price of grain, for which demand and production will have remained roughly constant. Although activity was partially guided by laws, it was the political and military power of the states which guaranteed the application of law. Although some of the states were political powers, some were actually more commercial, and in these market forces determined activity to a considerable extent. In the larger states, the markets merely guided investment policies, but not the activity of the state itself. Treating the sources as random illustrations of life in Antiquity and chronology as a matter of speculation prevents an understanding of developments.

References Akkermans, P. M. M. G. and Schwartz, G. 2003. The Archaeology of Syria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Algaze, G. 1993. The Uruk World System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Alimov, K. et al. 1998. Prähistorische Zinnbergbau in Mittelasien. Eurasia Antiqua 4:137-199. Andersen, H. H. and Højlund, F. 2003. The Barbar Temples. Moesgaard: Jutland Archaeological Society. Casanova, M. 2001. Le lapis-lazuli, la Pierre précieuse de l’Orient ancien. Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 27:149-170. Chang, K.-Ch. 1972. The Archaeology of Ancient China. New Haven: Yale University Press. Charpin, D. 2004. Mesopotamien: Die altbabylonische Zeit. Fribourg, 2004. Dercksen, J. G. 1996. The Old Assyrian Copper Trade in Anatolia. Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul. Dercksen, J. G. (ed.). 1999. Trade and Finance in Ancient Mesopotamia. Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul. Dever, W. 1989. The Collapse of the Urban Early Bronze Age in Palestine: Towards a Systemic Analysis. Pages 225-246 in L’urbanisation de la Palestine à l’âge du Bronze Ancien, edited by P. de Miroschedji. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. vol. II. Dohman-Pfälzner, H. and Pfälzner, P. 1999. Ausgrabungen der Deutschen OrientGesellschaft in Tell Mozan. Mitteilungen der Deutsche-Orient Gesellschaft 131: 1746. Durand, J.-M. 1983. Textes administratifs des salles 134 et 160 du Palais de Mari. Paris: Archives Royales de Mari 21.

———. 1997-2000. Documents épistolaires du Palais du Mari, 3 vols. Paris: Littératures Anciennes du Proche-Orient. Eder, Ch. 2004 Assyrische Distanzangaben und die absolute Chronologie Vorderasiens. Altorientalische Forschungen 31:191-236. Farber, H. 1978. A Price and Wage Study for Northern Babylonian During the Old Babylonian Period. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 21:1-51. Gasche, H. et al. 1998a, Dating the Fall of Babylon. Chicago-Ghent, 1998.

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D.A. Warburton: What happened in the Near East ca 2000 BC? Gasche, H. et al. 1998b. A Correction to Dating the Fall of Babylon. Akkadica 108:1-4. Heimpel, W. 1987. Das Untere Meer. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 77:22-91. Hornung, E., et al. (eds.) Forthcoming. Handbook of Egyptian Chronology. Leiden: Brill. Manning, S. 1999. A Test of Time. Oxford: Oxbow. Manning, S. et al. 2001. Anatolian Tree Rings and a New Chronology for the East Mediterranean Bronze-Iron Ages. Science 294 (5551 21 December 2001):2532-2535. Merrillees, R. S. 2002. The Relative and Absolute Chronology of the Cypriote White Painted Pendent Line Style. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 326:1-9. Michel, C. 2002. Nouvelles données pour la chronologie du IIe millénaire. NABU 2002/1:17-18. Possehl, G. L. 1997. Seafaring Merchants of Meluhha. South Asian Archaeology, 1995: 87-100.

———. 2002. The Indus Civilization. Walnut Creek: Altamira. Potts, D. 1990. The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity. Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Powell, M. A. (ed.). 1987. Labor in the Ancient Near East. New Haven: American Oriental Series 68. Prag, K. 1978. Silver in the Levant in the Fourth Millennium BC. Pages 36-45 in Archaeology in the Levant, edited by Moorey, R. and Parr, P. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Reiter, K. 1997. Die Metalle im Alten Orient. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. Sallaberger, W. & A. Westenholz. 1999. Mesopotamien: Akkade-Zeit und Ur IIIZeit. Fribourg: Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 160/3 = Annäherungen 3. Sanmartín, J. 1995. Wirtschaft und Handel in Ugarit: Kulturgrammatische Aspekte. Pages 131-158 in Ugarit: Ein Ostmediterranes Kulturzentrum im Alten Orient, edited by Dietrich, M. and Loretz, O. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Seidlmayer, E. 1990. Gräberfelder aus dem Übergang vom Alten zum Mittleren Reich. Heidelberg: Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Ägyptens. Sherratt, A. 1981. Plough and pastoralism. Pages 245-255 in Pattern of the Past, edited by Hodder, I. Isaac, G. and Hammond, N. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Staubwasser, M. et al. 2003. Climate Change at the 4.2 ka BP termination of the Indus valley civilization and Holocene south Asian Monsoon variability. Geophysical Research Letters 30 (8): 7 - 14. Stone, E. 2005. Mesopotamian Cities and Countryside. Pages 141-154 in A Companion to the Ancient Near East, edited by Snell, D. Oxford: Blackwell. van de Mieroop, M. 1992. Society and Enterprise in Old Babylonian Ur. Berlin: Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient. Waetzoldt, H. 1972. Untersuchungen zur Neusumerischen Textilindustrie. Rome: Centro per le antichità et storia della’arte del vicino oriente.

———. 1987. Compensation of Craft Workers and Officials in the Ur III Period. Pages 117-141 in Labor in the Ancient Near East, edited by Powell, M. A. New Haven: American Oriental Series 68. Warburton, D. A. 2000. Synchronizing the Chronology of Bronze Age Western Asia with Egypt. Akkadica 119-120:33-76

———. 2001. Egypt and the Near East: Politics in the Bronze Age. Neuchatel: Civilisations du Proche-Orient Série IV – Essais 1.

———. 2002. Eclipses, Venus-Cycles & Chronology. Akkadica 123:108-114.

———. 2003a. Macroeconomics from the Beginning. Neuchatel: Recherches et Publications, Civilisations du ProcheOrient Série IV. Histoire – Essais 2.

———. 2003b. Love and War in the Late Bronze Age: Egypt & Hatti. Pages 75-100 in Ancient Perspectives on Egypt, edited by Matthews, R. and Roemer, C. London: UCL Press.

———. 2004. Shamshi-Adad and the Eclipses. Pages 583-598 in Assyria and Beyond, edited by Dercksen, J. G. Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul.

———. 2005. Pages 169-182 in A Companion to the Ancient Near East, edited by Snell, D. Oxford: Blackwell. Weiss, H. and Courty, M.-A. 1993. The Genesis and collapse of the Akkadian Empire. Pages 131-155 in Akkad: The First World Empire, edited by Liverani, M. Padova: Sargon. Weiss, H. and Courty, M.-A. 1994. Entre Droite épigraphique et Gauche archéologique, y-at-il une place pour la science? Les Nouvelles de l’archéologie 57:33-41.

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Definite Places, Translocal Exchange Weiss, H. et al. 1993. The Genesis and Collapse of the Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization. Science 261:995-1004. Weiss, H. et al. in press. Revising the Contours of History at Tell Leilan. Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes. Yener, K. A. 2000. The Domestication of Metals. Leiden: Brill. Zaccagnini, C. 1988. On Prices and Wages at Nuzi. Altorientalische Forschungen 15:4552. .

———. 1997. Price and price formation in the Ancient Near East: A methodological approach. Pages 361-384 in Économie Antique: Prix et Formation des Prix dans les Économies Antiques, edited by Andreau, J. Briant, P. and Descat, R. SaintBernard-de-Comminges: Entretiens d’Archéologie et d’Histoire 3

22

SUMHURAM: a Hadrami Port on the Indian Ocean Alessandra Avanzini – University of Pisa

Fig. 1: View of the area of Khor Rori. (All photos and drawings courtesy of IMTO). The walled ancient city, known from the inscriptions as Sumhuram, is situated about 45 km east of Salalah on the coast of Dhofar. The function of Sumhuram as an outpost of the kingdom of Hadramawt associated with the control and protection of the ancient frankincense-bearing region as well as with the incense trade is very clear from the Periplus Maris Erythraei. The site was explored in early 50ies and 60ies by the expedition of the American Foundation for the Study of Man, and since 1996 by the Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO) headed by Alessandra Avanzini with Alexander V. Sedov as chief archaeologist. The new excavations gave the possibility to determine a new chronology for the city (founded in the third century BC not in the first century AD, and then abandoned in the fifth century AD not in the third) and thus a new interpretation of the port of Sumhuram within the history of south Arabia and of the sea trade between south Arabia and the world.

The Italian Mission to Oman from the University of Pisa has been working in the area of Khor Rori, about 45 km east of Salalah on the coast of Dhofar, since 1996. There is an ancient walled city in this area, known from the South Arabian inscriptions as Sumhuram (fig. 1).

credible with the American excavations in the 50s (conducted by F.P. Albright for the American Foundation for the Study of Man, directed by W. Phillips); the inscriptions on the gate of the city bore the name of Iliadh, one of the kings of Hadramawt, who could easily have been the Eleazos mentioned in the Periplus. The American team dated the history of Sumhuram from the first to the third centuries AD.

As early as the late nineteenth century, T. Bent had suggested that Sumhuram may be the Moscha limén of the Periplus Maris Erythraei. This suggestion, accepted by the editors of the Periplus, became even more

The identification between Moscha and Sumhuram is still only hypothetical, Nigel

23

Definite Places , Translocal Exchange

Groom. and Paolo Costa have recently reopened the debate1 putting forward an argumentation based on chronology (according to which Sumhuram was founded in the years that immediately followed the Periplus, but this hypothesis is based on the date of the site proposed by the American archaeologists, which is wrong, as we shall see below). However there is also a problem of distance because, according to Periplus, Moscha is some kilometres west of Salalah and the distances estimated by Periplus are often accurate.

outpost of the kingdom of Hadramawt, linked to the area where good quality frankincense was produced, seems very clear. The frankincense came from the Nejd region on the other side of the mountains where the Hadrami people built the small settlement of Hanun, with its storehouses and small temple.2 From our earliest visit to Sumhuram, something appeared not to be quite right with this “obvious” historical reconstruction. The same city that had emerged clearly from the pile of earth left over from the American excavation seemed more of a real city, with imposing walls almost ten metres high, than just a trading outpost (fig. 2).

In my opinion the identification is likely to be correct. Moscha limén is probably one of the ports that were not visited personally by the author of the Periplus. During his stay at Qana, he received news of the far-off port protected by God, but he probably never berthed there. When the University of Pisa mission began its fieldwork in 1996, it was assumed that the historical setting and the political and economic backgrounds into which the history of Sumhuram was to be interpreted were established knowledge: the fortune and wealth of Sumhuram seemed to derive from the trade in a single commodity, frankincense, and from a particular moment in history, the Roman Empire of the early centuries AD. The scanty information given in the Periplus appeared to cover the main points of the history of Sumhuram: it was the arrival point of a caravan route used for transporting incense from the hinterland to the coast, and the departure point of a sea trade route towards Qana, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Sumhuram was a port of secondary importance compared with Qana which was a port within the territory of the Hadrami kingdom. Qana was a centralised trading post, governed by the Hadramawt kingdom in which merchants from different political realities could meet and trade goods.

Fig. 2: Particular of the city wall.

Qana and Sumhuram have a great many points in common: the architecture of the storehouses is the same (they also have many divergences - for example, Qana has no city wall). The function of Sumhuram as a trading

A first examination of the phases of the monumental gate suggested that there had been a continual need for defence, so the first question that came to mind was whom were they defending themselves against? Sumhuram, as the American expedition had described it, gave the impression of being a

1

2

Groom 1995; Costa 2002.

24

Sedov 2004: 184f.

A. Avanzini: Sumhuram: a Hadrami Port on the Indian Ocean

fortified settlement isolated in the hinterland with almost no other settlements in the vicinity. During the early years of our work at Khor Rori it therefore seemed logical to study the area around Sumhuram, also because that was the time that Zarins was publishing the results of his surveys in Dhofar.

to protect frankincense from the local communities. Hanun in the frankincensebearing region has no walls. In order to gain a better understanding of the history of Sumhuram it is fundamental to understand more about Sumhuram itself. Today, after the excavations of the last two years, we are faced with the prospect of a new and consistent chronology of the city's history.6 A coherent series of data – C14 datings, pottery sequences, and numismatic material, has led to a different reconstruction of the history of Sumhuram: the city, a royal neo-foundation bearing the name of a king, dates back to the beginning of the third century BC. Thus, Sumhuram's foundation went from Augustus to Alexander. Its history continued well after the end of the Hadramawt kingdom, and at least until the fifth century AD.

In his book, Zarins developed a very interesting hypothesis:3 according to him, there were local communities in Dhofar which differed socially. There were communities of nomads (fisher people in the shell middens and shepherds in the mountain shelters, but there were also sedentary peoples who lived in the fortresses of Shisr and Ain Humran who had developed irrigation systems. Furthermore, Zarins thought that these communities had already created a farreaching commercial network and controlled it. When the Hadramawt established the fortress of Sumhuram, they attempted to gain a monopoly on trade in opposition to local commerce. Zarins imagined that Hadramawt developed a policy centred on waging wars and reaching agreements with the local tribes.

Sumhuram was certainly no small trading or military outpost but a city with temples, palaces, residential areas and strong walls of defence. A rich and long-established city like Sumhuram did not merely have a trading activity, but also had craft- and material working. There is clear evidence of household activities: weaving, fishing and other activities that demanded knowledge of more advanced technologies such as metalworking, and in this Sumhuram was one of the most important centres of southern Arabia. A number of different periods of building activity have emerged from the site. Let us look at the succession of stages of the area that included the gate and the adjacent buildings.

This was an interesting hypothesis, and Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, the archaeologist who worked with me at Sumhuram in the late 90s, was an avid believer in it,4 but it turned out to be flimsy as soon as we set out to verify it. A number of investigations carried out in recent years by Sedov (the archaeologist of the Italian mission since 2000) have raised considerable doubts as to the chronology of the settlements Zarins studied – in particular of the fortresses – which do not seem contemporary to Sumhuram, e.g. a survey at Ain Humran proved that the fortress dates to the Sassanian period. The fort was probably constructed over an earlier settlement, contemporary with Sumhuram. Nevertheless, if Ain Humran is a late structure, even if constructed on top of an earlier site, the variegated image of settlements in Dhofar in the Sumhuram period – nomadic settlements beside sedentary villages with irrigated agriculture – is becoming less clear.5 In any case it is unlikely that the walls of Sumhram were built

The first phase could be placed between the early third and the late first century BC. In addition to C 14 datings a number of diagnostic pottery forms, mostly of Hadrami origins (the so-called "late Raybun" pottery if we follow the sequence established for Wadi Hadramawt), and the earliest Hadrami coins such as bronze imitations of Athenian tetradrachms are associated with the layers of this phase. The pottery assemblage includes Mediterranean and Indian imports such as Dressel 2-4 amphorae, Indian Black and Red Wares. Sumhuram seemed to have slumped in

3

Zarins 2001: 154f. Morandi Bonacossi 2004: 173ff. 5 Avanzini 2002: 25ff. 4

6

25

Avanzini and Sedov 2005.

Definite Places , Translocal Exchange

coastal regions came under the rule of its king Eleazos. This critical period for Sumhuram may have occurred at the same time as the destruction of Raybun and the victories of Qataban. Eleazos may have rebuilt it, restoring its architectural splendour.

the first century BC, only to achieve new wealth and development in the second phase from the first to the third century AD. The dating of the third phase is between the fourth and early fifth century AD. The results of excavations in Qana and Sumhuram lead us to the conclusion that Qana is contemporary to phases 2 and 3 at Sumhuram: we have already seen that there are a lot of similarities and even identity in the material from both sites. On the other hand, there is no so-called early material at Qana, which we have at Sumhuram. This means that when Sumhuram was founded by Hadramis on the Dhofar coast in the early third century BC and during the first phase of its existence, there was nothing on the southern coast of Hadramawt at Bir Ali bay. I have mentioned some evidence of the decline of Sumhuram in the late first century BC, and we may suppose that the foundation of Qana could be placed exactly in the time when Sumhuram was abandoned. Later, probably around mid first century AD it was rebuilt by Eleazos and thereafter both Hadrami ports flourished. Excavations in recent years have uncovered remains of two temples (temple intra muros and temple extra muros) and of a small village, while excavations near the gate have made it possible to determine the stratigraphy of the cultural deposits of the ancient city.

Not only has the founding of Sumhuram been backdated but its fall has been put forward by comparison to the dates suggested by the Americans. For the Hadramawt in the second and third centuries AD, during the long struggles against Saba and Himyar when Qana was under enemy attack, being able to use Sumhuram must have been crucially important. Sumhuram, therefore, became an integral part of the history and territory of South Arabia. It certainly did not function merely as a storehouse for holding incense and shipping it to Qana, and giving hospitality to Indian sailors who were late for the monsoon winds, as the Periplus reports. The walls of Sumhuram were built to protect the town during the endless wars among the south Arabian kingdoms. Sumhuram and the administrative organization of Hadramawt The capability of establishing a city like Sumhuram so far from the centre of the kingdom shows a strong sense of state planning in controlling its territory. From the inscriptions in Sumhuram a complex administrative organization of the kingdom emerges.

The new date of the foundation of Sumhuram is significant for the internal history of south Arabian kingdoms. In the fourth-third centuries BC the Hadramawt enjoyed a period of power. Sumhuram's foundation was not an isolated event but was part of the Hadramawt policy of colonizing the coastal regions from Naqb al-Hajar to the fortress of al-Bina, to the Dhofar.

In KR 2 someone from Shabwa, servant of the king, has executed the work of construction of the town by decree and order of a local lord, the head of the army in the country of Sakalan.7 A number of great lords held sway over the land and they gave orders for structural works to be carried out as well as for territorial fortifications and reconstruction of the city of Sumhuram.8 The function of local lords was, therefore,

The critical period of Sumhuram can also be set in a general framework of south Arabian history; in the second and first centuries BC another south Arabian kingdom - Qataban increased its power. A war that turned out to be catastrophic for Hadramawt led to the destruction of many Hadrami cities: among them Raybun, where a fire is archaeologically dated to the first century BC. Hadramawt became important again in the first century AD when, according to the Periplus, many

Avanzini 2002: 128ff., "he, servant of Iliadh Yalut, king of Hadramawt, inhabitant of the city of Shabwa has directed the construction works of the city of Sumhuram ... at the behest and order of his lord, the chief of the Hadrami military detachment in the Sakalan land". 8 Also in the inscription on the fortress of al-Bina (RES 2687) the constuction work was not directed personally by the king, but by local lords. 7

26

A. Avanzini: Sumhuram: a Hadrami Port on the Indian Ocean

anything but secondary and there must have been some kind of formal agreement with the central authority for the work to be carried out. This situation changed completely after the second century AD, when the great families of the high plateau decided to break off the alliance with the kingdoms that bordered on the desert. The inscription on the third door at Sumhuram in the second and third centuries AD shows that the building had been decreed by the viceroy and the citizenship of Sumhuram; no mention of the local lords, hostile to the Hadramawt. Strengthening the fortifications was necessary as a defence against the new enemy: the kingdom of Himyar. Not only does KR 6,9 the inscription on the third door, make no mention of the great local families, an integral part of Himyar, but it also shows that the city had achieved a greater degree of independence from central Hadrami power.

Fig. 3: Bronze bowl from Mleiha

Numerous finds at Sumhuram during the IMTO campaign, imported from the Mediterranean, the Gulf or from India,11 blend in with and enrich the picture already emerging from the AFSM mission (pls. I-III). There is a graffito (fig. 4, overleaf) on the plaster of the city wall near the gate drawn by someone having a rest in the shade of the wall; the graffito represents a whale fishing scene. We have here the only certain portrayal of a boat in pre-Islamic South Arabia. For centuries, Sumhuram was an important trading centre before the Romans arrived in Egypt, and not only in the trading of incense. Its importance, however, was not merely commercial; Sumhuram was a contact point between the Classical World and Arabia and not only commodities but also technology and reciprocal knowledge between west and east passed through the city.

Early Sumhuram in a regional context The shifting of the city’s foundation date is obviously important if we consider the history of sea trade in general, and the possibility of trade exchanges (as well as the transfer of information) passing in Sumhuram during the first part of the Hellenistic period. In the Hellenistic period, the best notions about Arabia could have come to the Greeks from the Gulf area.

References Avanzini A. 2002 (ed.). Khor Rori Report 1. Pisa: Edizioni Plus. Avanzini A. and Sedov A.V. 2005. Stratigraphy of Sumhuram: new evidence, Proceedings of South Arabian Studies 35: 11-17. Boucharlat R. and Mouton M. 1991. Cultural change in the Oman Peninsula during the late 1st millennium BC as seen from Mleiha, Sharjah emirate (U.A.E.). Proceedings of South Arabian Studies 21: 23-33. Costa P.M. 2002. The South Arabian coast and the ancient trade routes in the light of recent exploration and a discussion of written sources. In Studies in honour of professor G. Rex Smith, edited by J.F. Healey and V.

We must rethink the contacts with the Gulf regions in the Seleucid period - in Mleiha10, ed-Dur, many items similar to Hadrami were found (e.g. fig. 3); as well as South Arabian objects in general. We must also rethink the contacts with Ptolemaic Egypt and Adulis, an important seaport at the time (the first part of the monumentum Adulitanum belongs to the third century BC).

11

Once again, the Periplus (32) comes to mind where it mentions that the only foreign ships that put into Moscha were Indian ones that were late for the monsoon winds and were obliged to await the spring monsoon. Their crews had to spend the winter in Moscha and during their stay they could trade their cotton garments, their grain and oil for a cargo of frankincense.

9

Avanzini 2002: 134f.: "the viceroy in the Sakalan land has built and restored for his lord the king of Hadramawt the tower ... and a third gate ... with the help and will of Sin and the inhabitans of the city of Sumhuram" 10 Boucharlat and Mouton 1991: 23ff.

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Definite Places , Translocal Exchange Porter. Oxford: Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 14: 19-27. Groom N. 1995. The Periplus, Pliny and Arabia. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 6: 180-195. Morandi Bonacossi D. 2004. Coloni Hadramiti e popolamento indigeno nel paese dell'incenso (Dhofar, Sultanato dell'Oman) tra V sec. a.C. e VI sec.d.C. Una sintesi

preliminare. In Mesopotamia e Arabia edited by F.M. Fales and D. Morandi Bonacossi. Venezia: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Sedov A.V. 2004. Temples of ancient Hadramawt. Pisa: Edizioni Plus. Zarins J. 2001. The land of incense. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Publications.

Fig. 4: Fragment of graffito on the plaster of the external city wall

28

A. Avanzini: Sumhuram: a Hadrami Port on the Indian Ocean

Plate I

Fig. 1 Fragment of terra sigillata with flower applique (Eastern Sigillata)

Fig. 2 Fragment of terra sigillata with applique (Eastern Sigillata)

Fig. 3 Fragment of Dressel 2-4

Fig. 4 Fragment of amphora with twin handles

Selection of pottery from the Mediterranean region (terra sigillata and amphorae)

29

Definite Places , Translocal Exchange

Plate II

Fig. 1: Fragment of bowl from India Fig. 2: Fragment of bowl from India (Black-and-Red Ware BRW)

(Black-and- Red Ware BRW)

Fig. 3: Sherd bearing traces of three characters of Indian origin (-la-tha-va)

Fig 4: Cooking bowl in “Indian Style” rouletted ware

Fig 5: Fragment of

Selection of pottery material from India or in “Indian style” found in Sumhuram

30

A. Avanzini: Sumhuram: a Hadrami Port on the Indian Ocean

Plate III Fig 1: Fragment of vessel from Sumhuram (black and gray ware). Fig.2: Fragment of vessel from Mleiha (black and grey ware).

Fig. 3: Eastern Arabia imitation of Alexander’s tetradrachm found in Sumhuram.

Fig. 4: Mould for coins from Mleiha.

Fig. 5 Bronze horse protome from Sumhuram (temple of Syn)

Fig.6 Bronze horse protome from Mleiha

Selection of Gulf Area materials

31

STRABO AND THE EASTERN DESERT OF EGYPT AND SUDAN* Richard Holton Pierce In the wake of Alexander III (the Great) of Macedon’s astonishing conquests Greek intellectuals were inundated with new information about peoples and regions bordering on the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea about which they had possessed only the vaguest or absolutely no knowledge at all. The establishment of successor states to Alexander’s ephemeral empire in the territories of age old kingdoms such as that of Egypt and the opening of trade with India contributed to revitalizing Greek ethnographic and geographical research and on occasion engendered acrimonious polemics.

The early phase of this activity was characterized by astronomically and mathematically based efforts in the tradition of Dicaearchos (floruit c. 310), Eratosthenes (c. 280–200) and Hipparchus (fl. 161–127) to map the enlarged sphere of Greek interest; but as it became evident that this ambitious project could not be satisfactorily realized, geographical research turned more to ethnographic, socio-economic and political issues of concern to those Greeks now both closely interacting with and often dominating peoples not of their own culture. Moreover, when the overwhelming might of the Romans extinguished and absorbed the centuries-old kingdoms of Alexander’s successors and brought to a close the Hellenistic Period, Greek scholars entered the entourages of highly placed Romans. Prominent among these Greeks was Strabo of Amaseia (12.3.39), a Roman citizen who wrote a geography of the inhabited world which he probably composed in the course of late first century BCE and the first two decades of the first century CE.1 Strabo’s lifetime (c. 64/3

BCE–20 CE) spanned the Roman Civil War and conquest of Egypt, and he himself accompanied the then Prefect of Egypt, Lucius Aelius Gallus on a tour up the Nile to the Nubian frontier (2.5.12) and not long after wrote a sympathetic account of Gallus’s failed invasion of Arabia (16.4.22–24, cf. 2.5.12).2 His association with Gallus may well have made him privy to some inside information about Roman interests in the Red Sea region, and he was well aware of the importance of the Eastern Desert between the Nile and the Red Sea in Upper Egypt and Sudan, as a link in the increasingly important trade route between India and Alexandria (17.1.45). What is known of his information about these matters survives mainly in Books 16 and 17 of his Geographika, which include a description of Arabia, the coasts of the Arabian Gulf (i.e. the modern Gulf of Suez and Red Sea) and part of the African coast south of the Bâb al Mandab. Strabo was, however, also a Stoic who thought of himself as a philosopher in the broadest ancient sense of the word.3 He was working within a longestablished tradition of geography and had, as a continuator of Polybius, already written a major universal history in 43 or 45 books4;

* This paper is excerpted from a broader study of the Eastern Desert which the author has been pursuing in the context of on-going research on that region in which members of the informal Etbai Group at the University of Bergen have been engaged for roughly two decades. The unifying concept for this group’s activities has been that of a cultural landscape. Cf. Krzywinski & Pierce 2001. References to Strabo are given in boldface. 1 The period of composition is disputed, and the work may have been published posthumously. Cf. Aujac & Laserre 1969: XXXff., and Dicks 1971: 189. For biographical details see Sihler 1923, and for recent discussion Clarke 1997 and Engels 1999: 36ff. On Strabo’s links with Romans and his legitimization of their empire, Engels 1999: 298ff. and Dueck 2000, passim.

2

For Strabo’s biography see Engels 1999: 17ff. For Strabo’s stay in Egypt (cf. 2.3.5) and his connections with prominent Romans see Aujac and Laserre, 1969: XXVIIff. and XXXVf. On the chronology of the Arabian campaign see Jameson 1968 and Engels 1999: 339 n. 215. 3 Engels 1999: 40ff. 4 Engels 1999: 90ff. stresses the close methodo¨logical similarities underlying both works and their complementary character. Aujac and Laserre, 1969: XXIVf. cite 11.9.3 of the Geographika, where Strabo refers to his previous treatment of the laws and institutions of Parthia. But cf. 12.8.7,

33

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange and he explicitly made extensive use of the writings of his predecessors. Strabo’s involvement in the discussion of geographical theory and his use of multiple sources makes it necessary to examine his text very closely before deciding whether any particular statement of fact relates to his own time or perpetuates possibly outdated information. It is in this perspective that the following survey of what Strabo’s Geographika reports about the west coast of the Red Sea and the Eastern Desert is developed.

i.e., of a major land mass or mainland (і½̡̥̬̫̭) delimited by a distinct boundary (ѷ̬̥̫̩ or ѷ̬̫̭); but how to define such a boundary was a moot point.8 Greek geographers lacked a deeper insight into the structure of the planet and became embroiled in a vain quest for “natural” (̡Ѿ̱̰ҟ̭) boundaries that completely separated the continents while not dividing ethnic entities (1.2.25). The general issue of defining boundaries was fraught with problems involving physical topographical features (rivers, mountains, temples etc.), political demarcations, and ethnic divisions. Strabo (1.4.7 following Eratosthenes (fr. II A 1 Berger = II C, 22 of 1880) notes that some divided the continents by rivers, thus making them into islands, while others divided them at necks of land (isthmuses [Ѣ̨̮̤oҡ, singular Ѣ̨̮̤ң̭]), thus making them into peninsulas. Eratosthenes (2.4.7) had dismissed the whole discussion as of no practical importance as far as continents are concerned, but Strabo took exception on the grounds that continental boundaries might also be political borders and that anyway the division into continents is the next stage in the general analysis of the inhabited world (1.4.8).9

The Grand Scheme of Things In his geographical writing Strabo was a continuator of the non-mathematical Greek geographical tradition in the style of Polybius and Artemidorus, but he was not averse to drawing upon such writers in the mathematical tradition as Eratosthenes and Hipparchus. Indeed, his excerpts from the two latter are a major source of information about their ideas, although modern scholarship has raised doubts about how well he understood the technical problems involved in mathematically and astronomically based discussions.5 Strabo accepted that the earth was spherical (2.2.1) and that it was divided into two hemispheres by the equator, each hemisphere being further divided into matching climatic zones (2.3.1–3 & 2.5.3–6). He thought that the inhabited world (ȠѢțȠȣμҝȞȘ) was restricted to a sector of the northern hemisphere – he was even willing to consider, as did Crates of Mallos, the possibility that there might be other inhabited but inaccessible worlds in both hemispheres (1.4.6, 2.3.7 & 1.2.24).

Early Greek geographers had divided the inhabited world into two continents, Europe and Asia, but later geographers divided Asia in two, thus recognizing Libya (roughly equivalent to our modern Africa) as a third continent.10 Strabo, in keeping with the view 8

Berger 1903: 164ff. Strabo invokes a principle of grand division (i.e. top down analysis) in dividing the continents (1.4.7-8), which presupposes a unitary concept of the inhabited world (̦̝̯Қ ̨ҝ̟̝̩ ̨̠̥̫̬̥̮Ң̩ ̦̝Ҡ ½̬Ң̭ ̯Ҟ̩ ̫Ѣ̨̦̫̰ҝ̩̣̩ ѷ̧̣̩ ж̡̩̝̱̬ң̨̡̩̫̩). He also invokes Herodotus’ observation that using the Nile to separate Asia from Libya would leave the Delta as politically undefined territory (1.4.8). Elsewhere (4.1.1) he declares that although physical and ethnic divisions are the concern of geographers, political divisions should be the special concern of others. All this is related to the general problem of analysis and classification which occupied the thoughts of Greek philosophers. For a recent discussion see Lewis 1999: 188ff. 10 For the sources see Berger 1903: 78ff. Herodotus (4.42.1) had believed Libya to be so much smaller than both Europe and Asia as to 9

At the next level of analysis,6 Greek geographers divided the inhabited word into continents.7 The Greek notion of a continent seems to have been basically one of scale, where Strabo declares that ancient history is not the task of a geographer. 5 See, e.g., Dicks 1956: 243f. and Sihler 1923: 139. 6 Strabo’s presentation reflects the emerging analytical structure according to geography, chorography, and topography. See Lukermann 1961: 194ff. 7 Berger 1880: 163ff. remains a useful survey of the Classical sources on this topic.

34

R.H. Pierce: Strabo and the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan prevailing in his day, recognized three (1.4.7, 2.3.7 & 12.3.27).11 The Red Sea and the Eastern Desert lie at the juncture of Asia and Libya, and whether in Strabo’s text the Eastern Desert and the coast of the Red Sea belonged to Asia or Libya or in part to both depends on where the boundary between them lay. Greek geography offered two options: either the Nile or the Arabian Gulf (mod. Red Sea and Gulf of Suez) and the isthmus of Suez.12

last, begins with a description of the land and peoples between the coast of the Red Sea and the Nile (17.1.1): ь½̡Ҡ ̠Ҝ ̯Ҟ̩ о̬̝̞ҡ̝̩ ц̡̱̫̠ҥ̡̫̩̯̭ ̦̝Ҡ ̯̫Ҥ̭ ̦ң̧½̫̰̭ ̨̮̰½̡̡̧̬̥қ̨̡̞̫̩ ̯̫Ҥ̭ ̮̱ҡ̟̟̫̩̯̝̭ ̝Ѿ̯Ҟ̩ ̦̝Ҡ ½̫̥̫ԉ̩̯̝̭ ̡̲̬̬ң̩̣̮̫̩, ̯Ң̩ ̡̬̮̥̦̍Ң̩ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Ң̩ о̬қ̞̥̫̩, ̯̫ҥ̯Ԕ ̠ҝ ̯̥̩̝ ̨̮̰½̴̡̡̬̥̠ҥ̤̣ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Ӭ̭ ˾Ѣ̟ҥ½̯̫̰ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Ӭ̭ ˾Ѣ̤̥̫½ҡ̝̭, ̯Қ ̯Ԗ̩ ̴̧̬̟̫̠̰̯̐Ԗ̩ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Ԗ̩ ч̪Ӭ̭ ̨ҝ̲̬̥ ̯Ԗ̩ ц̮̲қ̴̯̩ ̯Ӭ̭ ̴̨̨̦̥̩̩̝̫̱ң̬̫̰: ̯Қ ̧̡̥½ң̨̡̩̝ ̦̝Ҡ ̡̮̰̩̲Ӭ ̯̫Ӻ̭ ъ̡̤̩̮̥ ̯̫ҥ̯̫̥̭, ̯̝ԉ̯̝ ̠Ӥ ц̮̯Ҡ ̯Қ ½̡̬Ҡ ̯Ң̩ ̡̊Ӻ̧̫̩, ц̡̦̤̯ҝ̫̩: ̨̡̯Қ ̠Ҝ ̯̝ԉ̯̝ ̯Ҟ̩ ̥̞̈ҥ̣̩ ъ½̨̡̥̩, ї½̡̬ ц̮̯Ҡ ̧̫̥½Ҟ ̯Ӭ̭ ̨̮̰½қ̮̣̭ ̴̡̟̟̬̝̱ҡ̝̭.

Aujac and Laserre state as a plain matter of fact that Strabo regarded the Nile as the boundary between Asia and Libya and refer explicitly to 1.2.25–27.13 They note that Strabo’s Book 16 covers the land between Persia, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea, but go on to say that Book 17, his last, which begins with Egypt concludes his study of Asia, “if one takes the Nile to be the frontier between the two continents, as Strabo does”. This implies that the division of Strabo’s Geographika into books did not correspond consistently with his primary division of the inhabited world into continents. At the transitions between Strabo’s introductory Books 1 and 2 and the beginning of his treatment of Europe (3.1.1) and that between his treatment of Europe and the beginning of his treatment of Asia (11.1.1) there are explicit indications that his narrative is moving on to another continent. On the other hand, Book 16 contains the bulk of his treatment of Arabia (beginning at 16.3.1) including, at the end, a description of the eastern and western coasts of the Arabian Gulf (i.e. the Red Sea); while Book 17, his

Since, in touring Arabia, we have also included the gulfs which constrict it and make it a peninsula, i.e. the Persian and Arabian, and by this means some parts both of Egypt and of Aithiopia have been described at the same time, i.e. the countries of the Troglodytes and the peoples situated in order thereafter as far as the ends of the cinnamon-bearing country, it is now necessary to set forth the remaining parts (of Arabia) that are contiguous to these tribes, that is, the parts near the Nile. Thereafter we will go through Libya, which is the last of the whole geography.

So here Strabo includes the land between the Nile and the Red Sea in Arabia, and Arabia in Asia, as is clearly indicated in his reference in 15.1.1 to the parts of Asia: ж½Ң ̯Ӭ̭ Ѫ̩̠̥̦Ӭ̭ ̨ҝ̲̬̥ ̡̊ҡ̧̫̰ from India as far as the Nile.

Moreover in 2.4.7, in a criticism of Polybius’ way of determining the measurements of the inhabited world, Strabo concludes: ̐қ̵̩̝̩ ̨Ҝ̩ ̫̩҄ ̦̝Ҡ ̡̊Ӻ̧̫̩ ̫Ѿ̦ к̯̫½̫̩ ½ҝ̬̝̭ ½̡̫̥Ӻ̮̤̝̥, ̡̤̬̥̩Ҟ̩ ̠Ӧ ж̧̩̝̯̫Ҟ̩ є Ѣ̨̡̮̣̬̥̩Ҟ̩ ̦̝̥̩ң̩.

make its status questionable. He saw Asia as having two peninsulas, one of which extended to Libya. Strabo evinces some sympathy with this view (17.3.1). 11 Strabo (1.4.7) adhered to this tripartition in opposition to Eratosthenes, whose geometrical analysis of the inhabited word seemed crude (2.1.30 ff.) and whose criticisms of Homer seem to have been a constant source of irritation, and to Posidonius (2.3.7 [p. 102 C.]). 12 Both these options are already present in Herodotus (2.15 & 4.41). 13 1969: XLIII and 18, “… le Nil dont les géographes modernes se servent couramment comme limites des continents … “, where by modern, they evidently mean modern in Strabo’s day.

So, it is not out of place to make the Tanaïs and the Nile a boundary (i.e. between continents), it is a strange novelty to make the summer or the equinoctial sunrise one.

Finally, in 2.5.33 Strabo says that Libya is contiguous (̡̮̰̩̲ҟ̭) to Egypt and Aithiopia, a statement consistent with the idea that the Nile constitutes the boundary between Asia and Libya. If, however, the Nile itself were the boundary between the two continents, then he would be confining Egypt in the

35

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange narrowest sense to the delta of the Nile, and would be locating everything east and west of its main channel south of the apex of the delta in Arabia or Libya, as the Ionian geographers had formerly maintained.14 If Strabo were to be taken at his word here, Libya would be contiguous to the Delta, and everything south of the apex of the Delta and west of the Nile would be in Aithiopia. In fact, however, Strabo explicitly locates some places south of the Delta on the floodplain east of the Nile in Arabia and others on the floodplain west of the Nile in Libya. In 2.5.33 Strabo may have had in mind the country Egypt as a whole without regard to its division between Asia and Libya. Most likely, Strabo’s imprecise statement means no more than that the Nile and its floodplain south to the Aithiopian frontier lay in Egypt and thereafter in Aithiopia.15

̦ң̧½̫̩ є ̯Ң̩ ̡̊Ӻ̧̫̩: ̯Ң̩ ̨Ҝ̩ ̟Қ̬ ̠̥ҟ̡̦̥̩ ½̝̬Ӧ Ѳ̧ҡ̟̫̩ ½̡̧̝̩̯Ԗ̭ ж½Ң ̧̤̝қ̯̯̣̭ ц½Ҡ ̤қ̧̝̯̯̝̩, ̯Ң̩ ̠Ҝ ̡̊Ӻ̧̫̩ ½̧̧̫̝½̧қ̮̥̫̩ ж½Ң ̯̫ԉ Ғ̡̦̝̩̫ԉ ̠̥ҝ̡̲̥̩, ҏ̡̮̯ ̨Ҟ ̡̠̥̝̥̬Ӻ̩ ̯Ҟ̩ о̮ҡ̝̩ ½ӝ̮̝̩ ж½Ң ̯Ӭ̭ ̥̞̈ҥ̣̭: ̯̫ԉ̯̫̩ ѿ½̧̨̫̝̞қ̴̩ ̯Ң̩ ̯̬ң½̫̩ ̦ж̟Ҧ ̯Қ ̨̡̨̮̣̞̬̥̩Қ ̨ҝ̬̣ ½қ̩̯̝ ̦̝̤Ӧ ѷ̧̣̩ ̯Ҟ̩ ̫Ѣ̨̦̫̰ҝ̩̣̩ ̠ҡ̲̝ ̠̥Ӫ̬Ӭ̮̤̝̥ ̨̩̫ҡ̮̝̥ ̯Ң̩ ½̫̥̣̯Ҟ̩ ̯ԗ ̦ң̧½Ԕ ̯̫ҥ̯Ԕ. ½Ԗ̭ ̫̩҄ ђ̟̩ң̡̥ ̯Ң̩ Ѣ̨̮̤ң̩, ѷ̩ ̫̯̫̭҅ ½̡̫̥Ӻ ½̬Ң̭ ̯Ң ˾Ѣ̟ҥ½̯̥̫̩ ½ҝ̧̝̟̫̭; Now, just as the more elegant of those who separate Asia from Libya think this gulf (the Arabian) is a more natural boundary between the two continents than the Nile (for the former stretches little short of completely from sea to sea, whereas the Nile is separated from the Ocean by many times that distance, so that it does not separate Asia as a whole from Libya), so I too assume that he (Homer) considered that the southern regions as a whole throughout the inhabited world were “sundered in twain” by this gulf. So how can he (Homer) have been ignorant of the isthmus which the gulf forms with the Egyptian Sea?

There is, however, another passage in Strabo’s text that might leave room for some doubt as to whether he was always consistent. His discussion of boundaries vacillates between physical and ethnic criteria and becomes entangled with his defense of Homer as a source of scientific knowledge.16 In the passage in question Strabo defends Homer against the charge that he did not know of the existence of the Arabian Gulf (the Gulf of Suez) and the isthmus that separates it from the Mediterranean Sea bordering on Egypt (here called the Egyptian Sea) (1.2.24).17 He reviews the state of the questions (1.2.24–28), drawing in the boundary between Asia and Libya (Africa), and concludes (1.2.28):

Thus in defense of Homer Strabo was willing to invoke the view of those “more elegant” geographers who regarded the Isthmus of Suez as dividing Libya from Asia and hence placed Egypt and the Eastern Desert in Libya (Africa). Moreover, in 2.5.17 he affirms the primacy of permanent natural features in geography and declares the sea on principle to be the primary factor in determining the contours of the land, while rivers are given only a secondary role (2.5.17, but cf. 15.1.26): ̧̡̍Ӻ̮̯̫̩ ̠Ӧ ѓ ̤қ̧̝̯̯̝ ̴̡̡̟̟̬̝̱Ӻ ̦̝Ҡ ̨̮̲̣̝̯ҡ̢̡̥ ̯Ҟ̩ ̟Ӭ̩, ̦ң̧½̫̰̭ ж½̡̢̨̬̟̝̫ҝ̩̣ ̦̝Ҡ ½̡̧қ̟̣ ̦̝Ҡ ½̨̫̬̤̫ҥ̭, ѳ̨̫ҡ̴̭ ̠Ҝ Ѣ̨̮̤̫Ҥ̭ ̦̝Ҡ ̡̲̬̬̫̩ҟ̮̫̰̭ ̦̝Ҡ к̦̬̝̭: ½̧̨̬̫̮̝̞қ̩̫̰̮̥ ̠Ҝ ̯̝ҥ̯Ӫ ̦̝Ҡ ̫ѣ ½̨̫̯̝̫Ҡ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Қ Ѷ̬̣. ̠̥Қ ̟Қ̬ ̯Ԗ̩ ̯̫̥̫ҥ̴̯̩ і½̡̥̬̫ҡ ̡̯ ̦̝Ҡ ъ̤̩̣ ̦̝Ҡ ½ң̴̧̡̩ ̤ҝ̡̮̥̭ ̡Ѿ̡̱̰Ӻ̭ ц̡̩̩̫ҟ̤̣̮̝̩ ̦̝Ҡ ̯м̧̧̝ ½̫̥̦ҡ̧̨̝̯̝, ѷ̴̮̩ ̨̡̮̯ң̭ ц̮̯̥̩ ѳ ̴̲̬̫̟̬̝̱̥̦Ң̭ ½ҡ̩̝̪. … к̴̧̧̩ ̠Ӧ к̧̧̝̭ ж̡̬̯қ̭ ̡̯ ̦̝Ҡ ̦̝̦ҡ̝̭ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Қ̭ ж½Ӧ ̝Ѿ̯Ԗ̩ ̡̲̬ҡ̝̭ ц½̡̨̥̠̥̦̩̰ҝ̴̩̩ є ̠̰̮̲̬̣̮̯ҡ̝̭, ̯Қ̭ ̨Ҝ̩ ̱ҥ̡̮̥ ̯Қ̭ ̠Ҝ ц̦ ̡̦̝̯̝̮̦̰Ӭ̭, ̯Қ̭ ̱ҥ̡̮̥ ̡̠Ӻ ̧ҝ̡̟̥̩: ̨̠̥̝ҝ̩̫̰̮̥ ̟қ̬, ̝ѣ ̠Ӧ ц½ҡ̡̤̯̫̥ ̠ҝ̲̫̩̯̝̥ ̨̡̧̯̝̞̫қ̭.

̦̝̤қ½̡̬ ̫̩҄ ̫ѣ ̲̝̬̥ҝ̡̮̯̬̫̥ ̯Ԗ̩ ̠̥̝̥̬̫ҥ̴̩̯̩ ̯Ҟ̩ о̮ҡ̝̩ ж½Ң ̯Ӭ̭ ̥̞̈ҥ̣̭ ѷ̬̫̩ ̡Ѿ̱̰ҝ̡̮̯̬̫̩ ѓ̟̫ԉ̩̯̝̥ ̯̫ԉ̯̫̩ ̯Ԗ̩ ђ½̡ҡ̴̬̩ ж̨̱̫Ӻ̩ ̯Ң̩ 14

Cf. Herodotus 2.15.1–19, and Powell 1935:72ff. in re pp. 74f. 15 Cf. 1.2.25. Strabo places the frontier at Syene and Elephantine (17.1.3). 16 Aujac and Laserre, 1969: 11ff.; Engels 1999: 115ff. 17 The criticism of Homer probably comes from Eratosthenes, perhaps mediated indirectly by Apollodoros in his Book on the Homeric Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad. (7.3.6). Strabo (l.c.) says that Apollodorus praised Eratosthenes’ judgment that Homer was ignorant about places far from Greece.

For the most part it is the sea that defines the contours of the land and gives it its shape, by forming gulfs, deep seas, straits, and likewise isthmuses, peninsulas, and promontories; but both the rivers and the mountains assist it. For through such (natural features) continents,

36

R.H. Pierce: Strabo and the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan the part of Arabia that borders on Egypt,23 but it is not clear whether he includes all their lands in the northern or the southern region. In 16.4.2 he says that Arabia Felix lies beyond their country, but in 16.4.21 he says that the Nabataeans dwell in Arabia Felix.24 However this may be, it is the part of Arabia which borders on Egypt and lies between the Nile and the Red Sea that is of interest in the present study. How far south Strabo extends this region is discussed below.

nations and favorable positions of cities have been understood, as well as the varied details with which the chorographical map is filled. … Since different places exhibit different good and bad attributes, and also the resulting advantages and inconveniences, some due to nature and others resulting from (human) construction, one should mention those that are due to nature; for they are permanent, whereas the accidental (features) undergo changes.

One might have expected, in the light of the above, that Strabo would have favored the Isthmus of Suez as the boundary between Asia and Libya (Africa); and his reluctance to do so requires some explanation. The key may be the combined effect of the conception of the geographical unity of Arabia expressed above, the established nomenclature in his sources, particularly Artemidorus, that denoted the land east of the Nile as Arabia, and his Homeric entanglements.

In this context it is worth noting Strabo’s discussion of Eratosthenes’ Third and Fourth Sphragides.25 While defending him against Hipparchus’ criticisms, he also proposed to swing the southern boundary of Eratosthenes’ Third Sphragis further south so that it corresponded with the isthmus that made Arabia Felix a peninsula and in the process he extended this boundary further westwards to the isthmus of Suez, or perhaps even to the westernmost branch of the Nile (2.1.31). This, he said, would mean that the Fourth Sphragis included Arabia Felix, the Arabian Gulf, Egypt, and Aithiopia (2.1.32). Once again the Nile would be a major geographical boundary, this time the western limit of Eratosthenes’ Fourth Sphragis as revised by Strabo. One effect of this proposal would be to include all the lands and peoples denoted as Arabia and Arabs in one region.

Arabia and the Eastern Desert Strabo’s general description of Arabia seems to derive largely from Eratosthenes. In the broadest terms18 it lay south of a line that stretched from Judaea and Coele-Syria, i.e. the Biqa Valley and Palestine, to the Euphrates (16.3.1 & 16.4.2), and then west of the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf at Maikene.19 It included the whole of the Arabian peninsula and the Sinai and was bounded on the west by the Nile.

In Strabo's description of Egypt and its environs he combines his own observations made during his stay there with information garnered directly from the writings of the geographers Eratosthenes of Cyrene and

Strabo appears to divide Arabia into two main regions: 20 (1) a northern region inhabited by SkƝnitai (tent-dwelling), Nabataean, Khaulotaean and Agraean Arabs and bounded on the south by an extensive desert21 and (2) south of this Eudaimǀn Arabia (Arabia Felix).22 In 17.1.21 he says that Nabataean Arabs inhabit

23

In 17.1.21 he says, “the country between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf is Arabia, and on its farthest point sits Pelusium, but is all desert and impassable for an army” (ѓ ̠Ҝ ̨̡̯̝̪Ҥ ̯̫ԉ ̡̊ҡ̧̫̰ ̦̝Ҡ ̯̫ԉ о̬̝̞ҡ̫̰ ̦ң̧½̫̰ о̬̝̞ҡ̝ ̨ҝ̩ ц̮̯̥, ̦̝Ҡ ц½ҡ ̡̟ ̯Ԗ̩ к̴̦̬̩ ̝Ѿ̯Ӭ̭ ѧ̠̬̰̯̝̥ ̯Ң ̧̣̫̍ҥ̮̥̫̩˶ ж̧̧Ӥ ъ̨̬̣̫̭ л½̝̮қ ц̮̯̥ ̦̝Ҡ к̞̝̯̫̭ ̮̯̬̝̯̫½ҝ̠Ԕ). For Arabia as the land between the Nile and the Red Sea see also Herodotus 2.8. 24 In 16.4.2 Strabo bases his remarks on Eratosthenes; in 16.4.21 he is entering upon his account of Aelius Gallus’s expedition into Arabia Felix. Perhaps the difference between the two passages is an instance of unharmonized sources. 25 Geometrically delineated subdivisions of the two parts, northern and southern, into which Eratosthenes had divided the inhabited world.

18

Excepting the land occupied by the SkƝnitai in Mesopotamia (16.3.1), which lay east of the Euphrates. 19 It extends to (16.4.1) Maikênê (ѓ ̝̥̦̉ҟ̩̣ [̝̥̮̉ҟ̩̣? or ̡̮̉ҟ̩̣?]) near the head of the Persian Gulf in what is now modern Kuwayt. 20 Strabo attributes this description to Eratosthenes (cf. Eratosthenes fr. III B, 48 Berger, 1880: 288ff. 21 ћ ъ̨̬̣̫̭ ̯Ԗ̩ о̬қ̴̞̩, the Desert of the Arabs (today’s Syrian Desert) (16.3.1 & 16.4.1). 22 ̐Ҟ̩ ̡Ѿ̠̝ҡ̨̫̩̝ ̧̨̦̝̫̰ҝ̩̣̩ о̬̝̞ҡ̝̩, the Arabian peninsula, south of the Syrian desert.

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Definite Places, Translocal Exchange Artemidorus of Ephesus. Occasionally problems arise because he is combining several sources and does not consistently harmonize them. In 17.1.21 he states flatly that the land between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf (mod. Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea) is Arabia.26 This might be construed to mean that all land east of the Nile lay in Arabia, but, as will be seen below, it strictly applies only to a limited northern stretch of the Nile.27

following Artemidorus, that there are other lakes and canals in the same districts (ц̩ ̯̫Ӻ̭ ̝Ѿ̯̫Ӻ̭ ̨ҝ̡̬̮̥̩) outside the Delta (ъ̴̪ ̯̫ԉ ́ҝ̧̯̝) — and therefore, by implication, also in Arabia. Moreover, beside the second of the two lakes in Arabia, Strabo continues, was the Sethroite nome; but this nome Artemidorus counted among the ten nomes in the Delta.32 Strabo then says there is another canal, again presumably branching off from the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, which empties into the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf at the city of Arsinoê, a city which “some” call Cleopatris.33 This canal, he says, also flows through the lakes called Bitter, and he sketches the history of its construction and mentions how the Nile water flowing through it changed the quality of the water in the lakes and led to an abundance of fish and waterfowl. Modern geography has established that from the point the canal entered the Wadi Tumulat it ran roughly eastwards to Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes and then southwards to the gulf, and the question arises as to how Strabo conceived the boundary between Egypt and Arabia in this area.34 His ensuing remark in 17.1.26 that

In his treatment of the northern stretch of the borderland between Egypt and Arabia he presents his information in the form of an itinerary,28 proceeding southwards from Pelusium at the NE corner of Egypt,29 presumably along the Pelusiac branch of the Nile. He says that as one proceeds southwards the first canal one comes upon feeds the two Marsh Lakes30 east of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile in Arabia (ц̩ ж̡̬̥̮̯̬Ӟ … ̯̫ԉ ̨̡̟қ̧̫̰ ½̨̫̯̝̫ԉ ѿ½Ҝ̬ ̯Ң ̧̣̫̍ҥ̮̥̫̩ ц̩ ̯ӭ о̬̝̞ҡӛ).31 He adds, still 26

Strabo was manoeuvring among the various positions taken by his predecessors during the long discussion about the delimitation of the continents and how Egypt was to be defined. Cf. e.g. Herodotus 2.15–18. 27 A source of potential confusion arises from the fact that in the Roman Period the Twentieth Lower Egyptian province (nome) of the independent Pharaonic and Ptolemaic kingdoms was called Arabia and Phakusa became its capital. Exactly when this reorganization took place is unclear. Strabo does not refer to a nome called Arabia; Pliny (Nat. 5.49: Arabicum) and Ptolemy (Geogr. 4.5) do. Cf. infra. n. 5. 28 The itinerary format (e.g., the use of the dative plural of the aorist participle, ½̡̧̬̫̤̫ԉ̮̥̩, in 17.1.25) as well as the information in this section probably derives from Artemidorus. Sharar 2004: 39ff. offers a useful recent discussion of the genre periplus. 29 17.1.21. 30 17.1.24, literally “the lakes called ‘Along the Marshes’” (̯Қ̭ ̦̝̯Қ ̯Қ ы̧̣ ̧̨̦̝̫̰ҝ̩̝̭ ̧ҡ̨̩̝̭). 31 This may well be the artificial waterway “verified between El-Qantara and Pelusium”, which may have existed since Pharaonic times. If, as Butzer suggests, this was a defensive, irrigation canal, it would have delimited the border between Egypt and Arabia. Cf. B(utzer) 1978: 312f. and B(ietak) 1978: 205f. and map on p. 208. Arabia would have been east of the canal. The lakes themselves would have been in Arabia, and their

western edges would have continued the boundary demarcated by the canal. 32 The location of the Sethroite nome has yet to be securely determined. Cf. G(omaà) 1977: 1127f. Most likely the Marsh Lakes lay close to the eastern edge of the Delta, and the eastern border of the nome west of the lakes. If the capital of the nome is to be identified with Herakleopolis parva and placed near the coordinates given by the geographer Ptolemy, then the nome must have extended far west into the Delta. There was, however, more than one place called Herakleopolis parva in Egypt. Which one is relevant here open to discussion. Cf. Ball 1942: 110 and 165. 33 Strabo’s account of the excavation of this canal (17.1.25), a forerunner of the Suez Canal as link between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, succinctly recapitulates earlier geographical discussions. Cf. B(utzer), l.c. For ancient Egyptian texts of the Persian Period relating to this canal see Posener 1936: 48ff. 34 How Strabo visualized the route of the canal is unclear. He nowhere says that the canal first ran east and then south, and he may actually have visualized it as flowing in a straight line, running due east or swinging south at an angle to the Gulf

38

R.H. Pierce: Strabo and the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan of this nome certainly lay on the floodplain of the Delta, but Strabo’s focus here is on its eastern extension into Arabia and the canal to the Red Sea.36 He closes this section of his description by noting that the canal began at the village of Phakousa,37 next to the village of Philo, and that these places lay near at the apex of the Delta. This too is a puzzling statement, for the distance from Phakousa to the apex is well over 50 km if, as Strabo does, one places the apex near Heliopolis.

both the City of Heroes (ѓ ̯Ԗ̩ ћ̬ҧ̴̩ ½ң̧̥̭, Heroopolis or Heroonpolis in other sources) and “Cleopatris in the recess of Arabian Gulf” (̧̡̫̇½̝̯̬Ҡ̭ ц̩ ̯ԗ ̨̰̲ԗ ̯̫ԉ о̬̝̞ҡ̫̰ ̦ң̧½̫̰) were near (½̧̣̮ҡ̫̩) Arsinoê seems rather loosely stated. The City of Heroes (identified as the mod. Tell el-Maskhuta) lay near the eastern end of the Wadi Tumilat well before the canal turned south and was over 90 km from the sea, and in 17.1.25 Strabo reports that some unspecified sources say Cleopatris was just another name for Arsinoê. If it is correct to construe “in the recess of the Arabian Gulf” as modifying only Cleopatris, as is done here,35 and to understand Strabo’s previous remark that some equated Cleopatris and Arsinoê as indicating his own (or his approval of Artemidorus’) doubts about this, then we have Strabo’s geographical description placing Arsinoê and Cleopatris nearby one another at the head of the Gulf of Suez and need only wonder why he placed the City of Heroes close to them. Perhaps he meant no more than that all three were situated in the part of Arabia adjoining Egypt and therefore regionally close. In 17.1.26 he continues the passage in which he places the City of Heroes and Cleopatris near Arsinoê by saying, “and here too is the Phagroriopolite nome and city Phagroriopolis.” Some

All in all, it is doubtful whether Strabo ever traveled along the eastern border of the Delta or into the adjoining part of Arabia. In contrast to his description of Alexandria and environs, which is direct and unencumbered with references to written sources, his treatment of the eastern border of the Delta seems to be derivative from Artemidorus for most of its details, mildly self-contradictory, and unnecessarily vague and inexact about routes and distances—as should not have been the case if based on personal observation. Moreover, while Strabo explicitly claims to have made the journey from Alexandria to the apex of the Delta and corrects Artemidorus on the measurement of distances (17.1.24), he makes no such claims or corrections for his account of the eastern Delta. So, for the eastern Delta and the part of Arabia adjoining it, Strabo seems to be repeating information which he himself had neither validated nor updated by personal observation and which may be as much as a century out-of-date. Arabia, as he defines it, begins east of Pelusium and lies east of the canal to the Marsh Lakes, which themselves lie in Arabia. He says nothing explicitly about the border between the lakes and the canal that reaches the Red Sea, but his broad

of Suez. The remarkable first century CE papyrus fragments of Artemidorus’ map of Spain might reveal something of the way he visualised geography in maps if it could be established that this map was derived from Artemidorus himself. For the map see Kramer 2001: 115ff. I have been unable to reconcile the distances Strabo gives in 17.1.21 and 24 for the eastern leg of the Delta (25 skhoinoi or 750 stades) and the length of the isthmus from Pelusium to the head of the gulf (1000 or 1500 stades) to derive a satisfactory sketch map of the relative positions of the cities he refers to in this section. Kidd 1988 740ff. and 1999: 271, n. 217, suggests that the conflicting distances Strabo gives in 11.1.5 and 17.1.21 are to be connected with inexact and erroneous information derived from Herodotus and Posidonius together with a failure to take the southward turn of the canal into account. 35 This interpretation, an attempt to fit Strabo’s description in this context to the modern geography of the area, is far from certain. In 17.3.20 Strabo places the City of Heroes squarely in the recess of the Arabian Gulf (ц̩ ̯ԗ ̨̰̲ԗ ̯̫ԉ о̬̝̞ҡ̫̰ ̦ң̧½̫̰). Cf. 16.2.30, where the Arabian Gulf is placed ̦̝̯Қ ̯Ҟ̩ ћ̬ҧ̴̩ ½ң̧̥̩.

36

He might also have been influenced by the exceptional nature of the wadi. On the rare occasions when wadis east of the Nile with access to the Nile Valley are in flood, most drain water from Arabia into the valley, whereas the Wadi Tumulat carries water from the Nile into Arabia. 37 Modern Fâqûs, the Phagroriopolis just mentioned. It was originally part of Eighth Lower Egyptian nome. When that nome was reorganized, it became part of the Twentieth Lower Egyptian nome; and, in the Roman Period, it became the capital of nome, which was then named Arabia. Cf. H(elck) 1975: 113; and 1976: 385ff. esp. 401; G(omaà) 1983: 351f. and Biffi 1999: 313.

39

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange statement that the land between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf is Arabia may be adduced to suggest that he thought this stretch of the border lay east of the Pelusiac branch even though the gulf did not extend so far northwards. The same would apply for the border south of the entrance to the canal to the apex of the Delta. In fact, Strabo nowhere says that the canal to the Red Sea first ran east and then south, but regardless of how he visualized its course it is likely that he included all of the canal and all of the desert west of the canal and east of the Pelusiac Nile in Arabia.

Strabo’s explicit references to Arabia bordering the Nile in Egypt end at Thebes. In 17.1.3 he presents a tripartite division of Egypt: the Delta (10 nomes), the Thebaid (10 nomes) and the region between the Delta and the Thebaid (16 nomes). This structure no doubt conforms to the administrative reorganization of Upper Egypt that took place under the Ptolemies, but may be based more immediately on Artemidorus.44 He does not say where the northern boundary of the Thebaid lies. In 17.1.24, however, he says that from Memphis to the Thebaid the skhoinos had a length of 120 stades but from the (northern limit of) the Thebaid to Syene a length of 60 stades; and in 17.1.41 he says that the use of the 60 stade skhoinos began at the Hermopolite Garrison (э̨̬̫½̧̫̥̯̥̦Ҟ ̧̱̰̝̦ҟ), a kind of custom house for goods “from the Thebaid”.45 So Strabo’s Thebaid began at the Hermopolite Garrison and ended at Syene; and all the places on the eastern floodplain of the Nile in the Thebaid will have been in Arabia whether they were specified as being so or not. As for the stretch of the Nile south of Syene and Elephantine on the Aithiopian border (17.1.48), Strabo’s treatment of the physical geography of Nubia is concise and is chiefly concerned with the campaign of Gaius Petronius;46 and his last mention of Arabia east of the Nile is concerned with his delimitation of the Island of Meroê, which, he says, is bounded on its Arabian side by continuous jutting cliffs.47

When Strabo’s description reaches Heliopolis, which he places in Arabia near the apex of the Delta,38 it enters into the Nile Valley strictu sensu. His orientation follows that of the ancient Egyptians and faces south, with Arabia to the left of the river and Libya to the right.39 As his description proceeds southwards, he notes that the quarry, from which stone for the pyramids came, lay within sight of them across the river in Arabia,40 that the Aphroditopolite nome and its chief city were in Arabia,41 that there was a canal to Koptos which was a city shared by Egyptians and Arabs,42 and that some of what was left of the ancient capital Thebes (Diospolis Magna, cf. 17.1.27) lay in Arabia.43

38

17.1.30 in Arabia (ѓ ̨Ҝ̩ ̫̩҄ ћ̧ҡ̫̰ ½ң̧̥̭ ц̩ ̯ӭ о̬̝̞ҡӛ ц̮̯ҡ̩); 17.1.26–27 near the apex of the Delta (̯ӭ ̦̫̬̰̱ӭ ̯̫ԉ ́ҝ̧̯̝). 39 17.1.30: ь̡̩̯ԉ̡̤̩ ̠Ҟ ѳ ̡̊Ӻ̧ң̭ ц̮̯̥̩ ѳ ѿ½Ҝ̬ ̯̫ԉ ́ҝ̧̯̝˶ ̯̫ҥ̯̫̰ ̠Ҟ ̯Қ ̨Ҝ̩ ̡̠̪̥Қ ̧̦̝̫ԉ̮̥ ̥̞̈ҥ̣̩ ж̩̝½̧ҝ̫̩̯̥, ҏ̮½̡̬ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Қ ½̡̬Ҡ ̯Ҟ̩ о̧̡̪қ̡̩̠̬̥̝̩ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Ҟ̩ ̡̝̬̉Ԗ̯̥̩, ̯Қ ̠Ӥ ц̩ ж̡̬̥̮̯̬Ӟ о̬̝̞ҡ̝̩. 40 17.1.34: ̯Ң ̨ҝ̧̧̯̝̫̩ ̯Ԗ̩ ̧ҡ̴̤̩, ц̪ ґ̩ ̝ѣ ½̨̰̬̝ҡ̡̠̭ ̡̟̟ң̩̝̮̥̩, ц̩ Ѷ̡̳̥ ̯̝Ӻ̭ ½̨̰̬̝ҡ̮̥̩ Ѵ̩ ½ҝ̬̝̩ ц̩ ̯ӭ о̬̝̞ҡӛ. Modern Atfih, cf. Gr(ieshammer) 1973: 519. 41 17.1.35: ѳ о̱̬̫̠̥̯̫½̧̫ҡ̯̣̭ ̨̩̫Ң̭ ̦̝Ҡ ѓ ѳ̨ҧ̨̩̰̫̭ ½ң̧̥̭ ц̩ ̯ӭ о̬̝̞ҡӛ. 42 17.1.44: ѓ ̡Ѣ̭ ̫̇½̯Ң̩ ̠̥Ԗ̬̰̪, ½ң̧̥̩ ̦̫̥̩Ҟ̩ ˾Ѣ̟̰½̯ҡ̴̩ ̡̯ ̦̝Ҡ о̬қ̴̞̩. Koptos was the major Nile port linking the Nile to the Red Sea and features prominently in Strabo’s account of Gallus’ campaign (16.4.24 & 17.1.44–45). Strabo included it in the Thebaid (16.4.24). 43 17.1.46: ̩̰̩Ҡ ̠Ҝ ̴̨̦̣̠Ң̩ ̡̮̰̩̫̥̦Ӻ̯̝̥, ̨ҝ̬̫̭ ̨ҝ̩ ̯̥ ц̩ ̯ӭ о̬̝̞ҡӛ ц̩ ҿ½̡̬ ѓ ½ң̧̥̭, ̨ҝ̬̫̭ ̠ҝ ̯̥ ̦̝Ҡ ц̩ ̯ӭ ½̡̬̝ҡӛ ѷ½̫̰ ̯Ң ̡̨̩̉ң̩̥̫̩.

So it is evident that of the desert region between the Nile and the Red Sea, only a 44

In 17.1.24 Strabo refers to Artemidorus in connection with the ten nomes of the Delta and discusses his presentation of regional variation in the length of the skhoinos. 45 17.1.41: э̪Ӭ̭ ̠Ӥ ц̮̯Ҡ̩ э̨̬̫½̧̫̥̯̥̦Ҟ ̧̱̰̝̦ҟ, ̡̧̯ҧ̩̥ң̩ ̯̥ ̯Ԗ̩ ц̦ ̯Ӭ̭ ̣̞̝̅ӹ̠̫̭ ̡̨̦̝̯̝̱̬̫ҝ̴̩̩˶ ц̡̩̯ԉ̡̤̩ ж̬̲Ҟ ̯Ԗ̩ ч̪̣̦̫̩̯̝̮̯̝̠ҡ̴̩ ̮̲̫ҡ̴̩̩ ы̴̭ ̰̏ҟ̩̣̭ ̦̝Ҡ ь̧̡̱̝̩̯ҡ̩̣̭ … 46 Cf. 17.1.54 and Eide et al. 1998: no. 190, pp. 828ff. In 17.1.53 he confines Cornelius Gallus’ activity to an attack on the City of Heroes and makes no mention of his Nubian campaign, cf. Eide et al. 1996: no. 163–5, pp. 689ff. 47 17.2.3: ½̡̬̥ҝ̡̲̯̝̥ … ж½Ң ̠Ҝ ̯Ӭ̭ о̬̝̞ҡ̝̭ ̨̦̬̣̩̫Ӻ̭ ̡̮̰̩̲ҝ̮̥̩. Strabo’s description of the Island of Meroê is incompatible with the actual landscape around Meroê.

40

R.H. Pierce: Strabo and the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan small part is included Strabo’s Arabia. For by far the greatest portion of that region one must turn to Strabo’s discussion of the region he refers to as Troglodytikê.

whatever the original orthography may have been, Strabo understood the name of the region to be Troglodytikê, the “Land of the Troglodytes.”

Troglodytikê and the Eastern Desert There has been some discussion about the orthography of the toponym Troglodytikê, and there are good grounds for thinking that Trogodytikê may have been the original spelling.48 Where it has been possible to control for variant readings in the manuscripts of Strabo’s text in publications, this toponym is consistently written Troglodytikê (̴̧̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦̐ҟ) with lambda, not Trogodytikê (̴̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦̐ҟ).49 The spelling with lambda indicates an interpretation of the name as the “Land of the Troglodytes,” i.e. of those who dwell in holes in the ground; and when Strabo uses the adverb ̴̧̯̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦Ԗ̭, “troglodytically,” with reference to some of the Pharusians in Libya, he means that they are housed in dwellings dug into the earth.50 His discussion of the Homeric Erembians involves an interpretation of that ethnonym as denoting people who “enter the earth” with the further comment that they are the “Troglodyte Arabians” who inhabit the side of the Arabian Gulf next to Egypt and Aithiopia.51 Thus Strabo’s Troglodytikê is linked to his defense of Homer as a geographer, and it is clear that

For the physical geography of this region one can discern five sources upon which Strabo draws; namely, Hipparchus, Erastosthenes and Artemidorus explicitly, Agatharchides by way of Artemidorus and Aelius Gallus by implication. In 2.5.36, Strabo refers to the Ptolemais in Troglodytikê in a discussion in the tradition of mathematical geography in which he has just cited Hipparchus (2.5.34–35),52 and in 16.4.4 he gives Eratosthenes53 as his source when he again refers to Ptolemais, this time with reference to the part of the west coast of the Arabian Gulf along Troglodytikê as far as Ptolemais and the country where elephants are hunted. In 16.4.5, again with reference to the coast of Troglodytikê, Strabo mentions the city Philotera, which he says was founded by a certain Satyros, who had been sent out to explore the Troglodytikê and elephant hunting grounds.54 There follow a city, Arsinoê,55 hot springs,56 Myos Hormos57 and Akathartos Bay with the city of Berenikê far inside. 58 Here Strabo cites Artemidorus as his source, but the whole paragraph is full of

48

The discussion goes back to at least 1869. For recent contributions cf. Burstein 1989: 109, note 1, and Scholl 1990: 594f. 49 The best published source for this information is Radt 2002, cf. 2.5.33 (p. 322) and 2.5.36 bis (p. 326). The text in the Loeb edition, Jones, 1931– 1949, also prints ̴̧̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦̐ҟ throughout; but although Jones says in his preface that he has printed a text which he himself has constituted with reference to Meineke’s and earlier editions, there is no way to control how rigorously he has focused on this particular toponym for variants. The Budé edition, Aujac and Laserre 1969–1996, too prints ̴̧̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦̐ҟ, but again there is some uncertainty about how closely possible variants have been sought out. 50 17.3.7: … ̯̥̩Қ̭ ̠Ӥ ̝Ѿ̯Ԗ̩ ̦̝Ҡ ̴̧̯̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦Ԗ̭ ̫Ѣ̡̦Ӻ̩ ̱̝̮̥̩ Ѳ̬ҥ̯̯̫̩̯̝̭ ̯Ҟ̩ ̟Ӭ̩. Moreover, in 11.5.7 he writes about tribes of troglodytes in the Caucasus who dwell in caves because of the cold (̴̧̯̬̟̫̠ҥ̯̝̥ ̯̥̩Ҝ̭ ц̩ ̴̧̡̱̫Ӻ̭ ̫Ѣ̦̫ԉ̡̩̯̭ ̠̥Қ ̯Қ ̳ҥ̲̣). 51 Cf. 1.1.3, 1.2.34, & 16.4.27.

52

Dicks 1960: 94 and 172–173, includes this passage as fragment 46 of Hipparchus. 53 Berger 1880: 288ff. fr. III B, 48 = 16.4.2–4. 54 Philotera probably lay in Safaga Bay, near Marsa Gawâsîs, where remains associated with expeditions to Punt since Pharaonic times have been found. Cf. W.J. M(urray) in Ball 1942: 183ff.; Meredith 1952: 94ff. esp. p. 105 and note 1; and S(impson) 1986: 1097ff. On Satyros see Tarn 1926: 98ff. Tarn seems to imply that Philotera lay far to the south where elephants were captured rather than in Egypt; in fact it was most probably Satyros’s home base. Cf. Casson 1993: 247ff. esp. 248f. The fragile tradition concerning Philotera and Satyrus may merit some further consideration. 55 Doubtless the same Arsinoê Strabo placed where the canal from the Nile entered the Arabian Gulf (17.1.25, v. supra p. 38). 56 ‘Ayn Sukhna. 57 Qusayr al Qadîm, Old Quseir. 58 Foul Bay and the ruins of Berenike.

41

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange parallels found in Agatharkhides59 and may ultimately originate from a still earlier source.

poses no further problems; and one may conclude that all the places Strabo lists in 16.4.5 lay north of the modern border between Egypt and Sudan.

Lastly, in 16.4.22 Strabo says that Augustus Caesar sent Strabo’s friend Aelius Gallus “to make a trial of” (̠̥̝½̡̥̬̝̮ң̨̡̩̫̩) the peoples and the places of both the Arabs and of Aithiopia because Augustus saw that the part of Troglodytikê contiguous to Egypt also bordered on Arabia and that the Arabian Gulf which separated the Arabs from the Troglodytes was extremely narrow.60

How Strabo in 16.4.22 visualized the northern boundary of Troglodytikê is not entirely clear, but it appears from his discussion in 17.1.25–30 that he placed it somewhere south of the canal to the Gulf of Suez and the City of Heroes but so far north as to include Philotera and Arsinoê. Since Strabo explicitly included in Arabia places in the Nile floodplain east of the Nile south to Thebes and by implication south to Meroê, his Troglodytikê should include all the region south of a line slightly north of Heliopolis and Arsinoê that lies between the eastern edge of the Nile Valley and the Arabian Gulf (i.e., the Red Sea). Its southern boundary should lie at least as far south as a line between Meroê (17.2.2) and Ptolemais (2.5.36 & 16.4.4).61 Thus Strabo’s Troglodytikê corresponds quite closely to the modern definition of the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan, including the Red Sea Hills and the coast of the Red Sea south to the Eritrean border and all of the Etbai,62 however it has been defined.

Strabo’s transition from Eratosthenes (16.4.4) as his main source to Artemidorus (16.4.5) is somewhat awkward. He has been using Eratosthenes as his source for Arabia and has carried his account south to the Bâb al Mandab (Deirê) at the southern end of the Arabian Gulf. He then turns to Artemidorus for a tidbit about people near Deirê being circumcised, only to move his account to the northern end of the Gulf and the City of Heroes. He then begins to list places along the Troglodytikê coast. His introductory phrase, “for those sailing from the City of Heroes along Troglodytikê,” suggests that his list was intended to proceed from north to south in geographical order, but Philotera should come after Arsinoê. The rest of his list

Greek geographical terminology had an ethnic dimension; and this is evident in many toponyms, not least in the names Arabia, which immediately suggests an association with Arabs, and Troglodytikê, which summons up thoughts about Troglodytes. There is, however, no exact correspondence between Strabo’s geographically defined Arabia and Troglodytikê and the Arab and Troglodyte ethnic composition of those regions which their names might imply. This will be substantiated in an investigation of Strabo’s ethnic terminology and the ethnic composition of Arabia and Troglodytikê as they relate to the Eastern Desert which is in preparation. 63

59

Burstein 1989: frgs 82c, 83c, and 84c. There is a suspicious similarity in wording between Strabo’s text in 16.4.5 (ж½Ң ̠Ҝ ћ̬ҧ̴̩ ½ң̴̧̡̭ ½̧ҝ̫̰̮̥ ̦̝̯Қ ̯Ҟ̩ ̴̧̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦̐Ҟ̩ ½ң̧̥̩ ̡Ѩ̩̝̥ ̴̧̥̯̒ҝ̬̝̩ ж½Ң ̯Ӭ̭ ж̡̧̠̱Ӭ̭ ̯̫ԉ ̡̠̰̯ҝ̬̫̰ ̧̡̨̯̫̝̍ҡ̫̰ ½̡̡̬̫̮̝̟̫̬̰̤Ӻ̮̝̩, ̝̯̏ҥ̬̫̰ ̦̯ҡ̨̮̝ ̯̫ԉ ½̡̨̱̤ҝ̩̯̫̭ ц½Ҡ ̯Ҟ̩ ̡̡̠̥̬ҥ̩̣̮̥̩ ̯Ӭ̭ ̯Ԗ̩ ц̧̡̱қ̴̩̯̩ ̤ҟ̬̝̭ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Ӭ̭ ̴̧̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦̐Ӭ̭) and that in 16.4.4 attributed to Eratosthenes (̯Ң ̠Ҝ ̦̝̯Қ ̯Ҟ̩ ̴̧̬̟̫̠̰̯̥̦̐ҟ̩, ѷ½̡̬ ц̮̯Ҡ̩ ц̩ ̡̠̪̥Ӟ ж½̫½̧ҝ̫̰̮̥̩ ж½Ң ћ̬ҧ̴̩ ½ң̴̧̡̭, ̨ҝ̲̬̥ ̨Ҝ̩ ̧̡̨̯̫̝̍ӹ̠̫̭ ̦̝Ҡ ̯Ӭ̭ ̯Ԗ̩ ц̧̡̱қ̴̩̯̩ ̤ҟ̬̝̭ … ). Agatharchides (frg. 81, from Diodorus Siculus 3.38.1–5) claims to have used royal hypomnemata as a source, and the information in these two passages is what one might expect to have been included in reports about explorers. On the other hand, they also share the familiar form of an itinerary, and could just as well come from a periplus. If they do come from a common source, then that source might well date to the earlier part of the Ptolemaic Period when the quest for elephants was a military priority. 60 In 16.4.24 Strabo notes that Gallus withdrew his army from Arabia across the Arabian Gulf to Myos Hormos.

61

Cf. Eide et al. 1998: no. 187, pp. 810ff. For the name Etbai see Krzywinski & Pierce 2001: 6. It is also written Atbai, cf. the National Geographic Society map, Middle East (Washington, D.C., February 1991), where it marks the Red Sea Hills in southern Egypt and Sudan south to the vicinity of Port Sudan. 63 Pierce, third millennium CE: in procrastination. 62

42

R.H. Pierce: Strabo and the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan

References

H(elck), W(olfgang). 1975. Fâqûs, LÄ 2.1 (1975): 113. H(elck), W(olfgang). 1976. Gaue, LÄ 2.3: 385– 408. Jameson, S. 1968. Chronology of the campaigns of Aelius Gallus and C. Petronius in The Journal of Roman Studies 58.1-2: 71–84. Jones, H.L. 1931–1949. The Geography of Strabo, vols. 1–8. Harvard U.P.: Cambridge, MA. Kidd, I. 1988. Posidonius. II. The commentary: (ii) Fragments 150–293. Cambridge U.P.: New York etc. Kidd, I.G. 1999. Posidonius. III: The translation of the fragments. Cambridge: U.P.: New York etc. Kramer, B. 2001. The earliest known map of Spain (?) and the geography of Artemidorus of Ephesus on papyrus, Imago Mundi 53: 115–120. Krzywinski, K. and R.H. Pierce (eds.). 2001. Deserting the Desert. A threatened Cultural landscape between the Nile and the Sea. University of Bergen, Department of Botany, Department of Greek, Latin and Egyptology: Bergen, 2001. LÄ = Lexikon der Ägyptologie. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Lewis, M.W. 1999. Dividing the Ocean Sea, Geographical Review 89.2: 188–214. Lukermann, F. 1961. The concept of location in Classical geography, Annals of the Association of American geographers, 51.2: 194–210. Meredith, D. 1952. Roman remains in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 38 (1952): 94–111. Posener, G. 1936. La première domination perse en Égypte, Recueil d’inscriptions hiéroglyphiques. = Bibl. d’Ét., t.11. Le Caire: IFAO. Powell, J. Enoch. 1935. Notes on Herodotus, The Classical Quarterly 29.2: 72–82. Radt, Stefan (ed.). 2002. Strabons Geographika. Mit Übersetzung und Kommentar. Bd. 1: Prolegomena. Buch I–IV: Text und Übersetzung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Scholl, R., 1990. Corpus der ptolemäischen Sklaventexte. = Akademie Mainz. Forschungen zur Antiken Sklaverei. Beiheft, 1. Stuttgart: Steiner. Sharar, Y. 2004. Josephus Geographicus. The Classical Context of Geography in Josephus. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Sihler, E.G. 1923. Strabo of Amaseia: his personality and his works, The American Journal of Philology, 44.2: 134–144.

Eide, T., T. Hägg, R.H. Pierce and L. Török (eds.) 1996–1998. Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, vols II & III. Bergen: Grieg. Aujac, G. and F. Laserre. 1969–1996. Strabo, vols I–X. Collection des Universités de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Ball, J. 1942. Egypt in the Classical Geographers. Cairo: Government Press. Berger, H. 1880. Die geographischen Fragmente des Eratosthenes. Leipzig: Teubner. Berger, H. 1903. Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen. 2nd rev. ed. Leipzig: verlag von Veit & Comp. B(ietak), M(anfred). 1978. Isthmus von Qantara, LÄ 3.2: 205–206. Biffi, N. 1999. L’Africa di Strabone. Libro XVII della Geografia. = Quaderni di “Inviglata Lucernis”, 7. Modugno: Edizioni dal Sud. Burstein, S.M. (ed.). 1989. Agatharchides of Cnidus. On the Erythraean Sea. London: Hakluyt Society. = Hakluyt Society Second Series, 172. B(utzer), K(arl) W. 1978. Kanal, Nil-Rotes Meer, LÄ 3.2: 312–313. Casson, L. 1993. Ptolemy II and the hunting of African elephants, Transactions of the American Philological Association 123: 247–260. Clarke, K. 1997. In search of the author of Strabo’s Geography, The Journal of Roman Studies 87: 92–110. Dicks, D.R., 1956. Strabo and the ȀȁǿȂǹȉǹ, The Classical Quarterly, N.S., 6: 243–24. Dicks, D.R. 1960 The Geographical Fragments of Hipparchus. London: Athlone Press. Dicks, D.R. 1971. Strabo I and II, The Classical Review 21.2: 188–194. Dueck, D. 2000. Strabo of Amasia: Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome. Routledge: London. Edelstein, L. & I.G. Kidd (eds.). 1972. Posidonius. Volume I: The Fragments. Cambridge: U.P. Engels, D. 1985. The length of Eratosthenes’ stade, The American Journal of Philology 106.3: 298–311. Engels, J. 1999. Augusteische Oikoumenegeographie und Universalhistorie im Werk Strabons von Amaseia. Stuttgart: Steiner. = Geographica Historica, Bd. 12. G(omaà), F(arouk). 1977. Herakleopolis parva, LÄ 2.8: 1127–1128. G(omaà), F(arouk). 1983. Saft el-Henna, LÄ 5.3: 351–2. Gr(ieshammer), R(einhard). 1973. Atfih, LÄ 1.4: 519.

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Definite Places, Translocal Exchange S(impson), W. K. 1986. “Wadi Gawasis,” LÄ 6.7 (1986): 1097–1099. Tarn, W. 1926. Polybius and a literary commonplace, Classical Quarterly 20: 98– 100.

44

WATER HARVESTING IN THE EASTERN DESERT OF EGYPT Jonatan Krzywinski

Fig. 1: View from NW of the Ptolemaic hydreuma, watering station, at Samut in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. (Photo: R.H. Pierce). Throughout history, outsiders have used the eastern desert of Egypt (ED) for purposes of commerce, communication through the desert and transit mercantile activity linked to the Red Sea and Indian production and communication. Caravan routes facilitated mining, quarrying and lines of supply and Ocean commerce. Water supply along the routes through this arid region must have been of prime importance. In the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, a chain of caravan stations with large cisterns were constructed along the routes from the Nile to the Red Sea. Previous research has focused on the use of well water to supply these stations. This article argues that Ptolemaic and Roman installations also utilized surface water through extensive systems of water harvesting.

from the outside who exploited the ED commercially. A short passage from the Roman geographer Strabo hints at how this was possible:

Presently, Egyptian authorities consider water availability in the ED insufficient for local nomads and the expanding tourist industry, and a main concern for any pre-modern traveller must have been the supply of water. There are plenty of places in this mountainous area where shallow wells can be dug to provide the limited amounts of water needed for smaller groups of animals and people. A problem arose, however, with growing amounts of transport through the desert. In Greco-Roman times, local water resources sustained not only a much larger nomadic population but also large numbers of people

Now in earlier times the camel-merchants travelled only by night, looking to the stars for guidance, and, like the mariners, also carried water with them when they travelled; but now they have constructed watering-places, having dug down to a great depth, and, although rainwater is scarce, still they have made cisterns for it.1 1

Strabo, Geography, 17.1.45, transl. Jones 2001, vol. 8: 121.

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Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

Map 1: Caravan routes in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and sites mentioned in the text. (J. Krzywinski).

46

J. Krzywinski: Water harvesting in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

Although the commercial exploitation of the ED goes back to Pharaonic times,2 it is only from the Ptolemaic period onwards that we find the fortified watering stations (hydreumata) mentioned by Strabo.3 With the Roman conquest of Egypt long distance trade activities increased significantly. The Romans laid out additional routes and police stations (praesidia).4 By the 6th century there was nothing left of the Roman dominance in the ED. The caravan trade itself outlived the Roman Empire, and played an important role in the eastern trade until modern times.

Water and water supply in the ED There is no doubt that wells were of vital importance to the water supplies for GrecoRoman activities in the ED, but wells also depend on rain. None of the ancient wells in the ED were based on groundwater, but on what is called “sub-surface seepage”, that is water on its way down to the ground water table. In the ancient period, as today, rainfall in the ED was, as far as our evidence allows us to form a judgment, highly variable and infrequent. How deep one must dig to find water depends on the geological situation, but if the catchment area for a certain well is without rainwater for a prolonged period, the well will eventually dry up. Luckily, it does rain, though not on every location every year, and certain locations can experience up to ten dry years in a row. Rainwater from heavy showers does not always penetrate the ground, but flushes down the wadis (valleys) towards the Red Sea or the Nile. Such flash floods frequently occur far away from where it actually rains. In most wadis, the amount of available water is thus much greater than the scarce amount of rainfall would indicate.

In an article called “Ptolemaic and Roman water resources and their management in the Eastern Desert of Egypt”,5 Steven E. Sidebotham has addressed the issue of water supplies in the ED in the ancient period. His study shows the prime importance of water management to Ptolemaic and Roman activities, and Sidebotham concludes that water supply relied on a combination of well water and cisterns filled from wells.6 This view has been shared by other commentators.7

Wells will also go dry or become salty if they are overused. Before motorized vehicles were introduced, travelers always had to worry whether they would find wells empty or bitter upon arrival. The effective way to make wells yield the amount of water needed for NileRed Sea caravans was to use them in combination with cisterns. Cisterns made it possible to extract more water from the wells than if wells were only used directly. From the number and capacity of cisterns we can assume that the wells were emptied repeatedly and water stored in cisterns for the main travel season, which must have coincided with the arrival of the monsoon fleet in early springtime.

This part of Sidebotham’s conclusions stands, but Sidebotham also argues the relative insignificance of surface water to Ptolemaic and Roman water supply.8 In contrast to this, I will argue that surface water was an integrated and important part of the water collection and storage system connected to the Ptolemaic and Roman installations in the ED. In Strabo’s description of the routes of the ED just cited, we read that cisterns were made for rainwater,9 even though it was scarce. Field studies indicate that a sophisticated system of water harvesting existed in the ED in the ancient period. Water harvesting denotes the collection of rainwater after showers, and this would help explain Strabo’s otherwise enigmatic passage.

But can we out rule surface water because it is unreliable? The cisterns could be filled with water either from wells or with surface water, and all the water reserves in the desert were unreliable. After rainfall, flash floods would wash past and disappear, and this is where water harvesting comes in. We know that people used water harvesting for agriculture in Libya and the Middle East in the same

2

Asthana 1976; Phillips 1997. Sidebotham and Zitterkopf 1996. 4 Kennedy 1985. 5 Sidebotham 2001: 91. 6 Sidebotham 2001: 92ff. 7 Bagnall, Bülow-Jacobsen, and Cuvigny 2002. 8 Sidebotham 2001: 91f. 9 Literally ‘(water) “from the heavens”, ek tôn ouraniôn, Strabo 17.1.45. 3

47

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

period.10 Rain in these areas was equally unreliable as in the ED and the average amount of rainfall was approximately the same.11 Water harvesting has a special potential in arid mountain areas like those of the ED, for water availability is not only decided by yearly rainfall, but also by catchment size in relation to drainage network complexity.

Gardens in the desert? In Life on the Fringe (1998) Marijke Van der Veen introduced a theory of “gardens in the desert”,14 where she followed up R.T.J. Cappers’s report about kitchen gardens in Berenice.15 Cappers found remains of vegetables that he believed must have been grown locally. Analogous with the habit of modern miners and soldiers in the area, Cappers argued that the ancient kitchen gardens were watered with wastewater. Sidebotham held that they were probably watered from wells and cisterns.16

The most common installations for water harvesting are dams and hafirs. Dams from the ancient period are well known, with spectacular examples from Marib (Yemen). Qohaito (Eritrea) and Harbaqa (Syria). The often less monumental and durable hafirs are artificial depressions around which the soil excavated from them forms a dike with its opening upstream12 (plate I). Hafirs are common in most arid lands, including modern Sudan and other places in Africa, and ancient examples are known from India and Meroe.13 Hafirs are placed in the khor of the wadi (the middle, where the water flows when there is any), and are often connected to walls that lead water into the structure. The hafir will collect surface water from flash-floods following showers occurring in different places in the catchment area of a wadi. In the context of the ED, water harvested in hafirs could then have been moved to the cisterns inside caravan stations for later use. The surface water that comes down the hills and valleys also washes down sand, silt, branches, goat droppings etc. When the water is stopped in the natural depression or by the water harvesting structure, it sinks down and leaves wet, nourishing silt. Such silts would provide the perfect environment for the growing of vegetables and crops in the ED in the ancient period, either on the edges of hafirs or dams, or grown after the surface water had been moved to the cistern. This mud mixed with plant remains and agricultural debris can be used in mudbricks. So far, so good, but were there hafirs in the ED in Ptolemaic and Roman times?

Van der Veen discovered seeds from vegetables and herbs in the archaeo-botanical material from the famous quarry at Mons Claudianus. The seeds indicated that the plants were grown in the desert. If not, the seeds would not have been developed.17 Another argument brought up by Van der Veen is the fact also pointedly argued by Bulow-Jacobsen,18 that some of the ostraca found at sites in the ED deal with sending and bringing vegetables.19 From the ostraca it is clear that these vegetables were not sent from the Nile valley.20 Samples taken from mudbricks and goat droppings from different ancient sites in ED by the interdisciplinary team from the University of Bergen (UIB), 21 draw a similar picture and offer additional information.22 The mudbrick samples show desert plants mixed with cereals, vegetables and herbs. These samples lack secondary pollen and spores that would have been present if they had been imported from the Nile Valley. 14

Van der Veen 1998. Cappers 1998. 16 Sidebotham 2001: 108. 17 Van der Veen 1998: 227. 18 Personal communication and Bülow-Jacobsen 1996, 1998. 19 Van der Veen 1998:228f. 20 Van der Veen 1998:228f. 21 The UIB-team have had 3 field seasons in the ED. 1995: Knut Krzywinski, Sekina Ayyad, Richard H. Pierce, Jonatan Krzywinski and Zakaria Baka. 1996: Knut Krzywinski, Richard H. Pierce, Jonatan Krzywinski and Gidske Andersen. 2003: Knut Krzywinski, Richard H. Pierce, Jonatan Krzywinski, Gidske Andersen and Jørgen Christian Meyer. 22 Krzywinski et al. 2001: 99ff. 15

10

Barker 1996; Schnitter 1994. Barker 1996. 12 Mohamed 2001. 13 Meroe, see Hinkel 1991. India, see Pankhurst 1972: 216. 11

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J. Krzywinski: Water harvesting in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

Using reference material taken from samples from Saqqara and Giza,23 F.B. Pyatt has analysed the silt constituents in mudbricks from the ED and from Saqqara and Giza in the Nile Valley. These analyses show that the silt from the valley was completely different from that in the ED.24

Ptolemaic period, but none of the waterproof plaster used for cisterns and normally associated with these forts. The gold washing site was also dated to the Ptolemaic period and contains several plastered cisterns. Both complexes reuse sandstone-building elements from an earlier structure. On a small hill 140 m northwest of the fort the surveyors found ceramics similar to those from the fort, along with Roman ceramics from the second to third centuries AD. The team believed that this could best be interpreted as a workshop area removed from the fort, which was later used as a camp site by travellers passing the abandoned site.28

From the results of Cappers, Bulow-Jacobsen, Van der Veen and the UIB-team, it is clear that vegetables and herbs were grown in the desert at places near Mons Caudianus and Berenike and the Coptos- Myos Hormos road. How was this possible in an environment proven to be not very different from what exists today?

When the Norwegian interdisciplinary team arrived at Samut in 2003, people looking for gold had vandalized the site. The combination of access to bulldozers and lack of all knowledge about the site suggested the work of modern miners. One of the things they had done was to dig a pit in the middle of the hydreuma ( fig. 2, overleaf). The pit measured 20 X 4 metres, going from ground level to more than two meters deep. The pit revealed something astonishing: its profile resembled lake sediments. Our first thought was that the sediments were from a prehistoric lake. In the period 8000-6000 BC, when the climate was different, there existed lakes in this area of which there are signs today, e.g. on the edge of the valley where the praesidium Afrodito is situated. The sediments at Samut are, however, different from sediments formed by prehistoric lakes. Lake profiles show slowly accumulating sediments. The Samut sediments are more complicated. They consist of sedimentation sequences. Each period starts with a layer that has been created by water with high energy depositing larger particles such as small stones and coarse sand. This layer gradually transgrades into the next one, which is often the thickest. It contains fine sand, again transgrading into a following thinner layer that contains fine silt, and on top there is a hard layer of clay of the type that forms when a wet surface dries out (fig. 3, overleaf). This surface is penetrated by plant roots. Forty periods were counted from the bottom to the top, with exactly the same layered sedimentary sequences. The

Maybe the most remarkable finding of the Norwegian group was the pollen from waterplants (Typha and Cyperacae).25 These water plants grow in standing water and are found in natural depressions in the ED, but how can these plants occur in the mixture of desert plants and crops grown locally as attested in the mudbricks? In Beduin life in the Egyptian wilderness Hobbes describes how the Ma’aza bedouin group in the ED grows crops and vegetables in natural depressions after rains.26 Vegetables could be grown with waste-water or well-water, but that would not be sufficient for waterplants and the production of mudbricks. The best available explanation for the presence of pollen from such waterplants along with pollen from local crops in mudbricks from ancient sites in the ED is that the Romans used hafirs in order to utilize surface water near their outposts. The Hydreuma at Samut, and a chance discovery The University of Michigan/University of Asiut Project has surveyed the ancient ED site of Samut.27 Samut consists of a station, hydreuma, (fig 1.) in the bed of the wadi and a huge gold washing site to the north and west. The station yielded local Hellenistic ceramics indicating occupation during the 23

Krzywinski et al. 2001 :104. Krzywinski et al. 2001 :104. 25 Krzywinski et al. 2001: 105. 26 Hobbs 1989: 45. 27 http://danenet.wicip.org/mbas/country/ egypt.html. 24

28

http://danenet.wicip.org/mbas/country/ egypt.html.

49

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Figs. 2 and 3: Looter’s pit in the Ptolemaic hydreuma at Samut. Notice the clearly defined sediments in the profile indicating regular flooding, detail below. (Photo: J. Krzywinski).

50

J. Krzywinski: Water harvesting in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

sediments could not result from anything other than water with great speed and high energy coming into this area and collecting in a larger pool where it settled down and suspended particles in it precipitated to form the sediments.

qalts, and the water stays for a long time. The situation of Abu Hegilig North is the only example we know of where a station is situated beside a qalt and it seems unlikely that qalts had any function in the water supply for the Coptos-Berenice route.30

How can we explain these sediments attesting about 40 periods of flooding inside the walls of the hydreuma at Samut? The sediments show that at some point in the history of the station, there may have been an artificial depression at the place, either before the station was built or as a secondary use of an abandoned station. A reasonable explanation is that this depression represents the remains of a hafir. At some time the use and maintenance of the structure was discontinued and the hafir gradually silted up, forming the layers visible in the profile of the looter’s pit.

Another enclosed cistern is located nearby at Abu Hegilig South. At its west end there is a channel leading into the structure.31 Where it starts or how it worked has yet to be established. Abu Hegilig South has similarities with Umm Qariyeh further northwest on the route between Falacro and Apollonos (fig. 5, overleaf). Both structures have similar strong, curved walls facing the wadi, the side on which floods would pass the structure, probably to strengthen the wall against floods. On the lack of nearby wells, Sidebotham argued that Abu Hegilig North and Abu Hegilig South were supplied by surface water provided by runoff.32 I would add that these enclosed cisterns are ideally situated to be filled with water harvested by means of hafirs in the wadi bed. There are no signs of such structures, but we have not surveyed the area for possible remains. It should be taken into consideration that dams or hafirs are situated where water comes with great force and traces of them are likely to have disappeared.

Without the looter’s pit, the sediments would never have been discovered, and the station needs more examination before anything can be verified. There are traces of charcoal in the profile that can be analysed. Is the possible hafir at Samut unique or rather part of a broader picture? It is clear that Samut was a place with a special need for water. The mining of gold required a lot of water to wash out the gold, and the other structures at Samut clearly show that this was the main activity at the site. But mining was not the only waterintensive activity in the ED. What about the needs of passing caravans and the resident guards at the different desert stations?

The route from Marsa Nakari to Edfu and the route from Berenice to Edfu also pass through the desert. On this route there is an enclosed cistern at Rod Umm el-Farraj (fig. 6). The site

Other possible cases of water harvesting in the ED On the route from Coptos to Berenice the military stations, praesidia, are about 30 km apart, a reasonable day’s or night’s journey for an ancient caravan. In the southern part of the route there are also several enclosed cisterns between the stations which merit closer attention.

30

Sidebotham stresses that there are no qalts near the routes (2001:90f.) The UIB-team found this to be mistaken: qalts are actually rather common: On a possible secondary or branch route up the Wadi Huluz identified by Professor Richard H. Pierce and the author in 2003, several qalts were observed. Publication is in preparation. In the same season several qalts with water were found at Hangaliya. The size of qalts differs, however, and many of them dry up quickly or are emptied in a short time by animals and people. Qalts are often situated in difficult terrain and it is doubtful whether caravans would stray from the normal route to find water there. 31 Also described in Sidebotham 2001: 91. 32 Sidebotham 2001: 91.

One of them, Abu Hegilig North, is a small station-like structure with a cistern (fig. 4, overleaf). Behind it there is a qalt in which there was water when visited in 1996. Qalts are natural depressions, normally in hard bedrock.29 Water from flash-floods fills the 29

Pierce 2001b:144.

51

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

Fig. 4: Cistern (background) and qalt (foreground, left) at Abu Hegilig North. The cistern was perhaps filled by floodwater coming down the hill this direction. (Photo: R.H. Pierce).

Fig 5: Enclosed cistern in the Wadi bed at Umm Qariyeh. Notice the strong, curved walls built to withstand floods. (Photo: J. Krzywinski).

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J. Krzywinski: Water harvesting in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

was surveyed by Sidebotham and has been mapped by G. Compton.33 In terms of water harvesting, however, the most interesting structure is a large, vaguely square structure to the south of the cistern. Situated in the khor of the wadi, it would catch all the water going down the valley during flash-floods. The wall has been breached at the back, and today the water passes through the structure. The structure satisfies the requirements for a hafir both in position and construction. Two other sites, Rod el-Buram and Bezah West, do not have the same visible structure but are otherwise identical to Rod Umm al-Farraj.

water harvesting. Are they examples of the kind of cisterns Strabo reported were made for rainwater? It seems likely, but further investigation is necessary in order to reach firm conclusions. Conclusion To sum up, the results from the mudbrick analyses show that there was standing water near some of the stations. I have argued that this water probably came from water harvested by means of hafirs situated in order to utilize surface water gathered from flashfloods after rainfalls. The finds of ostraca and mudbricks from Mons Caludianus and along the Coptos- Myos Hormos route indicate that water harvesting was not an exception, but an integrated part of the water supply in the ED. Enclosed cisterns between the main stations and the traces of structures possibly connected to them give additional indications of water harvesting along the caravan routes.

One of the stations on the route from Edfu to Berenice is Abu Midrik. Abu Midrik is a small station with two round cisterns.34 Just outside the station on its eastern side there is a structure that could be the remains of a hafir This is difficult to establish with certainty without a close examination of the site, but it is clearly a man-made structure, lying across the direction of the flow of wadi water. At Rod el-Liqah (fig. 7) there is another enclosed cistern with a possible cross-wadi wall ca 200 m away. The wall could be the remains of installations connected to water harvesting, Two walls found near the Hydreuma in Wadi Umm Husein, near Mons Claudianus were examined by David P.S Peacock.35 Peacock concluded that these walls must have been connected to water management, but not how. Analogous with walls found in Libya, Sidebotham concluded that they were supposed to divert wadi floods.36 The walls in Libya are, however, mainly cross wadi walls;37 while these walls clearly lead the water in another direction. Again, I would argue that the most reasonable explanation is that these walls lead the water into a hafir, but no traces of such structures remain on the surface, and only excavations can reveal if there was a hafir at the end of these walls.

This does not challenge the conclusion of S.E. Sidebotham, that the acquisition, storage and protection of water was an important task for the army in the ED.38 It does, however, underline the importance of surface water, and thus extends our picture of a complex and flexible system of water management designed to meet the needs of military, administrative and commercial communications in the ED. While the mudbricks attest the use of surface water for agriculture in the ED, the role of hafirs in the water supply to Roman and Ptolemaic installations requires further investigation. Considering the scarcity of water in the ED, it would be surprising if this source of water was used for agriculture only, but to test this hypothesis, the sites mentioned above need to be examined archaeologically. Hydrological modelling and terrain model analyses of the stations, their uplands and their possible water harvesting constructions, would make it possible to estimate and compare seepage and run off rates, and to model the water harvesting potential of these areas. This article can, therefore, offer only preliminary conclusions.

The installations mentioned above are all situated in a way that would enable them to make use of surface water gathered through 33

Sidebotham 2001: 102. Sidebotham 2001: 97f. 35 Peacock and Maxfield 1997 :171 36 Sidebotham 2001: 104 37 Gilbertson D.D. 1996 34

38

53

Sidebotham 2001: 112.

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

Fig. 6: Enclosed cistern at Rod Umm el-Farraj. Possible hafir structure in the background (arrow). (Photo: J. Krzywinski).

Fig. 7: Enclosed cistern at Rod el-Liqah (Photo: J. Krzywinski).

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J. Krzywinski: Water harvesting in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

References

and R.H. Pierce. Bergen: Alvheim & Eide akademisk forlag. Krzywinski, K. 2001. A Desert Landscape in Transformation, the Fossil Pollen Records. Pages 99-108 in Deserting the desert : a threatened cultural landscape between the Nile and the sea, edited by Krzywinski, K and R.H. Pierce. Bergen: Alvheim & Eide akademisk forlag. Meyer, C. L. H. 1998. Three seasons at Bîr Umm Fawâkhîr. Pages 197-212 in Life on the Fringe. Living in the Southern Egyptian Deserts during the Roman and earlyByzantine Periods, edited by Kaper, O. Leiden: Research School CNWS, Leiden University. Mohamed, B. 2001. Water in the Desert. Pages 61-74 in Deserting the desert : a threatened cultural landscape between the Nile and the sea, edited by Krzywinski, K and R.H. Pierce. Bergen: Alvheim & Eide akademisk forlag. Pankhurst, R. 1972. The history of Ethiopia's relations with India prior to the ninetheenth century. Pages 205-312 in Problemi Attuali di Scienza e di Cultura 191: IV Congresso Internazionale di Studi Etiopici (Roma 1015 aprile 1972). Roma:Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Peacock, D. P. S., and V. A. Maxfield. 1997. Mons Claudianus: Survey and Excavation, 1987-1993. Volume I. Topography and Quarries. Le Caire: Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale. Phillips, J. 1997. Punt and Aksum: Egypt and the horn of Africa. Journal of African History 38: 423-457. Pierce, R. H. 2001a. Outposts in the desert. Pages 95-98 in Deserting the Desert : a Threatened Cultural Landscape between the Nile and the Sea, edited by Krzywinski, K and R.H. Pierce. Bergen: Alvheim & Eide akademisk forlag. Pierce, R. H. 2001b. Past and Present in the Eastern Desert. Pages 143-166 in Deserting the Desert : a Threatened Cultural Landscape between the Nile and the Sea, edited by Krzywinski, K and R.H. Pierce. Bergen: Alvheim & Eide akademisk forlag. Sidebotham, S. E. 2001. Ptolemaic and Roman water resources and their management in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Pages 87-116 in Arid lands in Roman times : papers from the International Conference, Rome, July 9th-10th, 2001, Arid zone archaeology monographs 4. edited by Liverani, M. Firenze: Edizioni all'Insegna del Giglio. Sidebotham, S. E., and R. E. Zitterkopf. 1996. Survey of the hinterland. Pages 221-237 in

Asthana, S. P. 1976. History and archaeology of India's contacts with other countries from earliest times to 300 B.C. Dehli: B.R. Pub. Corp. Bagnall, R. S., A. Bülow-Jacobsen, and H. Cuvigny. 2002. Security and water on the Eastern Desert roads: the prefect Iulius Ursus and the construction of praesidia under Vespasian. Journal of Roman Archaeology 14:325–333. Cappers, R. T. J. 1998. A botanical contribution to the analysis of subsistence and trade at Berenike (Red Sea Coast, Egypt). Pages 6374 in Life on the Fringe. Living in the Southern Egyptian Deserts during the Roman and early-Byzantine Periods, edited by Kaper, O. Leiden: Research School CNWS. Barker, G. 1996. Farming the desert : the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Bülow-Jacobsen, A. 1996. Mons Claudianus, Organisation, administration og teknik i et romersk stenbrud fra kejsertiden, Studier fra sprog- og oldtidsforskning, vol. 326. København: Museum Tusculanum. ———. 1998. Traffic on the roads between Coptos and the Red Sea. In Life on the Fringe. Living in the Southern Egyptian Deserts during the Roman and earlyByzantine Periods, edited by Kaper, O. Leiden: Research School CNWS. Gilbertson D.D., H.C.O. 1996. Romano-Libyan Agriculture: Walls and Floodwater Farming. Pages 191-225 in Farming the desert, edited by Baker, G. Tripoli: Unesco. Hinkel, M. 1991. Hafire im antiken Sudan. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 118:32–48. Hobbs, J. J. 1989. Bedouin life in the Egyptian wilderness. Cairo & Austin: The American University in Cairo Press & University of Texas Press. Jones, H. L. 2001. The Geography of Strabo with an English Translation, Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass. / London: Harvard University Press. Original edition, 1917-1932. Kennedy, D. L. 1985. The Composition of a Military Work Party in Roman Egypt (ILS 2483: Coptos). Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 71:156-160. Krzywinski, J. 2001. Charcoal in the Eastern Desert in Roman and Byzantine Times. Pages 133-142 in Deserting the desert : a threatened cultural landscape between the Nile and the sea, edited by Krzywinski, K

55

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange Berenike 1995, preliminary report of the 1995 excavations at Berenike (Egyptian Red Sea Coast) and the survey of the Eastern Desert edited by Sidebotham, S. E. and W. Wendrich. Leiden: CNWS. Van der Veen, M. 1998. Gardens in the desert. Pages 221-243 in Life on the Fringe. Living in the Southern Egyptian Deserts during the Roman and early-Byzantine Periods, edited by Kaper, O. Leiden: CNWS.

56

J. Krzywinski: Water harvesting in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

Plate I

Modern hafir in the Red Sea hills of Sudan. (Photo: J. Krzywinski).

Indus R. SKYTHIA Ganges R. Minnagar? Barbarikon Ozênê Minnagara? Barygaza

Narmada R.

ARIAKÊ

Kalliena

Paithana Godvari R. SATAVAHANAS Andhra Pradesh

Krishna R.

Bay of Bengal

Arabian Sea /

Arikamedu CHOLA Co Karur im ba tor e Muziris Uraiur Madurai PANDYA Nelkynda Alagankulam

CHERA

Cor om and

Kaveri R.

el C o

ast

Western Indian Ocean

t as Co ar lab Ma

Kaveripattinam

Korkai Cape Comorin

Komari Sri Lanka

KINGDOMS Places Modern Names

Map 3: India at the time of the Periplus

EHS

ROMAN COINS AS A SOURCE FOR ROMAN TRADING ACTIVITIES IN THE INDIAN OCEAN* Jørgen Christian Meyer This paper discusses the methodological problems using Roman coins as a source to Roman trade in Indian Ocean. The conclusion is that the coins are a relatively poor source for the Roman trading activities, but a much better source for the political, social and economic situation in India and Indian Ocean itself.

Roman coins are by far the most impressive archaeological evidence of Roman contacts with India.1 More than 6000 silver and gold coins, mainly from hoards, have been recorded on the Indian subcontinent.2 The bulk of the coins derive from the southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, particularly the Coimbatore region. Other important finds have been made along the Krishna River and on the east coast of Andhra Pradesh. There are also a few scattered finds from northern Pakistan near Rawalpindi along the route stretching from east to west towards the Khyber Pass. However, no extensive finds have been recorded in Northern India or in the south-eastern part of Pakistan at the mouth of the Indus. The chronological distribution of

the silver coins, denarii, shows a predominance of early imperial coinage, especially from the reign of Augustus and Tiberius, whereas coins post-dating the reforms of the currency by Nero in 64 AD, debasing the silver with c. 7% copper alloy, are almost absent. Rep. Akenpalle Akhilandapuram Budinathan Bangalore Airp. Iyyal Karur 1856 Karur 1878 Kathanganni Nasthullapur Pollachi Salihundam Vellalur 1841 Vellalur 1891 Yeswanpantur

* The author is much obliged to Erik Christiansen, Aarhus University, for his advice on numismatic matters and to Richard Holton Pierce, University of Bergen, for his help with the English language. 1 For a critical discussion of the ceramic evidence, the so-called ‘rouletted’, ‘red polished’ and ‘moldmade’ ware, once thought to be dependent on Roman prototypes (Begley 1991: 157), see Ray 1993; Ray 1994: 59ff.; MacDowall 1996: 79ff. The only safely identified imports of ceramics from the Mediterranean are amphora sherds and terra sigillata, primarily from Arikamedu on the east coast, once thought to be a thriving Roman trading station, but they are few in number. The identification of Arikamedu as a Roman site has rightly been questioned. Ray 1994: 67ff.; Ray 1995: 101f.; MacDowall 1996: 81; Slane 1991; Seland (this volume). 2 Turner 1989; Wheeler 1946: 116ff. It is of course completely pointless to try to make any calculations of the amount of coins imported into India based on the finds. Coins were melted down in antiquity. Many hoards were surely discovered and the coins melted down up through the centuries. Registration of the finds in modern times is dependent on local administrations and their control over chance discoveries in their districts.

42

Aug.

Tib.

Cal.

Clau.

721 x 369 124 10 x 27 x 12 x

771 x 1029 126 6 x 90 x 25 x 11 378 329 x

2

11

135 189 x

3 3 x

5 13

Nero pre 64 1

Later

2

1

1 1

Chart 1: Hoards containing Julio-Claudian denarii.

The gold coins, aurei, show a slightly later distribution (Tiberius, Claudius and Nero), but also here coins post-dating the reforms of Nero, when he reduced the weight, but not the purity of the aureus, are extremely rare.3 From the second century AD coinage only aurei are found, with some concentration of coins from the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Septimius Severus, but the total number is markedly less than the first century AD.4 There seems to be a gap in the third century AD, but fourth century AD Roman gold coins, solidi, reappear not only in India, but also in Sri Lanka. This late period is also 3

Burnett 1998: 182. Post-Julio-Claudian gold coins make up a total of c. 380 coins, most of them from entire second century AD compared to the c. 660 gold coins and c. 5500 silver coins from the Julio-Claudian period. Turner 1989: 123ff. 4

59

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

pattern.8 Firstly, most of the surviving denarii and aurei of the Julio-Claudian period from India show extensive signs of wear, and they must have circulated for some time before they were hoarded. We have no evidence that the Roman coins were exported soon after they were first issued in Rome and that the wear was due to circulation in India.9 Rather, they must have circulated for some time in the Roman Empire. Secondly, the composition of the Indian hoards is not identical in composition to the hoards in the Roman Empire. The denarii found in India have a high standard of silver purity, and they are easily recognised by distinctive reverse types. The coins seem to have been carefully selected from the denarii in common circulation in the Roman Empire also after the currency reforms of Nero, which were not followed up by recalling older coinage.10 The Indian traders clearly had a good knowledge of the silver purity of the Roman denarius, only accepting those issues where a distinctive reverse type was a guarantee for high purity.11 There was no need to test the individual coins and they could be accepted by weight, which was also advantageous to the Roman trader. The very low percentage of silver coins after Tiberius up to the currency reform of Nero is probably due to the fact that the minting of silver at Rome was very restrained in this period, but very active for gold.12 This is reflected in the gold hoards, which have a slightly later composition. Even if Nero did not reduce the purity of gold but only the weight of the coin, the debasement of the denarius probably also affected the Indian traders’ confidence in post-reform as well as Flavian gold coins, which are scarce in the hoards. In addition, the aurei were to some extent selected for the Indian market in a process similar to that followed for the denarii.13 Generally speaking, the Indian traders preferred the pre-reform coins.

represented by large quantities of Roman copper from the fourth and fifth century AD in Sri Lanka and Southern India.5 The latest Roman gold coins from India belong to the reign of Heraclius in the early seventh century AD. Adam Iyyal Kalliyampattur Kottayam Madura Nagarapadu Nandyal Puddudota

Aug. 1

Tib. 10

9

6 28

9 2

18 17

33

167

Cal.

Clau.

Nero

Later

Latest

8 6 2

2 18 16 5 23 8

1 17 16 3 3 19

1 5

98-99 97

1

82-96

3

159

115

Ant. Pius 75-79

14

3

Chart 2: Hoards containing Julio-Claudian aurei

What can this numismatic evidence tell us about the Roman pattern of trade, both from a chronological and geographical point of view? Some earlier authors have drawn conclusions directly from the chronological distribution of the coins in the hoards to the intensity of the Roman trade with India. R. Sewell, P.L. Gupta and P.J. Turner supposed that there was a major thrust of trade in the later part of Augustus’ reign.6 Even before the reforms of Nero the Indian traders probably began to lose confidence in the denarius, and the aureus took over in the exchange, definitely after 64 AD. In the second century AD the trade continued, but on a smaller scale. According to Turner, the period of the great volume of trade from India to the Roman Empire was restricted in time to the earlier part of the first century AD, though in the second century AD there probably were minor trade booms during the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Septimius Severus. The fourth and fifth centuries AD also saw a new rise in eastern trade now also including Sri Lanka.7 These conclusions, however, are not tenable from a methodical point of view. D.W. MacDowall and A. Burnett have presented a much more complicated picture of the relationship between the coins and the trade

8

MacDowal 1996: 81ff.; MacDowal 2004: 39ff.; Burnett 1998. 9 For a different view Hall 1999: 434. 10 MacDowal 1996:82f.; Burnett 1998: 184. 11 Pre-reform coinage with low or variable silver content is not included in the hoards. Turner 1989: 23; MacDowall 1996: 89; Burnett 1998: 181. 12 Burnett 1998: 182. 13 Burnett 1998: 184.

5

Bopearachchi 1996: 70f., Weerakkody 1997: 163ff.; Krishnamurthy 1994. 6 Sewell 1904; Gupta 1965; Turner 1989 43f.; Turner and Gribb 1994 also Slane 1991: 212. 7 Turner 1989: 20.

60

J. C. Meyer: Roman coins as a source for Roman trading activities in the Indian Ocean

Both MacDowall and Burnett date the beginning of the import and the selection of special issues after the currency reform of Nero because of the uniformity of the finds, indicating large shipments rather than constant supply.14 However, we have no reason to suppose that the Indian traders in an earlier period would not have been aware of the quality of the different issues, and some of the coins may very well have reached India antecedent to the reform. This, however, does not affect the main conclusion that the date of the import of the Julio-Claudian pre-reform denarii and aurei to India must be much later than supposed by Turner, i.e. mainly the second half of the first century AD. The calling in of worn coins in 107 AD by Trajan marked the beginning of the end of circulation of pre-Neronian coins of good quality within the Roman Empire and thus also of the export of Roman silver coinage and Julio-Claudian pre-reform aurei to India.15 In the second century AD the aurei, including some post-Julio-Claudian coins, took over, but this time they were not specially selected.16 They represent the coins in circulation in the Roman Empire, and several of the coins are in superb condition, indicating only a short period from the coining to the import into India.17

amounts of money, ̲̬ҟ̨̝̯̝ ½̧̡Ӻ̮̯̝, to be imported into the harbours of southern India.18 The problem is, however, that the Periplus should probably be dated to the second half or perhaps even as early as to around the middle of the first century AD, and the Periplus is no source for the market mechanisms in the following century.19 The same is true of Pliny’s complaints about the huge amount of sesterces absorbed by the eastern trade every year.20 As noted by most authors the Indians treated Roman coinage as bullion, i.e. by the value of its weight. The face value of distinctive types was based on the silver purity of the coin, not on a fixed value of the coin as such. Coins were part of a much wider trade in metals, not only gold and silver as bullion, but also copper, tin and lead.21 On this line of thought the second half of the first century AD was a period when both the Roman traders and their Indian counterparts found the use of coins most convenient in their transactions among other things.22 In the second century AD coins probably had a less important position in the exchange, but this is no indication of any decrease in the volume of goods brought from India to the Red Sea ports. There may also be another explanation of the difference between the first and second century AD finds. It is significant that the finds from Southern India, especially the Coimbatore region, constitute no less than c. 70% of the silver coins and 90 % of the gold coins from the first century AD. At first sight this agrees well with the importance of the

The chronology of the finds and the date of the import of Roman coinage to India must thus be revised, but how does this affect our understanding of the Roman trade with India? Does the fact that the amount of Roman coinage from the second century AD in the Indian finds is far less than in finds from the first century AD also indicate a diminishing trade shortly after 100 AD? This presupposes that the only commodities the Roman merchants could offer to the Indians in exchange of pepper, silk etc. were gold and silver in the shape of coins both in the first and the second century AD. Do we have a parallel to the modern European trade with China in the 17th and 18th century? Indeed the Periplus Maris Erythraei, the famous trader’s guide to the Indian Ocean, does specify large

18

Periplus 56. For a short discussion of the date with references, see Casson 1989: 6f. and Robin 1991. If Robin’s date is correct Periplus antedates the reforms of Nero, and by that also the period when large amount of coinage reached India according to MacDowall. 20 Pliny, Natural History 6.101, 12.84. Already Tiberius complained about sending money out of the empire. Tacitus Annales 3.53. The complaints have strong moral undertones, and we do not know how Pliny reached his exact figures (50 million sesterces). However, there is no reason to doubt that the eastern trade involved large sums of money and also huge profits. Young 2001: 202ff. 21 Periplus 49 and 56. 22 MacDowall 1996: 94; Burnett 1998: 187. 19

14

Burnett 1998: 184; MacDowall 1996: 94. Bolin 1958: 57; MacDowall 1996: 89; Dio Cass. 68.15. 16 Turner 1989: 123. 17 Burnett 1998: 185. 15

61

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

Malabar Coast in the Periplus and the advice to bring a great amount of money.23 Here Roman traders acquired not only pepper and precious stones from the hinterland, but also other commodities such as pearls and Chinese silk. The latter travelled the long way from China across the Tarim Pendi to Afghanistan, along the Ganges and the east coast of India down to the markets in southern India. The finds are also concentrated along the important communication line between the east and the west coast through the Palghat pass offering travellers and traders an alternative route to the sea voyage through the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka and around Cape Comorin.24

connection between violence and unrest on the one hand and the recovery in modern times of hoards on the other.28 Also in Roman Italy there seems to be a general correlation between the finds of larger hoards and major wars.29 From this point of view, the extensive finds of Roman coins in southern India testify not only to the importance of the area in the Roman trade, but also to disturbances which prevented the owners from coming back and regain their hoards. These might have been internal unrest or wars among the three kingdoms in southern India, the Chola, the Chera and the Pandya, a situation amply reflected in the numerous Tamil poems describing struggles among the three kings.30 The second half of the first century AD was definitely favourable for the preservation of hoards for posterity. To what extent this changed in the second century AD is an open question.

However, things are more complicated than that. Finds of single coins from the JulioClaudian period are not common.25 Most of the coins derive from hoards. The largest ones from Akenpalle, near Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, and Budinatham, near Coimbatore, contained 1531 and 1398 silver coins respectively, amounting to considerable fortunes.26

The importance of also including the local Indian setting is evident if we try to elucidate the geographical extent of the Roman trading system and the importance of the different districts in relation to each other. Of course no one would claim that the existence of Roman coins testifies to the presence of Roman traders. Even if we found several Roman denarii at Arikamedu on the east coast of India, it would not be methodologically sound to identify the site as a Roman trading station.31 Coins are not perishable unless they are melted down, in contrast to amphoras or terra sigillata which lose their value as a container or item of exchange when they are broken. Roman coins were easily included in non-Roman networks, as a means of payment in bartering transactions, foreign trade or gift giving between local chiefs and they could travel huge distances. The issue cannot be solved by

The reason for the burial of caches of money may be times of unrest, longer stays away from home or just a way of storing wealth in a secure place.27 The crucial point is not the reason for the hoarding, but the fact that the owner was not able to come back and regain his possessions, either because he and his family were killed or deported. Sture Bolin was the first to point out the important 23

Periplus 56. According to the Periplus (60) goods were also transported along the coast all year from Limyrikê to the ports of the east coast in smaller vessels independent of the monsoon winds. Casson 1989: 230. 25 Turner 1989: 7. 26 Turner 1989: 123. Other large silver hoards: H.A.L. Airport, Bangalore 256, Karur, east of Coimbatore c. 500, Kathanganni, Coimbatore 233, three hoards from Vellalur, Coimbatore 522, 547, 121, Yeswantpur, north of Coimbatore 163. The largest gold hoards are from Pudukottai, in southeastern India, containing 501 coins, and Kottayam, on the west coast north of Calicut, containing several hundreds. 27 Champakalakshmi suggests that the coins were hoarded as protection money, deposits or sureties. Champakalakshmi 1996: 110. 24

28

Bolin 1926: 207ff. Crawford 1969. Crawford also includes recruiting to foreign wars in his discussion. 30 Large parts of the two Puram anthologies, Puranannuru and Patirruppattu, and some of the Pattupattu, esp. Porunararrupatai and Mullaipattu are concerned with war and warfare. See also Champakalakshmi 1996: 98 and Sastri 1976: 134ff. on Tamil warfare. 31 For an updated discussion of the finds from Arikamedu with references, see Begley 1993:93ff. and Begley 1996. 29

62

J. C. Meyer: Roman coins as a source for Roman trading activities in the Indian Ocean

the archaeological evidence, only by using our written sources. Strabo gathering his information at the times of Augustus states that only a small number of Roman merchants have sailed as far as the Ganges.32 The author of the Periplus had firsthand knowledge of the eastern waters, and it is noteworthy that his descriptions of both the Persian Gulf33 and the east coast of India34 are extremely short and include exotic descriptions of the local populations.35 The geographical information, which in other parts of the Indian Ocean seem to be very correct even for a modern reader, is inaccurate. Sri Lanka, Taprobanê, is said to reach almost the coast of Africa, Azania.36 The description of the ports is different, too. Along the east coast of India the Periplus mentions three ports of trade, ц̨½ң̬̥̝, Kamara, Podukê and Sôpatma.37 He does not specify any export items, which is normal for the ports of the west coast, only the goods brought from Limyrikê along the coast all year in local boats. The goods include both the Roman imports to Limyrikê and local goods originating from Limyrikê.38 Other vessels, like very big dugout canoes, ̮қ̩̟̝̬̝, were specially designed to negotiate the shallow waters between Sri Lanka and India, whereas much larger ships, ̴̧̦̫̝̩̠̥̫̱̩̯̝, sailed across to Chrysê, the regions to the far east,39 and up to Ganges. The three ports of trade were clearly transit centres in an eastern network operated by non-Roman merchants. Other localities in the northern part of Sri Lanka, the northern part

of the Bay of Bengal and at the mouth of the river Ganges, are mentioned too, but only as export items are concerned,40 corresponding to the Periplus account of the Persian Gulf.41 This is in contrast to the description of the Arabian coast, the west coast of India and even the East African coast down to Rhapta, where he always specifies both import and export items.42 The author’s knowledge of the Persian Gulf and the area east of Cape Comorin is clearly secondary, indicating that Romans merchants were not active to a large extent in these waters in the first century AD. Another crucial point is the areas where we would have expected to find coins, but where the finds are extremely scanty or even absent.43 A famous example is Barbarikon at the mouth of the Indus River, which according to the Periplus exported among other things Chinese silk cloth and not least the much-coveted lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. Lapis lazuli is not mentioned as an export item in any of the other ports of the Indian Ocean. However, not a single Roman coin has been found in the area even if the Periplus mentions: Vessels moor at Barbarikon, but all the cargoes are taken up the river to the king at the metropolis. In this port of trade there is a market for: clothing, with no adornment in good quantity, of printed fabric in limited quantity; multicoloured textiles; peridot; coral; storax; frankincense; glassware; silverware; money (̲̬ҟ̨̝); wine, limited quantity.44

Coins were surely a part of the trade commodities taken by the Roman merchants, though the Periplus does not specify large amounts of money, ̲̬ҟ̨̝̯̝ ½̧̡Ӻ̮̯̝, as with the harbours of southern India along the Malabar coast.45 The explanation for the absence of Roman coinage is probably not that the import was very limited, but that the king exercised some kind of monopoly on the

32

Strabo 15. 4. 33 Periplus 34-36. 34 Periplus 61-65. 35 Periplus 34; 60-62. 36 Periplus 61; Casson 1989: 230f. 37 Periplus 60. For a discussion of the possible identification of the sites see Casson 1989: 228f. 38 The Periplus also mentions ̲̬Ӭ̨̝ ̯Ң ж½Ӧ ˾Ѣ̟ҥ½̯̫̰. As the Egyptian tetradrachm had very low silver content, only 17% after Nero,,it was useless as a means of payment in India. The ̲̬Ӭ̨̝ in question must be the cash brought from the Egyptian harbours of the Red Sea to the west coast of India, even if a few early Alexandrian tetradrachms have been registered in Sri Lanka. The Museum in Calcutta also contained a group of Alexandrian billon tetradrachms of unknown provenience. Weerakkody 1997: 158f.; Turner 1989: 90f. 39 Casson 1989: 235.

40

Periplus 61-65. Periplus 34-36. 42 Periplus 14-17. The exact identification of Rhapta is uncertain, probably Dar es Salaam. Casson 1989: 141. 43 This is also true of Southern Arabia. Periplus 24 and 28. 44 Periplus 39. 45 Periplus 56. 41

63

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange

import as stated in the Periplus.46 Most of the Roman coins did not enter the open market but were melted down into local currency.

entered the market, but so far no Roman coins have been found in the area. According to the Periplus, the king of the region assumed the responsibility for guiding the large ships from the river mouth up to the market,52 and this was probably a good source of revenue for the king. Further, exotic items, such as precious silverware, slave musicians, beautiful girls, fine wine etc. were imported especially for the king, but otherwise the Periplus does not mention any centralized royal control of the transactions in contrast to Barbarikon.53 The coins are intended for the market, not the king.54 The king does not seem to have called in foreign coins as the Periplus mentions that older drachmas from the reign of Apollodotus and Menander (c. 150-100 B.C.) of the IndoGreek kingdom in northern India were still to be found on the market.55 In both Barygaza and Barbarikon we find local silver coinage, in contrast to the kingdoms in southern India, and thereby also the chance that Roman coins were melted down for minting, but this can not be the only explanation for the absence of finds in the area around Barygaza. Other preconditions for the preservation of hoarded coins for the future, such as war etc., were obviously not present.

Further south along the west coast, the Periplus mentions Barygaza as another important port of trade to which commodities from the region were brought.47 This was not only a market where the Roman merchants could obtain spices, silk, precious stones etc., but also a place where they could exchange Roman gold and silver coinage, ̠̣̩қ̬̥̫̩ ̲̬̰̮̫ԉ̩ ̦̝Ҡ ж̬̟̰̬̫ԉ̩, at some profit against the local currency, цȞIJңʌȚȠȞ ȞңμȚıμĮ.48 This is the only place in the Periplus where the type of coinage to be imported is specified. Normally the unknown author uses the general word, ̲̬ҟ̨̝ or ̲̬ҟ̨̝̯̝, for coinage. The exact meaning of this passage is uncertain. M. Raschke suggests that it was due to the high quality of the pre-reform denarii and he stresses that the number of coins imported to Barygaza was limited compared to the import into the ports of southern India.49 This explanation is not satisfactory if the Indians treated the Roman denarii as bullion i.e. by weight. L. Casson minimizes the importance of the transactions. It was only a result of temporary market conditions: “Perhaps Western merchants came out somewhat ahead by using local currency to buy whatever Indian products they had to, or Indian merchants by using Roman currency to buy Western products they had to, or both.”50 MacDowall pays attention to a possible different gold : silver ratio in Rome (1:12) and India (1:10), combined with the changes in Rome after Nero’s reforms, affecting both the import of silver and gold coinage.51 MacDowall’s chain of argument is very complicated indeed, and I must admit that I am not able to comprehend how the system worked out in practice. Whatever the explanation we have no reason to minimize or even doubt Periplus’ statement that a profit could be made. This is no digression in Periplus’ account and a reasonable amount of Roman coins must have

Of course the absence of Romans coins may be due to the regrettable fact that the modern local administrations have not always been able to exercise any control over the 52

Periplus 44. Periplus 49. 54 This is in contrast to Periplus’ account (28) of the import into Kanê in southern Arabia, where money, ̲̬ҟ̨̝̯̝, together with embossed silverware, ̯̫̬[̩]̡̰̯Қ ж̬̟̰̬ҧ̨̝̯̝, is mentioned as part of the gifts to the king. However, according to Casson this passage is likely to be corrupt (Casson 1989: 255). ̲̬ҟ̨̝̯̝ may be a substitution for ̲̬̰̮ҧ̨̝̯̝, goldware or wrought gold. The reason for the doubt of the authenticity of the text is intertextual. Almost the same items are taken to the Arabian king and govenor in Muza (Periplus 24), but here goldware, ̲̬̰̮ҧ̨̝̯̝, and embossed silverware, ж̬̟̰̬ҧ̨̝̯̝ ̡̡̨̯̯̫̬̰ҝ̩̝, are mentioned together. Goldware is not found in the account of the import into Kanê at all. As for the items imported into the market of Kanê, the Periplus states that they are identical with the imports into Muza, including money, with some additions. 55 Periplus 47, Casson 1989: 205f. For an opposing view, see Turner 1989: 6. 53

46

For a different view Casson 1989: 31. Periplus 43-49. 48 Periplus 49; Casson 1989: 209. 49 Raschke 1978: 747. 50 Casson 1989: 209. 51 MacDowall 1996: 92. 47

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J. C. Meyer: Roman coins as a source for Roman trading activities in the Indian Ocean

discovery of ancient coin hoards or even to perform some registration of the contents before the coins were dispersed, melted down or sent into the international market of antiquities, but as far as I know north-western India does not differ in that respect from the Coimbatore region in southern India or Andrah Pradesh. Coins from Hellenistic, Scythian and local rulers have in fact been recorded in the north.56

Roman merchants and their Indian counterparts. Fluctuations in the quantity of coins over time do not necessarily reflect changing intensity in the trade. The geographical distribution of the finds is not identical to the Roman trade pattern. The coins do not tell us anything essential that we did not know from our written sources, especially the Periplus. However, the coins seem to be a much better source for the political, social and economic situation in the Indian Ocean and India itself.

The reason for the absence of Roman coins can thus be:

References 1. The Romans did not trade with the area at all.

Begley, V. 1991. Ceramic Evidence for PrePeriplus trade on the Indian Coasts. Pages 157-196 in Rome and India. The Ancient Sea Trade, edited by Begley, V. and R.D. de Puma. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ———. 1993. New investigations at the port of Arikamedu. Journal of Roman Archaeology 6: 93-108. ———. 1996a. Changing perceptions of Arikamedu. Pages 1-39 in The Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations and Researches 1989-1992, volume one, edited by Begley, V. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. ———. 1996b. Some Arikamedu fine wares in the Pondicherry Museum. Pages 369-387 in The Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations and Researches 1989-1992, volume one, edited by Begley, V. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. Bolin, S. 1926. Fynden av romerska mynt i det fria Germanien. Studier i romersk och äldre germansk historia, Lund: C.W. Lindström. German résumé in Ber. Röm.-Germ. Kommission 19 (1929): 86-145. ———. 1958. State and Currency in the Roman Empire to 300 AD. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell/Geber. Bopearachchi, O. 1996. Seafaring in the Indian Ocean: Archaeological evidence from Sri Lanka. Pages 59-77 in Tradition and Archaeology. Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian Ocean, edited by Ray, H.P. and J-F. Salles. New Delhi: Manohar. Burnett, A. 1998. Roman coins from India and Sri Lanka. Pages 179-189 in Origin, Evolution and Circulation of Foreign Coins in the Indian Ocean, edited by Bopearachchi, O. and D.P.M. Weerakkody. New Delhi: Manohar. Casson, L. 1989. Periplus Maris Erythraei. Text with Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

2. The Romans traded with the area, but coins were not involved. 3. The Romans traded with the area and coins were also a part of the exchange, but local authorities controlled the market, and the coins did not enter any kind of “circulation”. 4. The Romans traded with the area and coins were a part of the exchange. The coins also went into some kind of circulation, but the political situation was sufficiently stable to allow owners to regain their possessions from possible hoards.

These conclusions must be seen in relation to areas where Roman coins are in fact recorded. The occurrence of larger numbers of Roman coins testifies to: 1. A situation where both the Roman traders and their Indian counterparts found the use of coins most convenient in their transactions if other sources clearly indicate that Roman merchants were actually trading in the area. 2. The absence of a central authority that controlled the market and absorbed the coins for its own use (melted them down).57 3. A political situation where the owners of the hoards were not able to come back and regain their possessions.

Roman coins are thus a relatively poor source for Roman trading activities in the Indian Ocean from the time of the early Principate up to late antiquity even if they can elucidate some of the trading transactions between the 56

Mitchiner 1976. This of course does deny the existence of a central authority as such.

57

65

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt ii 9.2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Ray, H.P. 1993. East coast trade in peninsular India, c. 200 BC AD 400. In South Asian Archaeology 1991, edited by Gail, A.J. and G.J.R. Mevissen. Berlin: Steiner. ———. 1994. The Winds of Change. Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 1995. A resurvey of Roman contacts with the East. Pages 97-114 in Athens, Aden, Arikamedu. Essays on the Interrelations between India, Arabia and the Eastern Mediterranean, edited by Boussac, M-F. and J-F. Salles. New Delhi: Manohar. Robin, C. 1991. L’Arabie du sud et la date du Périple de la Mer Érythrée. Journal Asiatique 279: 1-30. Sastri, K. A. N. 1976. A history of South India from prehistoric times to the fall of Vijayanagar. 4 ed. Madras: Oxford University Press. Original edition, 1955. Seland, E. H. (This volume). Ports, Periplus, Ptolemy and Poetry: Romans in Tamil South India and on the Bay of Bengal. Sewell, R. 1904. List of Roman coins found in India. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 591-637. Slane, K. W. 1991. Observations on Mediterranean amphoras and tablewares found in India. Pages 204-215 in Rome and India. The Ancient Sea Trade, edited by Begley, V. and R.D. de Puma. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ———. 1996. Other ancient ceramics imported from the Mediterranean. Pages 351-368 in The Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations and Researches 1989-1992, volume one, edited by Begley, V. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. Turner, P.J. 1989. Roman Coins from India. London: Royal Numismatic Society. Turner, P.J. and J. Cribb 1994. Numismatic evidence for the Roman trade with ancient India. Pages 309-319 in The Indian Ocean in Antiquity, edited by Reade, J. London: Kegan Paul International. Weerakkody, D.P.M. 1997. Taprobanê. Ancient Sri Lanka as Known to Greeks and Romans. Turnhout: Brepols. Wheeler, R.E.M., A. Ghosh and K. Deva 1946. Arikamedu: An Indo-Roman trading-station on the east coast of India. Ancient India 2: 17-124. Will, E.L. 1991. The Mediterranean shipping amphoras from Arikamedu. Pages 151-156 in Rome and India. The Ancient Sea Trade, edited by Begley, V. and R.D. de Puma. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.

Champakalakshmi R. 1996. Trade, Ideology and Urbanization. South India 300 BC to A.D. 1300. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Comfort, H. 1991. Terra sigillata at Arikamedu. Pages 134-150 in Rome and India. The Ancient Sea Trade, edited by Begley, V. and R.D. de Puma. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Crawford, Michael 1969. Coin hoards and the pattern of violence in the late Republic. Papers of the British School at Rome 79: 76-81. Deo, S.B. 1991. Roman trade: Recent archaeological discoveries in Western India. Pages 39-45 in Rome and India. The Ancient Sea Trade, edited by Begley, V. and R.D. de Puma. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Gupta, P.L. 1965. Roman Coins from Andhra Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh Government Museum Series No. 10. Hyderabad. Hall, Kenneth R. 1999. Coinage, trade and economy in early South India and its Southeast Asian Neighbours. The Indian Economic and Social History Review 36 (4): 431-459. Krishnamurthy, R. 1994. Late Roman Copper Coins from South India: Karur and Madurai. Madras: Garnet Publications. MacDowall, D.W. 1996. The evidence of the Gazetteer of Roman artefacts in India. Pages 79-95 in Tradition and Archaeology. Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian Ocean, edited by Ray, H.P. and J-F. Salles. New Delhi: Manohar. ———. 2004. The Indo-Roman Metal Trade. Pages 39-44 in Foreign Coins in the Indian Sub-Continent, edited by MacDowall, D.W. and A. Jha. Mumbai: IIRNS Publications. Mitchiner, M. 1976. Indo-Greek and IndoScythian Coinage Vol 9: Greeks, Sakas and their Contemporaries in Central and Southern India. London: Hawkins Publications. Orton, N.P, 1991. Red polished ware in Gujarat: A catalogue of twelwe sites. Pages 46-81 in Rome and India. The Ancient Sea Trade, edited by Begley, V. and R.D. de Puma. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Periplus, ed. /transl. Casson, L. 1989. Periplus Maris Erythraei. Text with Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rajan, K. 1996. Early maritime activities of the Tamils. Pages 97-106 in Tradition and Archaeology. Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian Ocean, edited by Ray, H.P. and J-F. Salles. New Delhi: Manohar. Raschke, M. 1978. New studies in Roman commerce with the East, Pages 604-1361 in

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J. C. Meyer: Roman coins as a source for Roman trading activities in the Indian Ocean ———. 1991. Mediterranean shipping amphoras at Arikamedu, 1941-50 excavations. Pages 317-349 in The Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations and Researches 19891992, volume one, edited by Begley, V. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. ———. 2004. Mediterranean amphoras in India. In Transport Amphorae and Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean, edited by Eiring J. and J. Lund, Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens 5. Young, G.K. 2001. Rome’s Eastern Trade. International Commerce and Imperial Policy 31 BC-AD 305. London and New York: Routledge.

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Map 4: Southern India and Sri Lanka in the ancient period

Arikamedu

Kunda Hills Kaveri R.

Kaveripattinam

Tyndis Palghat

CHERA

Karur

Uraiyur

CHOLA Periyar R. Madurai

So

Muziris

uth ern

PANDYA

Alagankulam

Gh

Ada ms

ats

Nelkynda

Palk Strait.

Vaigai R.

Tambraparani R. Korkai

Brid g

e

Mantai

Gulf of Mannar Anuradhapura

Komari

KINGDOMS Places Modern Names Area containing most finds of Roman coins.

Mountains EHS

PORTS, PTOLEMY, PERIPLUS AND POETRY – Romans in Tamil South India and on the Bay of Bengal* Eivind Heldaas Seland The monsoon trade between India and the Roman Empire has received its share of scholarly attention in the past. When historians quit a field now dominated by archaeology, however, the view that Roman subjects were settled in ports of trade along the Indian east coast was allowed to persist. This would imply that Roman subjects controlled parts of the transit trade between Indian ports or even across the Indian mainland. In consequence, Roman trade would indirectly have extended north to the mouth of the Ganges and across the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia. Archaeological evidence for Roman trade east of Cape Comorin is and remains scant. The continued emphasis on the Roman side of the trade has been ascribed to an earlier bias placed on written sources. Here an attempt is made at a re-evaluation of these sources, and the conclusion is that no unbalance exists between the written and the archaeological evidence.

The conquest of Egypt by Octavian in 30 BCE marked the start of two centuries of unprecedented peace and prosperity in the Mediterranean world. The new conditions favoured increased long distance trade. Interrelated trading networks stretching from China in the east, through the Roman Empire and beyond, carried not only goods, but people, ideas and cultural impulses as well.

with Roman traders and Roman commercial networks. The view that in addition to controlling the bulk of trade on the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean, Romans also traded directly with the Indian east coast and even maintained trading posts there has persisted.2 If this was correct, it would imply that Romans controlled parts of the transit trade between Indian ports or even across the Indian mainland, and that Romans at least indirectly played a part in the trade north to the mouth of the Ganges and across the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia. This view should be critically examined, as it implicitly marginalizes the extent and importance of indigenous maritime networks.

The Indian Ocean became an important artery of this ancient world trade. Roman, Indian and Arab ships, very possibly African as well, plied the waters from East-African Zanzibar to the Indian Malabar Coast. Ships hugged the coasts, or set sail straight across the ocean helped by the monsoon winds. Without these winds, the trade would hardly have been possible. They blow steadily from the southwest in the summer and from the northeast in the winter months. The trade winds brought ships carrying Indian spices and textiles, Arabian aromatics, African ivory and Chinese silk to Roman Egypt. Silver, gold, weapons, textiles and slaves were among the goods exported in the opposite direction. Many of the traders met in Tamil South-India, making this an ideal area in which to study the patterns of trade.

More than a decade ago, Himanshu P. Ray reacted against this tendency towards viewing the Indian Ocean trade as a Roman trade, and pointed out that the distribution of archaeological material of western origin in India has its shortcomings as evidence for Roman trade with the subcontinent.3 Elsewhere, Ray has argued that the focus on the Roman side of the trade must be ascribed 1

Standard works now include Miller 1998; Raschke 1998; Warmington 1995; Wheeler 1955 and Young 2001. Dihle 1984; Jones 1974; Karttunen 1995 and Puskas 1987 give shorter accounts. 2 This view has to different degrees been held forth or adopted by scholars like Casson 1989: 25f.; Dihle 1984: 142ff.; Hall 1985: 27ff.; Puskas 1987: 154; Sidebotham 1986: 22; Thapar 1992:16f.; Warmington 1995: 61ff. and 126ff.; Wheeler 1955: 173 ff.; Wheeler, Gosh, and Deva 1946:18 ff. and recently by Young 2001: 31ff. 3 Ray 1993.

Excellent works have been written on this trade;1 however, they deal almost exclusively * The author is much obliged to Professors Christian Meyer, Department of History, Richard Holton Pierce, Department of Classics, University of Bergen and Assistant Keeper / Senior Researcher John Lund, National Museum of Denmark, for valuable advice and criticism on different parts of this article.

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to the bias earlier placed on the classical written sources.4 Here it is argued that no classical sources attest anything but exceptional presence of Mediterranean traders on the east coast of India and the Bay of Bengal, but rather helps us to delimit the role of the Romans in relationship to other actors in the Indian Ocean trade.

archaeologists, however, also had problems identifying the residential areas, which could have helped confirming the cultural background of the inhabitants. This was problematic at a trading post supposedly visited by and lived in by Roman merchants for more than 200 years. These weaknesses have been pointed out repeatedly.9 Several historians have, however, continued to view Arikamedu as a Roman trading post, 10 most recently Gary Young in his long needed new synthesis on Rome’s eastern trade.11 Wheeler’s and subsequent French12 and joint Indian and international13 excavations at Arikamedu can hardly be said to have yielded evidence of a Roman trading settlement. Vimala Begley and her coworkers at the 1989-92 excavations underlined the indigenous nature of the site. However, they interpreted especially the terra sigillata and the oil and garum containers as signs of inhabitants with a foreign diet, and thus held that there was indeed a western settlement at Arikamedu – a settlement integrated in the Indian town, rather than a foreign colony.14

Arikamedu and archaeology In 1937, children found a small, inscribed gem and other artefacts near a village just outside Pondicherry, then still a French enclave, in southeast India. The finds were brought to the attention of the French authorities, who carried out the first surveys on the site.5 Then in 1944-46, a team of British and Indian archaeologists led by Mortimer Wheeler carried out excavations on a larger scale. What they found was to amaze the archaeological world. Not only did large quantities of Roman pottery come to light – both high quality terra sigillata and remains of amphorae once used for goods such as wine, garum and olive oil – but also Roman glass, a Roman lamp and remains of buildings, which were at that time interpreted as facilities for storing and producing goods like glass beads and dyed cloth.

Even this could, however, be too optimistic. Prestige ceramics like terra sigillata must have had a near universal appeal, and have for example also been excavated at Khor Rori in modern Oman,15 without anyone arguing that there ever was a Roman settlement there. Tamil poems attest vivid trade in refined fish between coast and inland16 and in that context there is no reason why the ancient Tamils should particularly dislike garum. Moreover, garum and olive oil were staple articles of Mediterranean trade, and it is not surprising

These finds, first published in 1946,6 were interpreted by the excavators as the remains of a Roman trading station on the Indian east (Coromandel) coast.7 Here, one of the Roman settlements mentioned in the Tamil literature had been unearthed. Arikamedu was the long sought archaeological evidence of Roman trade on the Bay of Bengal. Remains of workshops even made it seem that Romans in India had produced goods both for export to Mediterranean markets and for sale in India.

the historical significance of Roman coins from India in Christian Meyer’s article in this volume. 9 Begley 1983: 461f. summarizes the criticism up to then. Ray 1998: 46f. and 64ff. brings it up to 1994. 10 E.g. Casson 1989: 25 and 228; Champakalakshmi 1999: 108 and 178f..; Hall 1985: 28; Puskas 1987: 147; Sidebotham 1986: 22. 11 Young 2001: 31f. 12 Casal 1949. 13 Begley et al. 1996. 14 Begley et al. 1996: 18 and 22. 15 Comfort 1960. 16 Puranannuru 343, Porunarattrupadai 250-260. See also Zvelebil 1973: 100.

Still, the picture was flawed. What was not found was perhaps as important as what was found. A common find in South India, lacking at Arikamedu, was Roman coins.8 The 4

Ray 1994: 69. Wheeler 1955: 173. 6 Wheeler, Gosh, and Deva 1946. 7 Wheeler, Gosh, and Deva 1946: 18ff. 8 Three Roman coins are reported to have been found at Arikamedu, but these claims can unfortunately not be verified as no coins have been found in situ (Begley et al. 1996: 6). More on 5

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that remains of amphorae are found in areas that were in commercial contact with the Mediterranean, even if this contact was indirect. The sherds of garum and olive oil amphorae from Arikamedu make up about five percent each of the identifiable fragments found at the site.17 This does not necessarily imply a very large number of amphorae. Even the smallest cargo ship in the days of the Roman Empire would carry several hundreds; among them would be a few containing durable food for the crew and fuel for their lamps. On a journey to India approximately half of these would be empty on arrival, regardless of whether Arikamedu was the port of call or not. If the Tamils were in fact uninterested in olive oil and garum, there is no reason to assume that these empty containers could not occasionally be reused in Indian trade between the Malabar and Coromandel Coast, or that they ended up in India as a result of re-use of amphorae in Egypt. These amphorae could even be the remains of containers of food bought in Egypt for the homeward journey by the Tamil merchants who went westwards to trade.18 The finds at Arikamedu alone are not sufficient to speak of Roman trade on or beyond the east coast of India, even less so of Roman settlements.

northern sources the Indians used the word mainly to describe Alexander’s Hellenist and Indo-Greek successors. In the South Indian, Tamil literature, we meet the Yavanas as foreigners in different stations in life. The poems mentioning Yavanas have been taken to support theories about Roman trading posts in India. An excerpt from the South Indian epic Silappadikaram describing the merchant quarters of Kaveripattinam, the port of the Tamil Chola kingdom, high up on the Indian east coast has frequently been referred to.21 Near the harbor, the passerby was stopped dead By the homes of Yavanas whose profits never shrunk. On the edge of the burnished waters lived And mingled as one traders from distant Lands, come for goods carried By ships…22

Here we read about Yavanas resident in the merchant street of one of the important Tamil trading ports. A written source describing Greek settlements on the east coast of India should be all the evidence needed for Roman participation in internal trade in India and across the ocean to Southeast Asia, but what does this source really tell us? Yavanas are mentioned in several of the eight Tamil anthologies, in two of the “Ten longer texts” – Pattuppattu, in the epic Silappadikaram (cited above) and in its “sibling”, Manimekhalai. Altogether, we find Yavanas mentioned 10 times in the more than 2000 poems of various lengths, making up the corpus of ancient sangam literature.23 The poets mention Yavanas in Indian service as soldiers, guards and artisans, or report which goods their ships carried. Only one single passage, the one cited above mentions resident merchants on the east coast of India or anywhere else.

Tamil literature Archaeological material of Mediterranean origin is known from a number of sites in India, and Arikamedu would hardly have been interpreted as a Roman settlement in the first place without the reports of the ancient Tamil (sangam) literature, which contain several references to so-called Yavanas. The Tamil poems describe Yavanas coming as traders and entering Indian service as mercenaries, tradesmen and artisans. The word Yavana is also known from North Indian sources, and it has been seen as derived from the ethnical term Ionian, describing Greeks.19 The term is known as far back as the days of Alexander the great, and was used at least until the 7th century CE.20 In

A problem encountered when dealing with the sangam literature is the date of the various poems. Most of the anthologies of shorter poems are dated to the two first centuries CE,

17

Will 2004: 438f. On the possible presence of Tamils in the port of Berenike on the Red Sea, see Begley and Tomber in Sidebotham and Wendrich 1999: 181. 19 Narain 1957: 165ff. 20 Ray 1998: 83ff. 18

21

Casson 1989: 25; Sidebotham 1986: 93; Warmington 1995: 69; Wheeler 1955: 160. 22 Silappadikaram 5.11-15, transl. Parthasarathy 1992: 46. 23 Zvelebil 1956; Zvelebil 1973: 35.

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of Greece proper.28 This can hardly be the case in South India as there were no Hellenistic Greek kingdoms or large Greek minorities there. We have to look further:

but this important text, the epic Silappadikaram, is dated to about 450 CE.24 The passage most often cited or referred to in support of theories of Roman trading stations on the Coromandel Coast, thus turns out to be part of a text that linguists claim was written centuries after the period from which the bulk of evidence of Roman trade with India has come across. Now, based on the mention of the Cheran king Cenkuttuvan mentioned in the epic, the events depicted are supposed to have taken place in the late second century CE.25 The question remains, however, whether we can trust the poet to have had any accurate knowledge of what his homeland was like more than 250 years earlier or whether he used his own time as a model when describing history. Unfortunately, a poem composed in the 5th century has very little value as a source for the state of affairs in the 2nd. century. This is underlined by a parallel source, the poem Pattinappalai, one of the ”ten longer texts” that describes the same city at about the same time as Silappadikaram, but which was probably committed to palm leaf around 190 CE.26 Despite its detailed description of the city and its trade, this poem mentions people speaking different languages meeting in Kaveripattinam,27 but no resident Yavanas.

Linguists hold that the meaning of the term divides along two lines: one geographical and one chronological. The geographical difference in meaning is that Yavana meant ”Greek” in the sense of Hellenistic Bactrian or Seleucid in the once Hellenistic areas in the Northwest, where Indians and the descendants of Greeks had regular contact for centuries, but that it had a broader meaning of ”stranger” or ”foreigner” in the Tamil areas in the south. Chronologically the meaning of the word changed from ”north-Indian (Hellenist) Greek”, to include Egyptians and Romans, and to finally mean ”foreigner” in general in the later texts. In medieval and later times it was for example used to describe Arabs.29 We can compare this change of sense with the word ”Saracen” in European languages. In Roman times it referred to certain tribes on the eastern border of the Empire. Later it was extended to include “all Arabs” until, during the mediaeval crusades it acquired the sense of ”Moslems in general”. But to return to the Yavanas: who were they if they were not Greek? The late reference in Silappadikaram could be one of the places where the term refers to foreigners in general, or it could refer to western visitors more likely to be present in Kaveripattinam in the 5th century than Imperial Romans, for instance Arabs, Persians, or Aksumites. The Byzantine traveller Cosmas report the prescence of the two latter groups on Sri Lanka in the early sixth century,30 while evidence of trade on Roman or Byzantine keels on the Indian Ocean proper is scant or non-existent in this period.

There is little doubt that in some cases the Yavanas we meet in the sangam poems were in fact Roman subjects, trading with South India or entering Tamil service in the first two centuries CE, but this can hardly be the case with all of them. The term “Yavana” entered Indian languages from the west, being a Semitic and perhaps originally Hebrew term first for Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, then for the Greeks settling in Syria and Persia in the wake of Alexander’s conquest. Used in Semitic areas and in Northern India, the word referred to the resident, local Greek speaking population, rather than Ionians or inhabitants

The Coromandel and beyond in the classical sources As the Tamil evidence turns out not to reveal much about Roman trade east of Cape

24

28

See Zvelebil 1975: 78f. and 96. There has even been expressed serious doubt as to whether the sangam literature belongs to the ancient / early historical period at all (Tieken 2003). 25 Zvelebil 1995: 145. 26 Zvelebil 1975: 78f. and 107. 27 Pattinapalai 254-260.

Torrey 1904: 302ff. Chelliah 1962: 137; Narain 1957: 165ff. esp. on the northern sources and Ramachandran 1974: 87 on the Tamil. As P. Meile concluded (1940: 99ff.) it is hard to determine the precise meaning of the term in the Tamil areas in the ancient period. 30 Cosmas 11.15. 29

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E.H. Seland: Ports, Ptolemy, Periplus and poetry

Comorin, we turn to the classical sources, and indeed there is an important Greek source that seems to attest direct contacts between the Roman Empire and areas much further east than the Coromandel Coast. Ptolemy’s Geography contains both detailed and considering the circumstances, quite accurate knowledge of the eastern coast of India and the Bay of Bengal.

Bengal eastwards to the Strait of Malacca (separating the Malay Peninsula from Sumatra). Some names of ports and cities all the way east to China are also mentioned.33 This has been seen as a result of increased Roman trade across the Bay of Bengal. Roman traders are supposed to have been Ptolemy’s sources of information regarding areas east of India.34 The conclusion seems quite reasonable, but one has to be cautious.

The work has traditionally been ascribed to the mid second century CE. Divided into eight books, it has two main parts: a theoretical treatise on mapmaking and a topography, the latter being lists of rivers, mountains, markets and towns in the known world with their geographical positions. The Geography gives us an excellent impression of the degree of geographical knowledge in the time when the work was written, but it provides less information about what exactly the author(s) knew about these places. Maps are an important part of the work as we know it today, and their reproductions are favourite illustrations of the ancient world as seen by the ancients. These maps were, however, drawn in the renaissance, and the oldest mention of maps belonging to the Geography is from 947, whereas no classical sources mention any.31 The maps that we know are probably not based on ancient maps, as maps most likely never accompanied manuscripts of Ptolemy’s work,32 but were drawn from the data contained in the manuscripts.

The problem is that Book 7 of Ptolemy’s Geography as it has come across to us could be considerably later than the second century. The debate about the age of the Geography had been heated for several decades, when the Swedish geographer Leo Bagrow in 1945 concluded that the Geography in the form we know it, must have been the compilation of Byzantine scholars in the 12th century.35 In Bagrow’s view, the only part actually written by Ptolemy himself in the second century was the theoretical treatise on mapmaking contained in book I and in smaller parts in some of the later books. The topographical lists as we know them were then added at some later stage, but before the 12th century. Now, Ptolemy’s work would hardly have been complete without topographical tables of some sort, and his discussion of the size of the inhabited world in Book 1 is based on the relative location of certain places, which would hardly have made sense without the existence of such lists. Still, the depressing implication of Bagrow’s finds is that we cannot know what these original lists looked like, and that any use of the topographical parts of the Geography as a source to 2nd century history is impossible or at the very best highly problematic. Modern editors believe that all the more than 50 extant manuscripts descend from a common ancestor later than Ptolemy,36 and even if this text could be much older than Bagrow believed, it still cannot provide a secure picture of the second century work.

Maps based on Ptolemy’s Geography were constructed from two separate sources. The basis was the theoretical part explaining how to make maps, and then the mapmaker would have to actually draw the map, either from the coordinates presented in the topographical chapters, or at least in theory with coordinates of his own. The idea of the Geography was not to supply a map, but the means to draw one. This makes it perfectly plausible that the work could and would be copied without accompanying maps.

The topographical lists were texts of practical use and importance. If a scribe was aware of

In our case, Book 7 would be the most relevant part of the Geography. It deals with India and the areas east of India. The Geography describes the coast of the Bay of 31 32

33

Ptolemy 7.3. Dihle 1984: 143; Vogel 1952: 230; Warmington 1995: 108f. 35 Bagrow 1945: 385. 36 Berggren and Jones 2000: 42. 34

Bagrow 1945: 345. Berggren and Jones 2000: 45ff.

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an error in the lists, it could be potentially fatal to anyone relying on the maps produced from the text if he did not correct it. Also the system was flexible. If a scribe knew of places and coordinates not included in the lists, he could and should add them and would thereby improve on rather than corrupt Ptolemy’s great work, an attitude that would be completely in accordance with the spirit expressed by Ptolemy himself, who stresses the obligation of the cartographer to use the most recent data available in a world that changes over time.37 The depressing implication of this is that as we have no copies of ancient maps based on Ptolemy, we have no certain idea of which parts of the topography on India and Southeast Asia belong to the ancient period and which parts were added or revised as late Roman, Byzantine or why not even Arab knowledge of Asia increased over the centuries. 38

Marinos’ tables included places eastward to the Malay Peninsula and from there on eastwards to the city of Kattigara,42 perhaps near modern Hanoi.43 We also get to know that the last leg of the journey was based on the account of an otherwise unknown Alexandros.44 This seems to confirm that the original Geography did contain a topography of the eastern Indian Ocean, or the discussion would hardly have made sense to the ancient reader. It also supports the traditional view that Mediterranean travellers were Ptolemy’s or rather Marinos’ informants. Ptolemy’s discussion, however, seems to indicate that these contacts between Egypt and Southeast Asia were in fact of exceptional nature: Ptolemy’s criticism of Marinos’ data on the Indian Ocean starts with the coast east of Cape Comorin and treats the Bay of Bengal and the last leg eastward to Kattigara.45 The discussion is not based on Ptolemy’s more accurate knowledge of the area, but on his different opinion on how to calculate the length of the daily sails that both apparently used to decide the distance between ports.46 He even enters into a discussion of whether the expression “some days” in Alexandros’ lost description of the sail to Kattigara should be taken to mean many or few days.47 This not only underlines the fragmentary knowledge of these areas in second century Egypt, but also the difficulty involved in getting new or alternative data. The matter of the size of the inhabited world is of no small importance to a geographer, and we have to believe that Ptolemy would have gone beyond discussing the reasonability of Marinos’ evaluation of the distance a ship could sail in a day, if he had access to alternative sources. The theoretical parts of Ptolemy’s Geography thus indicate that Roman contacts with areas east of Cape Comorin did indeed take place, but were of exceptional nature, and that their frequency decreased with the eastward distance.

This makes it likely that to the extent that the topographical parts of the Geography can tell us anything about Roman trade with Southand Southeast-Asia; it is about the little known and later Byzantine trade, an interesting subject, but outside the scope of this article and most of the cited works on Rome’s trade with India. The theoretical parts of the Geography are, however, a different matter altogether, as their authenticity seems more certain. Ptolemy here openly acknowledges his debt to the lost work of an earlier geographer called Marinos of Tyre,39 who probably wrote around 100 CE.40 Most of Ptolemy’s topographical data seem to have been based on this work. His view is however that Marinos’ work was defect on several points, the most important being its estimation of the size of the known world and its proposed method of mapmaking.41 Ptolemy’s treatise contains the necessary corrections and improvements. In his critique of Marinos’ estimate of the size of the known world, Ptolemy also reveals that 37

Ptolemy 1.5. Mathews, 1975: 152, suggests a late fourth century date for the parts describing areas east of India. 39 Ptolemy 1.6. 40 Berggren and Jones 2000: 23f. 41 Ptolemy 1.6-20. 38

42

Ptolemy 1.13-14. Berggren and Jones 2000:155f. 44 Ptolemy 1.14. 45 Ptolemy 1.13-14. 46 Ptolemy 1.13-14. 47 Ptolemy 1.14.2. 43

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E.H. Seland: Ports, Ptolemy, Periplus and poetry kinds of goods originating from Limyrikê and supplied along this coast.52

Heading back in time, let us turn to the Periplus Maris Erythraei. This mid first century merchant’s guide to the Indian Ocean is the only source we have, written by someone with firsthand knowledge of the trade in question. It should give us a fairly good impression of the extent of Mediterranean geographical knowledge at the time it was written.

So at least at the time when Periplus was written, it seems that Roman trade with the east coast was indirect, and that Roman knowledge of areas east of Cape Comorin decreased with the distance. The author of the Periplus knew nothing more of eastern waters than he could easily learn from his local contacts during the stay in India, as he waited for the monsoon to turn.

The author himself probably never ventured past Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of India.48 The description of the coast south and east of the markets of Muziris and Nelkynda becomes increasingly vague, until at last it degenerates into hearsay about horse faced cannibals living near the mouth of the Ganges.49

A further argument against direct Roman trade with the east coast is that the author of the Periplus had only vague ideas of SriLanka, – Palaisimundu or Taprobanê, being an island. He states that it “extends almost to the parts of Azania that lies opposite to it.”53 Azania being the Greek name for Africa, this assumption shows that sailing around SriLanka to reach the east coast of India was out of the question to the author of the Periplus.

The knowledge of the first part of the coast beyond Cape Comorin seems quite accurate. We learn of ports along the coast, regions and what they produce and export, but as J.C. Christian Meyer points out in his article on Roman Coins from India in this volume (p. 63), one thing is missing, and this is significant: The Periplus provides no list of what Roman goods could be sold at the ports on the Coromandel Coast. This absence is only echoed in other parts of the work, where the areas discussed clearly were of no commercial interest to our unknown author and his countrymen. One example is the sealed off Island of Socotra,50 a second is the description of the ports in the Persian Gulf.51 Trade goods are listed in both cases, but no imports from Egypt.

There was of course a theoretical possibility of sailing between India and Sri Lanka, but as Lionel Casson comments: “They could not have navigated the shallow channels between the southern tip of India and the northern tip of Ceylon.”54 Pliny, living and writing only a few decades after the author of Periplus, can tell us that the Indians used vessels especially designed for these difficult waters.55 Pliny of course had no first hand knowledge, but this piece of information fits nicely with the description of Indian boats used along these coasts provided in the Periplus.56 Periplus and Pliny are however not our only sources to Greek and Roman knowledge of India. Some decades earlier the geographer Strabo shed light on the India trade of his days, the days of the early principate:

The Periplus even reveals that Roman goods did end up on the East Coast, but then only indirectly, through Limyrikê, the Roman name for the Malabar Coast: There is a market in these places for all the trade goods imported by Limyrikê, and, generally speaking, there come to them all year round both the cash originating from Egypt and most

As for the merchants who now sail from Egypt by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf as far as India, only a small number have sailed as far as the Ganges; and even these are merely private

48

Fabricius 1883; Schoff 1995: 16 and 234. Casson, 1989: 8 and note 17 p. 8, is more optimistic. 49 Periplus 58-62. 50 Periplus 30-31. 51 Periplus 35-37.

52

Periplus 60, transl. Casson 1989:89. Periplus 61. 54 Casson 1989: 24. 55 Pliny: 6.82. 56 Periplus 60. 53

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Definite Places, Translocal Exchange citizens and of no use as regards the history of the places they have seen.57

levied where possible. A second century papyrus reveals that a tax of 25% of the goods, the tetartê, was collected in Alexandria, before they were re-exported.60 It is likely that the goods would be taxed again upon arrival to the port or market where they were to be sold. The bottom line is that the extra risk connected with, and the time needed for sailing further than the Malabar Coast to obtain cheaper goods, was simply not worth it:

While the very existence of the Periplus seems to mock Strabo’s claim that the merchants from Roman Egypt were unable to write about the places they had visited, he makes one point clear; that in the period when archaeology can tell us that wine from Italy and Rhodes was drunk at Arikamedu, there were few Romans on this coast. The negative case The Periplus reveals that the Romans were able to purchase a wide range of goods in the markets on the west coast of India.58 Commodities from other parts of India and from areas further east and north, must have been brought there by Indian or other nonRoman traders. An obvious reason for the Romans to wish to travel and trade further east would be to bypass these “middlemen” in order to increase their own profits. Our sources indicate that this did not happen on any larger scale. There are several possible reasons for this:

The monsoon winds made it possible to undertake the journey from Egypt to India and back in less than a year. But the same winds made the crossing dangerous. The storms during the first months of the summer monsoon are best avoided even in modern ships. Marine archaeology has revealed that the cargo ships of the first and second century were by no means frail or primitive. It would be impossible to avoid the monsoon storms altogether, but by waiting until July before they set sail from Egypt, the Mediterranean traders would not reach the coast of India before the monsoon had calmed down somewhat.61

Most of the profit on the rather expensive eastern goods seems to have been gained not on the way to or through India, but between India and the Roman markets. We have sources that estimate this profit to be ten or even hundredfold.59 While these figures should not be taken literally, they do reflect that the profit was considerable and the risk probably accordingly high. The price of eastern commodities in Rome was inflated by a dangerous and expensive transport across the Indian Ocean to Egypt, the long transport within the empire and the high demand for these products throughout the Roman world. In addition to this, Roman authorities levied heavy custom dues and taxes. Together these factors would easily double the price of Indian goods after they reached Roman ports.

Because the journey from Egypt was safer the longer they waited, a journey past the Malabar Coast and into the Bay of Bengal, or across it to Southeast Asia could be difficult to manage before the summer monsoon ended. When allowing for the time to trade, repair and refit the ship for the return voyage, one would risk missing the winter monsoon, the only possibility to get back to Egypt.62 If this were to happen, the sailors would have to wait until the following winter for a new possibility to return to Egypt. In other words one ship would make one journey rather than two in two seasons, thus reducing the potential profit over time to one half. The longer voyage and the extended travel time

The Roman Empire was never a single customs area. Custom dues were among the most important imperial revenues, and were

60

P. Vidob.G40822. See also Sidebotham, 1986: 102ff. and Jones, 1974:141ff. who treat the questions of taxation in the Roman trade with the East in a wider context. 61 Periplus 56. Casson, 1984: 182ff. deals with the likely times for departure and return to the Red Sea ports of Egypt. He informs us that most harbours on the coast of Arabia and India still close today during the strongest summer monsoon. 62 Bopaerachchi 1996: 69.

57

Strabo 15.1.4, transl. Jones 2001: vol. VII, p. 5. Periplus 56. 59 Pliny (6.101.) tells us that the profit was hundredfold. Chinese sources mention the figure ten, Hirth 1885:42. 58

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would also increase the risk of shipwreck or piracy. It is useful to keep in mind that based on the rather scant evidence available, all of it from fourth century BCE Athens; it seems that ship loans throughout antiquity were generally given for one sailing season at a time, i.e. for one journey. The security was in the cargo that was to be sold. Compared to other loans, the interest rate was high.63 Thus, large profits were expected in a short time, with equally high risk.

Malabar Coast was divided between the Cherans and their neighbours, the Pandians.65 It is tempting to see this as a result of a Pandian wish to get their share of the trade. Pliny’s statement, where he warns against calling at Muziris because of the risk of piracy and points to the neighbouring Pandian harbour of Becare instead, 66 is another example of the impact that internal Tamil struggles could have on the patterns of the Roman Indian Ocean trade. The third kingdom, Chola, at this time claiming suzerainty over an area which included the site of Arikamedu, would have to trade with the Romans through their rivals, but on the other hand they had access to key resources imported from the Ganges and Southeast Asia.

From the Indian vantage point, it must have been undesirable to let the Romans trade directly with areas further east. The Tamil kingdoms of South India supplied important goods like pepper and gems, but their role as middlemen in the trade with the Ganges region and Southeast Asia was also significant. If the South Indians were deprived of their role as a link between eastern and western trade, they would lose an important source of income. Even if doubtful whether rulers or traders in the ancient period, be it in India or in Rome, had any appreciation of the importance of trade for their societies as a whole, the value of ready cash in royal and imperial coffers must have been a message understood by rulers across time and space. This gives us reason to believe that the Tamil kings controlling harbours at the Malabar Coast would do anything within their power to keep the Romans from sailing further east. The lines below, from a second-century Tamil poet saluting a king, illustrate this point. In this case the king keeps eastern ships from entering western waters, but the line of thought is equally valid in the opposite direction:

To sum up, the classical sources do not report Roman contacts with the east coast of India or across the Bay of Bengal on any but exceptional basis. Quite the opposite, they reveal a Roman network that remained restricted to the west coast through the almost two centuries from Strabo to Ptolemy. This is best explained by a range of navigational, commercial and political factors, which together contributed to limit the extent of the Roman commercial network. The west coast The discovery of a Roman trading settlement anywhere in India would be of vast importance to our understanding of the Indian Ocean trade in antiquity. That Romans were settled in India seems probable based on what we know of the organization of commerce elsewhere in the period. Ancient traders frequently conducted business through a resident agent, for example a friend, client or freedman, and the Periplus mentions resident Greeks and Arabians in several harbours elsewhere on other coasts of the Indian Ocean.

And therefore we are like boats in the western ocean that belong to some lord other than the Ceran, who commands his raging armies and runs his ships that carry gold so that no other vessels dare to travel those waters!64

If archaeological remains of Roman settlements in India are to be found, the place to look would, however, not be on the Coromandel Coast, instead we should turn our attention to the west.67 At the Malabar

In this way the Chera kingdom on the Malabar Coast would be able to keep the lucrative trade with the Romans to themselves. At the time when the Periplus was written it seems that control of the

65

Periplus 54. Pliny 6.104. 67 A difficult task, as the coastline here has changed much over the centuries, but see

63

66

Millet 1983: 36ff. 64 Puranannuru 126 (excerpt), transl. Hart and Heifetz 1999:81f.

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Coast we have some indications that Roman subjects were resident in the port of Muziris.

The Periplus mentions "grain in sufficient amount for those involved in shipping because the merchants do not use it"73 among the imports to Muziris. This seems to be provisions for the stay in India and the return voyage, rather than for resident foreigners. To more northern ports, like Barygaza, this was not necessary as wheat was available locally. If there were resident foreigners among the merchants at Muziris, they must have adopted the local diet.

P. Vidob. G40822, the so called Muzirispapyrus, is from the mid second century CE. It draws up the terms of an agreement concerning the transhipment of some goods originating in Muziris and bought on credit, from one of the Red Sea ports, Myos Hormos or Berenikê, via Koptos on the Nile, to Alexandria, thus giving us unique documentary evidence on the Indian Ocean trade. According to some, the agreement was drawn up in Muziris.68 Lionel Casson has seen this as conclusive evidence of a permanent Roman settlement at the port.69 Gerhard Thür has, however, argued convincingly that the historical context make it more probable that the contract was actually drawn up in Egypt, and that this is not incompatible with the wording of the text itself.70 His view is supported in a recent study by R. Gurukkal and C.R. Whittaker.71 As Thür argues, the issuing of such a very large loan for the monsoon trade is less likely to have taken place at Muziris than in Egypt. The former option presumes a lender with a large amount of ready cash in Muziris, meaning that the money would have had to be transported to India in advance, then the goods to Egypt, and after that the money would have to be brought back to the creditor in India.72 One might add that during this time the creditor would have very little possibility to control what happened to his money, unless he had representatives in Egypt, and in that case he would probably have been better off exporting the goods himself. The enterprise seems highly impractical. However, the papyrus loses none of its historical importance by this, but it leaves us in the dark about the possible existence of a Roman settlement in Muziris.

The third source cited in support of a Roman Diaspora at Muziris is the templ(um) Augusti near Muziris on a Roman roadmap from the late third century. The map is known from the medieval copy called Tabula Peutingeriana, and it represents the only surviving example of Roman mapmaking. H.P. Ray has questioned the significance of this. She finds it doubtful that there was in fact any such temple in Muziris and holds forth that it could just as well be the temple of a local god, identified with or misunderstood as the divine Augustus by the mapmaker's sources.74 Whittaker and Gurukkal are somewhat more optimistic,75 but the evidence can hardly be said to be conclusive in either direction. The lack of sources and sites confirming long-term western presence seems to indicate that to the extent that Romans were settled in India, and most likely some were, they did not live in permanent, separate residences, but stayed among and were integrated with the populace in the relatively few Indian market towns. Once the notion of Mediterranean trade stations or colonies in India is abandoned, we can start to inquire into alternative types of Roman presence in India. Muziris would indeed be one of the more likely entry points for Romans visiting or living in India. The evidence of the Periplus and the Muziris-papyrus shows that it was an important port of call for at least a century, and sailors would have to stay there for several months to wait for the winter monsoon that was to bring them back to Egypt.

Gurukkal and Whittaker’s attempt, supporting the century old identification of Muziris with Cranganore, now Kodungallur. (Gurukkal and Whittaker 2001). 68 Casson 1986; 1990; Harrauer and Sijpesteijn 1985. 69 Casson 1986; 1990. 70 Thür 1987: 235ff. 71 Gurukkal and Whittaker 2001: 336f. 72 Thür 1987: 239f.

73

Periplus 56, transl. Casson 1989: 85. Ray 1998: 66. 75 Gurukkal and Whittaker 2001: 337f. 74

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E.H. Seland: Ports, Ptolemy, Periplus and poetry

Even if the mentioned Muziris-papyrus is likely to have been drawn up in Egypt rather than in India, it gives us a unique glimpse of second century Roman trade with the country. The shipment in question consisted among other goods of ivory, spikenard and textiles. Its value was calculated by the contract partners to 1154 talents silver and 2852 drachmas.76 The figures appear vast, but as we are at an uncertain date in a century of steady and rapid decline in money value in Egypt,77 it is hard to say just how vast. Still, the value of the shipment was most certainly considerable.

and uncertainty involved as much as possible. To achieve this, they needed resident agents in India, and they needed them on the west coast. Only this way they could be sure that a cargo would be at hand when they arrived. They simply could not risk sailing along the coast in search of a suitable cargo, with large and bulky ships and with large sums of cash and a valuable export cargo aboard. Conclusion That no written sources can attest large scale Roman trade east of Cape Comorin stands in stark contrast to the finds of Roman artefacts on the Coromandel Coast. The bulk of these finds, including many of those from Arikamedu, date from the time of Strabo’s Geography, the Periplus and earlier.79 The mentioned works together with the Geography of Ptolemy have shown us that Roman knowledge of this area left much to want in this period. They confirm that Roman contacts with these areas did take place, but at the same time they point towards these contacts being infrequent or even exceptional. If the Romans did not bring the goods there themselves, who did? Historians describing Roman trade and trading stations along the east coast have explained this by claiming that the Romans either used the land road across South-India, or that they utilized local ships for the haul from the Malabar to the Coromandel Coast, thus preserving the notion of a Roman trading station at Arikamedu.80

Moreover, we learn that the consignment made up six shares of the cargo of the ship Hermapollon.78 Again, we do not know what proportion of the total cargo of the ship these six parts would mean, but we get to know that the ship carried additional cargo to the one mentioned in the papyrus. The papyrus tells us something about the nature of Roman trade with India: It confirms that the amounts invested were high, it implies that the profit was good and that the ships involved of considerable size. This reveals a lot about the nature of Roman India trade. The participants in this trade knew exactly what they were about. To minimize the risk they would wish to travel straight to India, and thus minimize the time 76

P. Vidob.G40822: verso, col II. The value of the three mentioned commodities as calculated in the source comes out as a little less than 1/8th of the total, leading us to believe that more goods of higher value were listed in the almost missing column I, which from the little that is left seems to have consisted of calculations. 77 Whereas debasement in the Roman Empire proper did not take off before the third century, the Egyptian tetradrachm was debased to about 8% silver (0,92g) at the end of Marcus Aurelius’ reign. A tetradrachm was the fixed equivalent of one denarius, still containing 2,56g. silver at that time (Christiansen 1987: 14). 78 Here I follow Gerhard Thür in his conclusion that Hermapollon was the name of the ship, rather than of the owner as Harrauer and Sijpesteijn assumed, and that the ship in question was the ship carrying the goods to Egypt, rather than exporting them from Alexandria. Harrauer and Sijpesteijn 1985: 134, 150; Thür 1987: 239 note 45. See Casson 1995: 439ff. for the frequent occurrence of names of divinities being used as ship’s names.

Economically as well as practically, the enterprise seems a difficult or even impossible one. Roman goods could certainly reach the whole of India and large parts of Southeast Asia. Still we lack evidence that Romans regularly handled these goods themselves further than the Malabar Coast, or that they were on the receiving end when these goods reached Arikamedu or other ports of call on the east coast of India. As long as we lack this evidence, we should assume that the Romans connected to indigenous trade routes in the harbours on the Malabar Coast, that Indians bought the goods there, and that Indians brought the Roman goods to their destination at Arikamedu or elsewhere. This 79

See i.e. Wheeler 1955: 173ff. Casson 1989: 24f.; Dihle 1984: 102; Sedlar 1980: 94; Young 2001: 31.

80

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is where we glimpse the outline of a nonwestern trading network, extending along the coasts of India and across the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia.81

References Bagrow, L. 1945. The Origin of Ptolemy's Geographia. Geografiska Annaler 27: 318387. Begley, V. 1983. Arikamedu Reconsidered. American Journal of Archaeology LXXX (2): 461-481. Begley, V., P. J. Francis, I. Mahadevan, K. V. Raman, S. E. Sidebotham, K. W. Slane, and E. L. Will. 1996. The Ancient Port of Arikamedu, Mémoires Archeologiques 22. Pondicherry / Paris: École Francaise d'Extrême-Orient. Berggren, L. J. and A. Jones. 2000. Ptolemy's Geography - An annotated translation of the theoretical chapters. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bopearachchi, O. 1996. Seafaring on the Indian Ocean - archaeological evidence. Pages 59 78 in Tradition and Archaeology - Early Maritime Contacts on the Indian Ocean, edited by Ray, H. P. and J. F. Salles. New Delhi: Manohar. Casal, J. M. 1949. Fouilles de VirampatnamArikamedu. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Casson, L. 1984. Ancient Trade and Society. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ———. 1986. P. Vindobona G. 40822 and the shipping of goods to India. Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 23 (3-4): 73-79. ———. 1989. The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 1990. New light on Maritime Loans: P. Vindob G 40822. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 84: 195-206. ———. 1995. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. Original edition, 1971. Champakalakshmi, R. 1999. Trade, Ideology and Urbanization South India 300 BC to AD 1300. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Original edition, 1996. Chelliah, J. V. 1962. Pattupattu: Ten Tamil Idylls. Tirunleveli / Madras: South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society. Christiansen, E. 1987. The Roman Coins of Alexandria: Quantitative Studies. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Comfort, H. 1960. Some Imported Pottery at Khor Rori. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental research 160 (1960): 15-20. Cosmas, ed./transl. Wolska-Conus, W. 1968. Cosmas Indicopleustes: Topographie Chrétienne. Sources Chretiennes 141, 159, 197. Paris: Cerf. Dihle, A. 1984. Antike und Orient - Gesammelte Aufsätze. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Fig. 1: Indian pepper plant (top). Drawing based on an original from the ninth century manuscript of Cosmas’ Christian Topography. Reproduced from McCrindle, J. W. 1897: The Christian topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian monk. London: Hakluyt Society.

81

On these eastern networks, see Ray 1998; Glover 1996; Rao 2001; Reddy 2001.

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E.H. Seland: Ports, Ptolemy, Periplus and poetry Miller, J. I. 1998. The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Original edition, 1969. Millet, P. 1983. Maritime loans and the stucture of credit in forth-century Athens. Pages 36-52 in Trade in the Ancient Economy., edited by Garnsey, P., C. R. Whittaker and K. Hopkins. Berkely: University of California Press. Narain, A. K. 1957. The Indo-Greeks. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nobbe, C. F. A., ed. 1843. Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia. 3 vols. Lipsiae (Leipzig): Carolus Tauchnitus. P. Vidob.G40822, ed. /transl. Harrauer, H., and P. J. Sijpesteijn. 1985. Ein neues Dokument zu Roms Indienhandel - P. Vindob. G. 40822. Anzeiger der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. PhilosophischHistorische Klasse 122 (6): 124-155. Parthasarathy, R. 1992. The Cilappatikaram - an epic of South India, Translations from the Asian classics. New York: Columbia University Press. Pattinappalai, ed./transl. Chelliah, J. V. 1962. Pattupattu: Ten Tamil Idylls. Tirunleveli / Madras: South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society. Periplus Maris Erythraei, ed./transl. Casson, L. 1989. The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Porunarattrupadai, ed./transl. Chelliah, J.V. 1962. Pattupattu: Ten Tamil Idylls. Tirunleveli / Madras: South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society. Ptolemy, ed. Nobbe, C. F. A., ed. 1843. Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia. 3 vols. Lipsiae (Leipzig): Carolus Tauchnitus. Ptolemy, transl. Berggren, L. J. and A. Jones. 2000. Ptolemy's Geography - An annotated translation of the theoretical chapters. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Puranannuru, ed./transl. Hart, G. L., and H. Heifetz. 1999. The four hundred Songs of War and Wisdom. New York: Colombia University Press. Puskas, I. 1987. Trade Contacts between India and the Ancient World. Pages 141-156 in India and the Ancient World - History, Trade and Culture before 650 AD, edited by Pollet, G. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistik. Ramachandran, C. E. 1974. Ahananuru in its historical setting. Madras: University of Madras. Rao, K. P. 2001. Early Trade and Contacts between South India and Southeast Asia (300BC - AD 200). East and West 51 (3-4). Raschke, M. G. 1978. New Studies in Roman Commerce with the East. Pages 604-1341 in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen

Fabricius, B. 1883. Der Periplus des Erythräischen Meeres - von einem Unbekannten - Griechisch und Deutsch mit kritischen und Erklärenden Anmerkungen nebst vollständigem Wörterverzeichnisse. Leipzig: Von Veit & Comp. Glover, I. C. 1996. Recent Archaeological Evidence for early Maritime Contacts between India and Southeast Asia. Pages 129-158 in Tradition and Archaeology Early Maritime Contacts on the Indian Ocean, edited by Ray, H. P. and J. F. Salles. New Delhi: Manohar. Gurukkal, R., and C. R. Whittaker. 2001. In Search of Muziris. Journal of Roman Archaeology 2001:334-351. Hall, K. 1985. Maritime Trade and State Development in early Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ———. 1999. Coinage, trade and economy in early South India and its Southeast Asian neighbours. Indian Economic and Social History Review 36 (4): 432-459. Harrauer, H., and P. J. Sijpesteijn. 1985. Ein neues Dokument zu Roms Indienhandel - P. Vindob. G. 40822. Anzeiger der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 122 (6): 124-155. Hart, G. L., and H. Heifetz. 1999. The four hundred Songs of War and Wisdom. New York: Colombia University Press. Hirth, F. 1885. China and the Roman Orient: Researches into their Ancient and Mediæval relations as represented in old Chineese records. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Jones, A. H. M. 1974. The Roman Economy, Studies in Ancient Economic and Administrative History. Oxford: Blackwell. Jones, H. L. 2001. The Geography of Strabo with an English Translation, Loeb Classical Library. London: Heinemann. Original edition, 1917-1932. Karttunen, K. 1995. Early Roman Trade with South India. Arctos - Acta Philologica Fennica 29:81-92. Mathews, G. 1975. The Dating and the Significance of the Periplus Maris Erythraei. Pages 147-163 in East Africa and the Orient: Cultural syntheses in precolonial times, edited by Chittick, N. and R. Rotberg. New York / London: Africana Publishing Company. Meile, P. 1940. Les Yavanas dans l'Inde Tamoule. Journal Asiatique 232:85-123. Meyer, J.C. (this volume) Roman Coins as a Source for Roman Trading Activities in the Indian Ocean.

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Definite Places, Translocal Exchange Tieken, H. 2003. Old Tamil Cankam literature and the so-called Cankam period. Indian Economic and Social History Review XL (3): 247-278. Torrey, C. T. 1904. "Yawan" and "Hellas" as Designations of the Seleucid Empire. Journal of the American Oriental Society 25:302-311. Vogel, J. P. 1952. Ptolemy's Topography of India: His Sources. Pages 226-234 in Archeologica Orientalia in Memoriam Ernst Herzfeld, edited by Miles, G. C. New York: J.J. Augustin. Warmington, E. H. 1995. The Commerce Between the Roman Empire and India. Reprint of the 2nd. ed. New Dehli: Munshiram Manoharlal. Original edition, London 1928, 2nd ed. London 1974. Wheeler, M. 1955. Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers. 2nd ed. Middlesex: Penguin Books. Original edition, 1954. Wheeler, M., A. Gosh, and K. Deva. 1946. Arikamedu: An Indo-Roman trading-station on the east coast of India. Ancient India 2: 17-38. Will, E. L. 2004. Mediterranean Amphoras in India. Pages 433-441 in Transport Amphorae and Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. Acts of an International Colloquium at the Danish Institute in Athens, 26.-29.9. 2002, edited by Eiring, J. and J. Lund. Athens: Danish Institute in Athens. Young, G. K. 2001. Rome's Eastern Trade: International commerce and imperial policy, 31 BC - AD 305. London / New York: Routledge. Zvelebil, K. V. 1956. The Yavanas in Old Tamil Literature. Pages 401-409 in Charisteria Orientalia praecipue ad Persiam pertinentia, edited by Tauer, F., V. Kubickova and I. Hrbek. Praha: Ceskoslovenska Akademie Ved. Zvelebil, K., V. 1973. The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil literature of South India. Leiden: Brill. ———. 1975. Tamil Literature. Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol 2:2. Leiden: Brill. ———. 1995. Lexicon of Tamil Literature. Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol. 2:9. Leiden: Brill.

Welt II.9.2, edited by Temporini, H. and W. Haase. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. Ray, H. P. 1993. A Resurvey of Roman Contacts with the East. Topoi: Orient - Occident 3 (2):479-492. ———. 1994. The western Indian Ocean and the early maritime links of the Indian subcontinent. Indian Economic and Social History Review 31 (1):65-88. ———. 1998. The Winds of Change - Buddhism and the Maritime Links of early South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Original edition, 1994. Reddy, P. K. M. 2001. Maritime Trade of Early South India. New Archaeological Evidences from Motupali, Andhra Pradesh. East and West 51 (1-2):143-158. Schoff, W. H. 1995. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea - Travel and trade in the Indian Ocean by a merchant of the first century. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Original edition, Philadelphia 1912. Sedlar, J. W. 1980. India and the Greek World: a study in the transmission of culture. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. Sidebotham, S. E. 1986. Roman economic policy in the Erythra Thalassa : 30 B.C.-A.D.217. Mnemosyne. Supplementum 91. Leiden: Brill. Sidebotham, S. E., and W. Z. Wendrich. 1999. Berenike 1997: Report of the 1997 excavations at Berenike and the survey of the Egyptian Eastern Desert, including Excavations at Shenshef. Leiden: CNWS. Silappadikaram, transl./ed Parthasarathy, R. 1992. The Cilappatikaram - an epic of South India, Translations from the Asian classics. New York: Columbia University Press. Strabo, ed./transl. Jones, H. L. 2001. The Geography of Strabo with an English Translation, Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass. / London: Harvard University Press. Original edition, 19171932. Thapar, R. 1992. Black Gold: South Asia and the Roman Maritime Trade. South Asia XV (2): 1-27. Thür, G. 1987. Hypotheken Urkunde eines Seedarlehens für eine Reise nach Muziris und Apographe für die Tetarte in Alexandria (zu P. Vindob. G. 40. 8222). Tyche 2: 229-245.

82

EARLY INDIAN OCEAN TRADE WITH ZANZIBAR: Archaeological evidence Else Johansen Kleppe Indian Ocean trade prior to the 13th century AD is documented through material remains from the archaeological sites Fukuchani, Shangani, Mkokotoni, Jongowe, Zanzibar town, Unguja Ukuu and Kizimkazi Dimbani – all reported in the Zanzibar Archaeological Survey. Evidence of early mosques is known from two sites through Kufic inscriptions. The one on the qibla in the Kizimkazi Dimbani mosque has an inscribed year corresponding to 1107 AD; and the one from Jongowe is interpreted as contemporary since it is written in the same style. The main source material for dating the archaeological sites is pottery, both of imported and local origin and coins. Some radiocarbon datings have been obtained from Unguja Ukuu. All the early sites are located on the western - sheltered – side of the island, and this is also where fishing is most profitable. Different fishing grounds are exploited at different times of the year, depending on winds and underwater streams. Some views on the type of settlement are proposed and viewed in the light of their contacts with Indian Ocean traders. Very few towns existed; most of the archaeological sites are interpreted as village settlements. Possible interrelationships between the sites are discussed, as well as relationships with contemporary settlement on the mainland.

and early inscriptions associated with these.4 My focus is also on the role and importance of Indian Ocean trade and attempts are made at assessing possible interrelationships between the archaeological sites we have most information about, e.g. Unguja Ukuu, Jongowe on Tumbatu island and Kizimkazi Dimbani. It is relevant to ask which products were in demand by people living on the island by that time, and which products these people could supply the foreign traders with. The archaeological source material may contribute to answering these questions. Some general information about the relevant sites is accordingly a natural point of departure.

The long awaited publication of the archaeological excavations in Zanzibar´s ancient capital Unguja Ukuu is now available. However, Abdurahman Juma has included only to a certain extent the archaeological research carried out by others in later years in his publication.1 It is therefore appropriate to discuss his results in the context of works by Horton and others including myself that have been published after the discussions at The International Conference on the History & Culture of Zanzibar, 14-16 December 1992. By Early Indian Ocean trade, I mean evidence prior to the 13th century, and with this period of time in mind a brief presentation of the archaeological sites in question is given as a basis for further interpretations. The central source of information is still the unpublished report of the archaeological survey carried out in 1984-85 and submitted to the British Institute.2 The main conclusions from the report are published in an abbreviated version.3

Archaeological source material prior to the 13th century The Zanzibar Archaeological Survey is the first systematic overview of archaeological source material from the islands off the coast of Tanzania. This survey is still most relevant when assessing the state of archaeological research on Zanzibar. E.T. Kessy´s M. Phil. dissertation5 (1992) includes a further systematisation of the sites and their date. The relevant archaeological sites are from north towards south: Fukuchani, Shangani, Mkokotoni, Jongowe, Zanzibar town site, Unguja Ukuu and Kizimkazi Dimbani (fig. 1, overleaf).

It is my aim in this paper to reassess the culture historical development of the settlements from the time of the earliest traces of habitation on the island until the coming of Islam in the 12th century. This event is documented through the building of mosques

1

Juma 2004. Horton & Clark 1985b. 3 Horton & Clark 1985a. 2

4 5

83

See Horton & Middleton 2000: 47. Kessy 1992.

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange At the Fukuchani site a few test pits were excavated, and among the findings from the 12th century or earlier were beads, some few potsherds of Chinese celadon pottery and red burnished local pottery.6 Bead grinders and iron slag have also been reported from the site.7 Shell middens were reported at the site and fish bones were present in the archaeological deposits. Horton has reported the presence of potsherds of Tana ware.8 In his summing up, Kessy lists two settlement phases at Fukuchani,9 the earlier one which is of interest is dated 8th – 11th centuries. Horton and Middleton suggest that the early phase dates to the 5th century.10 They point out that there are large quantities of local pottery, and very little imported ware associated with the earliest settlement. Little evidence of building remains except for occasional postholes was identified.

It ought to be pointed out that when he refers to the Shangani site, Juma refers to the one at the location of the Zanzibar old town site12 and not to the one described by Horton and Clark. The place name Shangani appears in both places (cf. map sheets of Zanzibar in the scale 1:50,000, published by the Government of United Kingdom, Ordinance survey for the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania 1985).

The site is located right on the shore facing a channel between the islands of Zanzibar and Tumbatu and it is consequently well protected. Archaeological remains have been identified over a stretch of c. 800 m along the shore, and big shell middens – up to 2 m high – are seen in this area. The site is located on firm sand overlying a coral bed rock. Nowadays water is collected from shallow wells located c. 50 m inland from the coast. The Shangani site had previously been visited by W.H. Ingrams, who had found large numbers of beads, while Horton and Clark state explicitly that they did not find beads on the site.11 They reported the presence of some local pottery, some red burnished pottery, a fragment of sgraffiato pottery (characterised by designs incised through a slip before glazing) and some Chinese blue-on-white pottery. They point out that this site in fact is the eastward extension of the site at Mkokotoni. Pottery finds connect the two sites.

Fig. 1: Map of Zanzibar showing known archaeological sites from the 12th century and earlier. (Drawing: E.J. Kleppe & E. Hoff).

At the Mkokotoni site traces of habitation from several periods were documented. Large quantities of pottery were found, and of the local pottery there are a number of shapes dated to between the 9th and the 16th centuries. 9th century pottery and bead grinders were identified close to a well. Remains of imported pots of black-and-yellow ware, sgraffiato ware, celadon ware and stone wares were recorded. One potsherd of Sassanian Islamic ware was also recorded by Horton &

6

Horton & Clark 1985b: 7; Horton & Middleton 2000: 44. 7 Kessy 1992: 72f. 8 cf. Kessy 1992: 17. 9 Kessy 1992: 56. 10 Horton & Middleton 2000: 43f. 11 Horton & Clark 1985b: 11.

12

84

Juma 2004: 21 and Fig. 1.1.

E.J. Kleppe: Early Indian Ocean trade with Zanzibar Clark,13 and Tana ware was found at the site.14 Horton and Middleton state that the site has very little of its archaeology left.15 The two sites Shangani and Mkokotoni are also well sheltered; they are located just south of the channel between the islands Zanzibar and Tumbatu. Both sites are located on sandy ground and near sand beaches with underlying coral bed rock. Horton and Clark suggested that the inhabitants of Mkokotoni settled on Tumbatu island during a brief period of unrest and returned from there after a shorter stay.16

interesting to note that there is no supply of drinking water on the island itself. The archaeological site at Tumbatu is located at the south east corner of the island. The environment resembles the one described for the early sites at Fukuchani, Shangani and Mkokotoni. The Zanzibar town site is also referred to as Zanzibar Gereza, and – by Juma (as mentioned above) the Shangani site. Test excavations were also carried out there in connection with the survey. Deep midden deposits were identified in the area which is now the centre of the fort. Animal bones were found, together with potsherds of sgraffiato ware, Chinese celadon ware, and monochrome wares together with local red burnished ware. Based on these finds the earliest date of the site is suggested to be the 12th century.19 It is located within the premises of the Old Fort, one of the landmarks and attractions today in Zanzibar town. It is right on the seafront. The underlying deposits are deep sands.

The Jongowe site on Tumbatu – sometimes also referred to as the Tumbatu site – has a well-preserved building, i. e. the so-called Friday Mosque located close to the shore towards the north. In addition to the test pits excavated in connection with the survey, Horton carried out excavations there between 1989 and 1991. Pottery was scarce on this site, and most of it was sgraffiato ware and haematite coated local ware, dated to the 12th and 13th century. In the survey it is also remarked that a very large amount of fragments of bulbous rimmed storage jars for water was found. It is suggested that the site was abandoned about 1250 AD, based on the presence of some few potsherds of Black-onYellow pottery.17 Elsewhere they point out that the earliest date of this site is c. 1175, so this early settlement had altogether been a very brief one.18

The Unguja Ukuu site, the site of the old capital of the island, has been known for a long time and has for long been considered one of the earliest sites on the East African Coast. A hoard of Abbassaid gold coins had been found in a mound in the centre of the site as early as 1865, and the site was turned over at the time, but without finding more items that could be associated with the hoard. The only recorded coin from the hoard was dated to 797 AD.20 It is further reported that there have been a number of unofficial visits to the site by historians and archaeologists and some unreported excavation work has taken place. The recent fieldwork at the site carried out by Juma has taken place over four seasons.21 It has included extensive surveying, using techniques such as electro-magnetic drilling, electro-revistivity surveys and phosphate analysis. The aim has been to get an idea of the size and intensity of the habitation area. Attempts at estimating the size of the population at various times have also been made.

Horton excavated several house and mosque structures, and in an unpublished conference paper from 1992, he interpreted one of the mosque structures as representing an Ibadi Muslim community. An undated inscription found there compares well with the famous inscription found at Kizimkazi Dimbani. Over 70 rooms were documented by Horton, and there were four courtyards associated with the structures. Further he pointed out that the complex seems to have been entered from the seaside. In one place four steps cut into the coral underground were identified. It is 13

Horton & Clark 1985b: 10. Kessy 1992: 65. 15 Horton & Middleton 2000: 44. 16 Horton & Clark 1985b: 10. 17 Horton & Clark 1985b: 9. 18 Horton & Clark 1985a: 170. 14

19

Horton & Clark 1985b: 14. Horton & Clark 1985b: 11. 21 Juma 2004: 56ff. 20

85

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange Local pottery abounds26 and its practical functional use was as water jars, cooking pots, serving plates, containers for various purposes. Of special interest is the presence of Tana ware,27 but the amount and actual distribution of this specific pottery on the site is not clear from the publication. In total, 1277 shards of glass vessels were found from the periods Ia, Ib and IIa, and thin-walled glass is very common. Among the glass material dated to Period Ia some rare pieces are imports from Egypt. According to Juma, these finds underline connections with the ancient Mediterranean trading centres.28 Glass beads were also recorded; 178 of 247 glass beads were from Period Ia. Some iron and other metal objects as well as iron slag were recorded. 71 items were found, most numerous were arrow heads (23), hollow pipes (16), and iron nails (9). Some iron slag was also identified.29 About a dozen copper objects, mostly personal adornments and some coins were also found.

A number of radiocarbon datings have been obtained from the site, but not all are easily acceptable. One sample from the lowest cultural deposits near a grave has yielded a date between 430 and 650 AD.22 A date of the earliest habitation on the site to the middle of the 1st millennium AD is suggested; this has been seconded by Horton and Middleton,23 who refer to radiocarbon datings published by Juma elsewhere. Amongst the finds, the following provide evidence for the earliest phase of habitation of the site (Phase Ia), I quote Juma’s comments on the dating of the earliest phase: The Near Eastern blue-green glazed ware has been reported elsewhere from at least the 6th century AD… The other types of Near Eastern vessels consist of unglazed vessels produced in the pre-Islamic period such as the thin-walled pink pottery, the eggshell ware, and the hando red polished ware which have all been reported from at least the 6th century AD contexts. The Chinese Tang stoneware also appears before the Islamic pottery. Rare kinds of pottery that have been found, such as the specimens of late Roman period from the southern Mediterranean…and the non-Madagascan type of the chlorite schist vessels decorated with circle and dot at the centre, all point to ancient traditions and these reinforce the suggested beginning for the primary occupation of the site from c. 500 AD. For the later part of Period Ia occupation, early pottery of the Islamic period points to the 9th century AD date. Remarkably few fragments of the lead-glazed sgraffiato appear from the site and this probably indicates that the settlement was abandoned around 900 AD…24

The Unguja Ukuu site is the site of the old capital of the island. It is located in a landscape of coral limestone with overlying sandy soil, and the surrounding landscape is rocky.30 The topography of the site is uneven. To the south the site is limited by the seashore, to the east by a creek – the Uzi channel. The Kizimkazi Dimbani site is well known for its Kufic inscription with the year A.H. 500, corresponding to 1107 AD still to be seen in the mosque which unfortunately was rebuilt in the 18th century.31 Chittick started archaeological work on the site and documented a sequence from the 12th century onwards. He found some potsherds of imported ware, including sgraffiato ware. The information in The Zanzibar Archaeological Survey is based on Chittick´s work and on Garlake´s survey of the mosque a few years later.32 In 1989 I carried out excavations at the site (fig. 2).

Some occupation at the site from 1050-1100 AD was also found. Local early coastal pottery, also termed Tana ware and bead grinders were also found from the early phase. The sgraffiato ware found suggests a terminus ante quem of 1050. Juma has summed up the chronology of the early settlement thus: “The town of Unguja Ukuu is dated from c. 500-700 AD (period Ia) through c. 750-900 AD (Period Ib) with the later occupations c. 1100 (Period IIa)…”25

26

Juma 2004: 87ff. Juma 2004: 87f. 28 Juma 2004: 122. 29 Juma 2004: 135ff. 30 See also Juma 2004: 56, Fig. 4.1. 31 Chittick 1962: 18. 32 Garlake 1966. 27

22

See Juma 2004: 70, and 85. Horton & Middleton 2000: 23. 24 Juma 2004: 84. 25 Juma 2004: 159. 23

86

E.J. Kleppe: Early Indian Ocean trade with Zanzibar south-eastern side of the island, and about half a mile away from the coastline.34 This site was not visited in connection with the archaeological survey; and the information included has been obtained from earlier accounts. No traces of habitation have been reported from the Shungi site; the finds are a hoard of Chinese coins, some dated to the 7th century and some to the 13th century. We can only guess when it comes to the interpretation of this hoard. Perhaps it was part of wreckage from a sunken ship hidden away in this rather impassable landscape. The western side of the island is the more sheltered side. The channel between the island and the mainland provides for good fishing grounds, but the sea surrounding the island does put strong restrictions on activities related to seafaring including fishing activities. The best areas for cultivation are found on the western side of the island. More details on the subsistence economy of these early settlers on the island are discussed below, after a presentation of major factors affecting the natural environment.

Fig. 2: Kizimkazi Dimbani. Location of the excavate areas in relation to the 12th century mosque. Area KK was excavated by Chittick (1962) and areas I, II an III by Kleppe (2001).

The finds of imported ceramic wares are of special interest for dating the site, i.e. potsherds of sgraffiato ware, of Chinese ware and of Persian ware. They support the dating of the early settlement phase there to the 12th century. Local pottery abounds,33 but only ten potsherds of Tana ware were recorded. A few bead grinders of potsherds, some beads of which 137 were of glass, a few metal objects and some iron slag, some lithic material, some daub, a worked ivory piece, some pieces of coral and of rock crystal were also found. The archaeological site in Kizimkazi Dimbani is located near the shore of a small sandy bay. Its eastern extension is bounded by a coral bluff and coral limestone is visible in places in the sand covering the site. Location of the early settlement All known archaeological sites dated to the 12th century or earlier are located on or near the western coast of the island. It ought to be mentioned that the Shungi site, which has been dated to the 13th century is located on the

Natural environment and subsistence economy The monsoon wind is the decisive factor in this region and it divides the year into two main seasons. The Northeast monsoon blows from November to February, and the Southwest monsoon from April to September. During this time of the year, kaskazi in Kiswahili, the ocean is calm. Between the changing monsoons there are two periods of rains, a heavy one, masika, which is from March to June, and a lighter one, vuli, which is in December.35 The Northeast monsoon carried the ships of traders towards the East African coastal area. The Southwest monsoon was decisive for sea transport from East Africa across the Arabian Sea to destinations on the Arabian Peninsula, to Persia, India, and perhaps even further east across the Bengali Sea (fig. 3, overleaf).

34 33

35

Kleppe 2001: 376.

87

Horton & Clark 1985b: 11. See also Sheriff 1990: 9ff.

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange on each boat will form an economic unit and divide the catch among its participants. The men who wish to join fishing expeditions, are present on beaches where boat repair and other fishing related activities take place. This ethnographic documentation is from a B.A. dissertation by H.M. Hamza.37 It ought to be mentioned that fish represents ¾ of the identified vertebrate remains, and 32 different taxa were identified from my excavations at Kizimkazi Dimbani.38

Fig. 3: Chart of yearly cycle and seasonally based activities related to the sea. Based on publications and on verbal information from Kizimkazi Dimbani village. (Drawing: E.J. Kleppe & B. Ingvaldsen).

Some fluctuation in sea level has been documented, and some recent investigations by Mörner conclude that there has been a change in sea level for eastern Africa, and the lowest sea level has been documented around the 12th and 13th centuries.36 This may be interesting to bear in mind in further studies on a micro-level. The most important fishing grounds are located in the waters west of Zanzibar. Fishing is and has traditionally been done in coastal waters, mainly on coral and rocky reefs and on sandy patches in between the reefs. Oceanic species are rare in these waters, and the few remains identified of such species may have been caught because they had ventured into coastal waters. On the eastern coast of Zanzibar that faces the open sea, waves can be very strong in particular between May and August. Fishing is not so profitable there since fewer species live in these waters, due to the strong sea currents. During masika fishing is difficult due to strong winds and heavy rains. When the Northeast monsoon blows deep water fishing is most profitable, but also most risky. Nowadays men generally organize their fishing so that six to eight boats go fishing simultaneously as a safety measure. The team 36

Juma 2004: 46.

88

It is of interest to note that fishing and all other utilization of sea resources on shallow waters are regulated through specific use rights, probably of ancient standing. Everybody had the right to fish on deep water, and lines or drift nets were used from their traditional boats, the ngalawa and the dhow. The fact that different areas in the sea are favourable for fishing at different times of the year I presume is ancient knowledge. I have therefore found it reasonable to propose that solid contacts and even economic cooperation always have existed among the various fishery-based local communities on Zanzibar.39 Catchments of sharks and smaller whales are also documented in the osteological material from both sites. Today such catchments are most often sold at bigger markets and provide important surplus. Shellfish collecting is an important addition to the diet and it is invariably women´s work when it is carried out as a systematic task. The women involved understand the tidal move and this work is only done at low tide (personal experience). The tide decides how far they move out from the shore, and when they start their return. Ethnoarchaeological studies among shellfish collecting women near Dar es Salaam have shown that these women go shellfishcollecting approximately ten days a month.40 A work-group of women may in one day collect c. 700 shellfish. The time involved is maximum three hours.

37

See Kleppe 1996: 160. See Van Neer 2001: 387, 391ff. 39 See also Kleppe 2001: 363. 40 Msemwa 1991: 27ff. 38

E.J. Kleppe: Early Indian Ocean trade with Zanzibar

Fig. 4: Kizimkazi Dimbani. The archaeological site is located near the shore (towards left) where fishing gear and boats are repaired. Fishermen sit waiting for recruitment in the area free of vegetation in the background. (Photo: E.J. Kleppe).

Special shell middens are formed in connection with the preparation of the molluscs, and shell middens are common also in the villages on the west-coast of Zanzibar, from Mkokotoni to Kizimkazi Dimbani. Unfortunately, little archaeological documentation of this is available, as this evidence has not been included in earlier reports. We found shells throughout the excavations at Kizimkazi Dimbani. In the limited area excavated nearly 8000 shells representing 28 different species were identified.41 Animal husbandry is and was part of the economy in the past as well. Small livestock, in particular goats have always been important in addition to chickens; some sheep were kept as well as Zebu cattle. These species are documented in the faunal remains from Kizimkazi Dimbani,42 which according to my knowledge is the only full report so far published on the osteological material. J. Kimengich of the National Museum of Kenya is referred to in Juma´s discussion of the 41 42

Kleppe 1996: 151f.; Kleppe 2001: 369. Van Neer 2001: 390f.

faunal remains from his fieldwork at Unguja Ukuu.43 The list of species included there confirms the findings from Kizimkazi Dimbani. Hunting has played a certain role at both sites; of special importance was the hunting of small antelope species. Most of Zanzibar is difficult to cultivate because of the coral bedrock. This is visible on the surface in many places, but in between there may be small patches of mostly sandy soil well suited for cultivation. The present practice is that men generally clear new land for cultivation, while women are the cultivators. The eastern part of the island is the least fertile, and the rainfall is also more favourable on the western part. There is enough rainfall for cultivation of crops such as coconuts, bananas, papaya, cassava, sweet potatoes, legumes, orange and other citrus trees, sugar cane and bread fruit plants. The cultivation is important, even if it is limited and perhaps rather to be identified as gardening.

43

89

Juma 2004: 129ff.

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange date is, however, less certain, due to the nature of the fieldwork carried out. The only sites with clear evidence of these features are Unguja Ukuu, Mkokotoni and Kizimkazi Dimbani. Evidence of the presence of mosques is another important feature, and in addition to the documentation given above from Kizimkazi Dimbani and Tumbatu, a mosque has most likely also been found at Unguja Ukuu.45 The mosque on Tumbatu may very well also have served the early Muslim community at the rather close by settlement at Mkokotoni, but so far we have too little and not detailed enough information about this site, judging from its extension and the variety of imported pottery. Unguja Ukuu is by far the largest of the early archaeological sites known on Zanzibar and it is perhaps also the only town site and urban society at the time. A clarification of the concepts town and urbanism is necessary. Juma defines a town in the following manner: A sizeable settlement unit of a stratified society that concentrates and centralizes resources and that has achieved a level of social and economic organisation permitting it to rely on relations of production beyond its immediate vicinity.46

Fig. 5: Kizimkazi Dimbani. One of several shell middens in the village site is located near the shore and not far from our excavation area. (Photo: E.J. Kleppe).

Sporadic hunting is also of some importance, as it secures some variation in an otherwise monotonous, though healthy diet mainly based on fishing and shell collecting. Fishing and shell collecting are by far the most important activities in the subsistence economy today on the islands off the East African coast. Preservation of fish, if needed, was traditionally done by sun drying. Salt is important for preserving fish and molluscs and if salt was needed, it had to be imported. The nearest source is in the Bagamoyo region where salt is obtainable, for instance at Nunge, which is not that far away from the only known Medieval site in the Bagamoyo region, Mkadini.44 We know that salt extraction took place there already in the 9th and 10th century. The early sites – types of settlement and possible interrelations Remains of stone buildings and stone built wells have been recorded from all the archaeological sites under discussion. Their 44

Chittick 1975: 151ff.

The concept of urbanism in an archaeological context is closely linked to the theoretical framework set up by Gordon Childe, based on Lewis Morgan. Childe listed the ten criteria which should be present:47 1) size, both with reference to extension and population density, 2) full-time specialists, 3) primary producers pay surplus to deity or religious ruler, 4) monumental architecture, 5) ruling class, 6) system for recording information, 7) exact though practical sciences, 8) monumental art, 9) regular foreign trade, and 10) resident specialist craftsmen under the control of officials. His criterion 6) is no longer generally agreed upon; so we are left with nine criteria. At the time focused on in this presentation Unguja Ukuu was an urban centre and had a regional market,48 but so far we do not have evidence of its religious position and role.

45

Horton 2001: 454. See also Juma 2004: 152. Juma 2004: 157. 47 Trigger 1980: 155. 48 Juma 2004: 158. 46

E.J. Kleppe: Early Indian Ocean trade with Zanzibar The earliest settlement at Unguja Ukuu has been estimated to have included 229 houses and 1603 adults with a population growth to 4914 adults at the time when the whole site was occupied.49 The figures are based on analogy developed through an ethnoarchaeological study of the close-by modern village Shangani. The actual size estimate may be questioned, but I agree on the conclusion. Unguja Ukuu was definitely a town from its early days; although the degree of urbanisation may still be subject to discussion. Estimates on the size of the population have not been attempted for any of the other sites, which of course make comparisons very difficult. Neither Mkokotoni nor Kizimkazi Dimbani reached the size of Unguja Ukuu during the time-span discussed here. On the basis of the information from the survey at Mkokotoni this can clearly be identified as a town site, but the urban significance cannot be ascertained from the archaeological evidence available so far. Further excavations there are needed. Juma has argued for a connection between Unguja Ukuu and Kizimkazi Dimbani.50 He refers to large quantities of imports from the time-span focused upon. This is not the case: imported pottery has not been documented in “larger quantities” from Kizimkazi Dimbani and other imports are rather few.51 I do not disagree about contacts between the two sites, but I think it has been of a different nature than what he has implied. Juma has objected to my interpretation of Kizimkazi Dimbani as a village community. His arguments are not convincing, primarily with reference to his own definition of a town referred to above. It was, however, the most important village on the island in the 12th century, and I think there were close connections with both the community in Unguja Ukuu and with the communities at Mkokotoni and Jongowe on Tumbatu. Juma’s argument is that since Kizimkazi Dimbani developed after the decline of the primary occupation at Unguja Ukuu and with reference to its size he interpreted it as an urban centre and the “subsequent capital for the Island prior to the shift to Tumbatu Island perhaps around

49

Juma 2004: 66. Juma 2004: 84. 51 Cf.. Chittick 1962: 17-18; Kleppe 2001: 366.

the mid-12th century AD”.52 The archaeological evidence available so far cannot justify this argument. We need more documentation from other sites, not least the Zanzibar town site to approach this problem. In order to understand at least some of the dynamics in the society on the island in and prior to the 12th century some views on exploitation of sea resources are launched. My argument is that sea resources have at all times been important for the subsistence as well as the surplus economy of people on Zanzibar. Inquiry into historically accounted for and today’s practices has supplied the information documented above (see also fig. 3). The variations in exploitation possibilities of sea resources might have developed some kind of interrelationships and co-operation in the past as well as in the present. The communities in Kizimkazi Dimbani and at Tumbatu could at the time when both places were inhabited in the 12th century well have been part of a shared economic system and trade network. The two areas of the island might have been visited at different times of the year and perhaps for different purposes. The exploitation of different fishing grounds at different times of the year, depending on the direction of the dominant wind, the monsoon, and the location of dangerous currents in the sea, call for co-operation. By the 12th century when the Zanzibar markets and its important fishery-based settlements seem to have been incorporated as regular stops for the trading expeditions all settlements received at least small quantities of imported ceramics, perhaps primarily as containers for required products. Basic needs for supplementation of food products for the trading expeditions most likely created a market for surplus production by the local population. It seems likely that local sea-turtle, fish, shellfish and perhaps also some plant products like sugar cane could have been items for the exchange. Concluding remarks on the early settlement and relationships with outsiders Through the earliest imported finds, predominantly pottery, it is reasonable to suggest that Sassanian traders dominated the market until the early 7th century AD, as is

50

52

91

Juma 2004: 19f.

Definite Places, Translocal Exchange reflected in the finds from Unguja Ukuu in particular.53 Some pieces of rock crystal found among other places at Kizimkazi Dimbani are of special interest since we know that they were traded between East African, Asian and the Mediterranean areas during the Early Islamic period. It has been suggested that the rock crystal came from Tsavo on the African mainland.54 Salt must have been an important commodity for people on Zanzibar and it is available on the mainland. Whether salt was exported from the mainland to Zanzibar, or fish was exported from Zanzibar to the mainland - Bagamoyo area - for salting there during the early days of habitation on Zanzibar, we cannot ascertain. Perhaps it was a combination. In this context it is of further interest to discuss the so-called Tana ware, named so by Horton,55 and this is the name I also have used. For the sake of clarity, it must be mentioned that this particular pottery has been given different names. Chittick has named it early kitchen ware56 and Chami has named it TIW (abbreviation of Triangular Incised Ware),57 and he has suggested a date for the Later TIW phase to the 8th to 10th Century.58 The presence of this specific pottery at a site is associated with importation of salt from the mainland. The Tana ware is the only category of archaeological material that has proved early contact with the mainland. All other early hand-made pottery found on Zanzibar has been interpreted as made on the island, most likely made in the village where it has been found.59 In contexts where Tana ware has been found, very little if any imported pottery has generally been found. This could imply that this specific – regional – pottery belongs to a time with little foreign contact: perhaps the contact with the adjoining mainland coastal area was the only one. Evidence of wheel-made (imported) pottery in early and mainly 12th century context is scarce on the smaller archaeological sites as 53

Juma 2004: 24f. See also Horton & Middleton 2001: 80. 55 Horton 1987: 315. 56 Chittick 1974: 320ff. and Figs. 94-96. 57 Chami 1994: 13. 58 Chami 1994: 93. 59 See also Kleppe 1996: 154ff. 54

documented at Kizimkazi Dimbani. Such pottery is abundant at the big market sites Unguja Ukuu and Mkokotoni. Based on research of archaeological sites on the Comoro Islands and on Madagascar it has been argued that exotic goods could have been exchanged directly with the trading expeditions for, among other items, the local surplus of sea resources already during the period of the early foreign contacts in East Africa, i.e. the 9th and 10th century.60 Both random exchanges and regular exchanges of goods most likely took place. For certain sites we can perhaps find specific explanations as to why more firmly based relationships got established between the foreign traders and local people. Among the known sites from Zanzibar I find that at least two sites had special relations with these outsiders. These sites are Mkokotoni and Kizimkazi Dimbani. The attraction of foreign people to Mkokotoni may be explained with reference to the probably most important workshop for boat building on Tumbatu. This workshop is widely known to have served the coastal area between Lamu in the north and the northern coastal area of present-day Mozambique. This explains its importance, as well as the reason for building a mosque there during the early days of Islam in East Africa. What could be the explanation for the early mosque in Kizimkazi Dimbani? Why did the foreigners involved in the Indian Ocean trade not restrict their contacts to the big market centres? Why did they also establish contacts with fishing communities like Kizimkazi Dimbani? Perhaps for the following reasons: by supporting and being instrumental in developing Islamic communities in different locations, the traders could secure control both in religious terms and in trade-and-market supply terms. The seafarers could have needed extra contact places, in case they had to anchor up for some time due to weather and stream conditions before travelling further south or returning north (see fig. 3). Perhaps it was important to establish independent, not tradebased, relations with people within the area of the trading partners to secure “neutral” relations in the trade. For this reason the traders built up a network also outside the market places using Islam as the stabilizing 60

Wright 1995: 659f.

E.J. Kleppe: Early Indian Ocean trade with Zanzibar and the uniting factor. Perhaps some of the seafarers had established special family ties, and that could explain the presence of the early mosques in places outside the big market sites. References Chami, Felix 1994. The Tanzanian coast in the first millennium AD. Studies in African Archaeology 7. Uppsala. Chittick, H.N. 1962. Preliminary report on the excavations at Kizimkazi Dimbani. Zanzibar Annual Report. Tanganyika Antiquities Division, for 1960: 17-19. Chittick, N. 1974. Kilwa: An Islamic trading city on the East African Coast 1 - 2. Memoir of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, 5. Nairobi. ———. 1975. An early salt-working site on the Tanzanian coast. Azania 10: 151-154. Garlake, P.S. 1966. Early Islamic Architecture of the East African Coast. Memoir of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, 3. Nairobi. Horton, M. 1987. Early Muslim trading settlements on the East African Coast: New evidence from Shanga. The Antiquities Journal 67, (2): 290-323. ———. 2001. The Islamic Conversion of the Swahili Coast, 750-1500; some archaeological and historical evidence. In Islam in East Africa: New Sources. (Archives. Manuscripts and Written Historical sources. Oral History. Archaeology), edited by B.S. Amoretti. Rome: Herder. Horton, M.C. & C.M. Clark 1985a. Archaeological survey of Zanzibar. Azania 20: 167-171. ———. 1985b. Zanzibar archaeological survey 1984/85. Ministry of Information, Culture and Sports, Zanzibar (BIEA). Unpublished report. Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa. Horton, M. & J. Middleton 2000. The Swahili. The Social Landscape of a Mercantile Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Juma, A. 2004.Unguja Ukuu on Zanzibar. An Archaeological Study of Early Urbanism. Studies in Global Archaeology 3. Uppsala. Kessy, E.T. 1992. The Economic Basis and the Location of some “Iron Age” Settlements on Pemba and Zanzibar. M. Phil. dissertation. University of Cambridge. (Mimeo). Kleppe, E.J. 1996. Women in the trading network on Medieval Zanzibar. K.A.N. Kvinner i arkeologi i Norge 21: 139-163. Kleppe, E.J. 2001. Archaeological investigations at Kizimkazi Dimbani. Pages 361-384 in Islam in East Africa: New Sources. (Archives. Manuscripts and Written Historical sources.

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Oral History. Archaeology), edited by B.S. Amoretti. Rome: Herder. Mzemwa, P. 1991. Skaldjur, viktigaste födan för de fattiga i kuststaden. Populär arkeologi 9 (4): 27-29. Sheriff, A. (1987) 1990. Slaves, Species and Ivory in Zanzibar. Integration of an east African commercial empire into the World economy, 1770-1873. London: James Currey. Trigger, B.G. 1980. Gordon Childe. Revolutions in archaeology. London: Thames and Hudson. Van Neer, W. 2001. Animal remains from the Medieval site of Kizimkazi Dimbani, Zanzibar. Pages 385-410 in Islam in East Africa: New Sources. (Archives. Manuscripts and Written Historical sources. Oral History. Archaeology). edited by B.S. Amoretti. Rome: Herder. Wright, H.T. 1995. Trade and politics on the eastern littoral of Africa, AD 800-1300. Pages 658-672 in The Archaeology of Africa. Food, Metals and Towns, edited by T. Shaw et al, One World Archaeology 20.