The Boundless Sea

by David Abulafia

  52. Crawford, Dilmun, pp. 15, 61; Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 1, p. 182.

  53. Bibby, Looking for Dilmun, pp. 171–80.

  54. Crawford, Dilmun, pp. 61–2, 87–94; Bibby, Looking for Dilmun, p. 253.

  55. Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 1, pp. 186–8.

  56. Crawford, Dilmun, pp. 95–6; Bibby, Looking for Dilmun, pp. 192–3, 354–5, 358–9.

  57. Crawford, Dilmun, pp. 38, 41.

  58. I. Finkel, The Ark before Noah (London, 2014).

  59. Connan, Carter, Crawford et al., ‘Comparative Geochemical Study’, pp. 22–34.

  60. Bibby, Looking for Dilmun, p. 193; Rice, Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf, pp. 148–9.

  61. Connan, Carter, Crawford et al., ‘Comparative Geochemical Study’, pp. 34–54; Ray, Archaeology of Seafaring, pp. 57, 88–9.

  62. J. Connan and T. Van de Velde, ‘An Overview of the Bitumen Trade in the Near East from the Neolithic (c.8000 BC) to the Early Islamic Period’, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, vol. 21 (2010), pp. 1–19.

  63. Crawford, Dilmun, pp. 38, 63.

  64. Ray, Archaeology of Seafaring, pp. 59–61, 66–9; Beaujard, Mondes, vol. 1, p. 125.

  65. Ray, Archaeology of Seafaring, p. 98; Beaujard, Mondes, vol. 1, p. 156.

  4. The Journey to the Land of the God

  1. David Abulafia, The Great Sea: a Human History of the Mediterranean (London, 2011), p. 38.

  2. A. Gardiner, The Egyptians: an Introduction (2nd edn, London, 1999), pp. 387–8.

  3. N. Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh: a Study of the Arabian Incense Trade (London, 1981), pp. 163–4.

  4. Ibid., pp. 3, 12, 24–5; Herodotos, 2:86.

  5. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 12:32.58–62 and 65; Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh, pp. 136–7.

  6. Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh, pp. 12–15, 17, 25.

  7. R. J. Leprohon, Texts from the Pyramid Age (Leiden, 2005), p. 66; D. Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt (London, 2004), p. 89.

  8. Illustrated in Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt, p. 90.

  9. D. Abulafia, The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus (New Haven, 2008).

  10. J. Baines, ‘Interpreting the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor’, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 76 (1990), pp. 55–72; Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt, p. 39; M. Cary and E. H. Warmington, The Ancient Explorers (2nd edn, Harmondsworth, 1963), pp. 75, 233–4.

  11. I have used the English translation accompanying the transcription by M.-J. Nederhof, ‘Shipwrecked Sailor’, http://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/texts/corpus/pdf/Shipwrecked.pdf, as amended on 8 June 2009.

  12. See the discussion in a later chapter based on M. D. Bukharin, P. de Geest, H. Dridi et al., Foreign Sailors on Socotra: the Inscriptions and Drawings from the Cave Hoq (Bremen, 2012); Z. Biedermann, Soqotra: Geschichte einer christlichen Insel im Indischen Ozean bis zur frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden, 2006).

  13. Gardiner, Egyptians, pp. 176, 182.

  14. Adapted from Cary and Warmington, Ancient Explorers, p. 75; and from Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt, p. 179.

  15. Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt, pp. 158–60 for private traders.

  16. Illustrated ibid., p. 180; Gardiner, Egyptians, p. 180.

  17. Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt, p. 179.

  18. Illustrated ibid., p. 144; cf. pp. 182–3 for the arrival of goods from Punt.

  19. R. Fattovich, ‘Egypt’s Trade with Punt: New Discoveries on the Red Sea Coast’, British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan, vol. 18 (2012), p. 4; see also K. Bard and R. Fattovich, eds., Harbor of the Pharaohs to the Land of Punt: Archaeological Investigations at Marsa/Wadi Gawasis, Egypt, 2001–2005 (Naples, 2007).

  20. Fattovich, ‘Egypt’s Trade with Punt’, pp. 5, 9; Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt, pp. 80–83; E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (2nd edn, London, 1974), pp. 7–8.

  21. Illustrated in Fattovich, ‘Egypt’s Trade with Punt’, pp. 40, 46–7, 55, figs. 40, 46–8, 63.

  22. Ibid., p. 14.

  23. Abulafia, Great Sea, pp. 48–52.

  24. Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh, pp. 198–204.

  25. Ibid., pp. 32–3.

  26. Babylonian Talmud, Treatise Kerithoth; see also Exodus 30:34–6.

  27. I Kings 9:26–8; also I Chronicles 29:4; I. Finkelstein and N. A. Silberman, David and Solomon (New York, 2006), pp. 153, 170.

  28. I Kings 10:11–22; also II Chronicles 8:18; II Chronicles 9.

  29. For strong doubts about Phoenician identity see J. Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians (Princeton, 2018); Abulafia, Great Sea, pp. 66–7.

  30. S. Celestino and C. López-Ruiz, Tartessos and the Phoenicians in Iberia (Oxford, 2016), pp. 111–21.

  31. Ezekiel 27; see also M. E. Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade (2nd edn, Cambridge, 2001), pp. 364–71.

  32. Ibid., p. 115.

  33. G. Pratico, ‘Nelson Glueck’s 1938–1940 Excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh: a Reappraisal’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 259 (1985), pp. 1–32.

  34. B. Isserlin, The Israelites (London, 1998), p. 184.

  35. Ibid., pp. 185, 226, also plate 44.

  36. Matthew 2:11.

  37. Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh, pp. 34–7.

  5. Cautious Pioneers

  1. Herodotos, 4:44; M. Cary and E. H. Warmington, The Ancient Explorers (2nd edn, Harmondsworth, 1963), pp. 78–9; D. T. Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2: From Alexander the Great to the Coming of Islam (Oxford, 1990), p. 2.

  2. D. Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt (London, 2004), p. 78.

  3. Cary and Warmington, Ancient Explorers, p. 79.

  4. Herodotos, 4:42; Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt, p. 77; Cary and Warmington, Ancient Explorers, pp. 111–12.

  5. Herodotos, 4:43.

  6. Cary and Warmington, Ancient Explorers, pp. 114–17.

  7. Arrian, Anabasis, 5:26.1–2.

  8. Ibid., 7:20.9–10; Strabo, Geography, 16:1.11; Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2, pp. 2–4.

  9. David Abulafia, The Great Sea: a Human History of the Mediterranean (London, 2011), p. 180.

  10. Arrian, Anabasis, 18:29–30; Cary and Warmington, Ancient Explorers, pp. 80–86.

  11. Arrian, Anabasis, 18:31.

  12. Polybios, 13:9; Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2, pp. 11–13.

  13. H. P. Ray, The Archaeology of Seafaring in the Indian Ocean (Cambridge, 2003), p. 173.

  14. M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (3 vols., Oxford, 1940–41), vol. 1, pp. 457–8.

  15. Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2, pp. 85–97.

  16. Polybios, 13:9.4–5.

  17. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, vol. 1, pp. 458–9; Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2, p. 93.

  18. Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2, p. 34; and for Thaj generally, pp. 23–48.

  19. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, vol. 1, p. 461.

  20. N. Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh: a Study of the Arabian Incense Trade (London, 1981), p. 194.

  21. Potts, Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2, p. 31.

  22. Strabo, Geography, 16:3; Ray, Archaeology of Seafaring, p. 176.

  23. P. Beaujard, Les Mondes de l’Océan Indien, vol. 1: De la formation de l’État au premier système-monde afro-eurasien (4e millénaire av. J.-C.–6e siècle ap. J.-C.) (Paris, 2012), p. 361.

  24. Fabre, Seafaring in Ancient Egypt, pp. 78–9.

  25. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, vol. 1, p. 384.

  26. Cary and Warmington, Ancient Explorers, pp. 87–8.

  27. Strabo, Geography, 2:5.12.

  28. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, vol. 2, p. 925.

  29. Text copied by Photios, cited in extenso in Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh, pp. 68–72.

  30. Strabo, Geography, 2:98–102; Cary and Warmington, Ancient Explorers, pp
. 90–91, 124–5.

  31. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History, vol. 2, p. 927; R. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India, and China (London, 2010), p. 24.

  6. Mastering the Monsoon

  1. David Abulafia, The Great Sea: a Human History of the Mediterranean (London, 2011), pp. 164–5; M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (3 vols., Oxford, 1940–41), vol. 2, pp. 920–24.

  2. Cited in R. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India, and China (London, 2010), p. 143.

  3. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 28.

  4. Lucian of Samosata, Alexander the False Prophet, c.44; R. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepper (Bristol and London, 2008), p. 66.

  5. E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (2nd edn, London, 1974), pp. 39–42; Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, pp. 30–37.

  6. G. Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, revised by J. Carswell (2nd edn, Princeton, 1995), pp. 25–6.

  7. L. Casson, ed. and transl., The Periplus Maris Erythraei (Princeton, 1989), pp. 86–7; another translation by G. W. B. Huntingford, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (London, 1980), p. 52; most references are to the former, Casson’s edition. I use the form Periplous because I cannot see any reason to latinize the title of a work written in Greek. Also, Warmington, Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, pp. 43–4.

  8. M. Cary and E. H. Warmington, The Ancient Explorers (2nd edn, Harmondsworth, 1963), pp. 95–6, 227.

  9. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 7–8.

  10. Casson in Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 10; M. Wheeler, Rome beyond the Imperial Frontiers (2nd edn, Harmondsworth, 1955), p. 138.

  11. Casson in Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 8; text, pp. 62–3; Wheeler, Rome beyond the Imperial Frontiers, p. 141.

  12. Casson in Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 5–7; cf. Huntingford in Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, pp. 8–12, dating it between 95 and 130.

  13. Casson in Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 50–51; S. Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2011), p. 63.

  14. Cited from Huntingford’s version in Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, p. 21.

  15. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 52–3, 113.

  16. Ibid., pp. 58–9, 133.

  17. Wheeler, Rome beyond the Imperial Frontiers, p. 138.

  18. Cary and Warmington, Ancient Explorers, p. 122; R. Darley, Indo-Byzantine Exchange, 4th to 7th centuries: a Global History (Birmingham University Ph.D. thesis, 2013).

  19. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 98.

  20. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 60–61, 141–2.

  21. Ibid., pp. 62–3.

  22. Hourani, Arab Seafaring, pp. 32–3.

  23. L. N. Swamy, Maritime Contacts of Ancient India with Special Reference to the West Coast (New Delhi, 2000), p. 61.

  24. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 64–5, 158–9; also Huntingford in Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, pp. 9–10; Warmington, Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, p. 11.

  25. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, pp. 3, 28.

  26. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 66–7.

  27. Ibid., pp. 70–71.

  28. P. Beaujard, Les Mondes de l’Océan Indien, vol. 1: De la formation de l’État au premier système-monde afro-eurasien (4e millénaire av. J.-C.–6e siècle ap. J.-C.) (Paris, 2012), p. 373.

  29. Hourani, Arab Seafaring, pp. 16–17.

  30. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 74–5, 190.

  31. Casson in Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 22, 26.

  32. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 74–7.

  33. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, pp. 125–6.

  34. Casson in Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 210; Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 55.

  35. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 12:14; Wheeler, Rome beyond the Imperial Frontiers, p. 148.

  36. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 80–81, 84–5.

  37. Ibid., pp. 82–3; K. Hall, Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu, 1985), pp. 32–3.

  38. Casson in Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 241–2.

  39. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 86–7.

  40. Map 14 ibid., p. 225.

  41. Beaujard, Mondes, vol. 1, p. 379.

  42. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 7, 9, 11.

  43. Ibid., p. 12; also pp. 18–20.

  44. Diodorus Siculus, 3:40.4–8; Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 51–2, 195.

  45. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 50–51.

  46. Ibid., p. 196.

  47. Abulafia, Great Sea, pp. 155–8.

  48. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 68–81.

  49. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 62; Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 81–5.

  50. D. Peacock and L. Blue, eds., Myos Hormos – Quseir al-Qadim: Roman and Islamic Ports on the Red Sea, vol. 1: Survey and Excavations 1999–2003 (Oxford, 2006), and vol. 2: Finds from the Excavations 1999–2003 (Oxford, 2011); L. Guo, Commerce, Culture and Community in a Red Sea Port in the Thirteenth Century: the Arabic Documents from Quseir (Leiden, 2004); Strabo, Geography, 17:1.45; Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 57; McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 28; Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 184–6.

  51. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 15.

  52. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 61.

  53. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, pp. 15–16, 159–60.

  54. Ibid., p. 193 n. 298; Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 223–4.

  55. Sidebotham, Berenike, p. 225; Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, pp. 26–7, 141; McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 49; Wheeler, Rome beyond the Imperial Frontiers, p. 160.

  56. Cited in H. P. Ray, The Archaeology of Seafaring in the Indian Ocean (Cambridge, 2003), p. 53; see also Beaujard, Mondes, vol. 1, p. 375.

  57. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 144; Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 55.

  58. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 226–7, and fig. 12.1; Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 76.

  59. Cf. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 76, 228–30, 249–51.

  60. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 63; Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 175, 177.

  61. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 231–2, 236–7.

  62. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 19; Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 43.

  63. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 232–4; Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, pp. 81, 149.

  64. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 159.

  65. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 12:41.84.

  66. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 31.

  67. Warmington, Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, p. 68.

  68. Cited by Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 67.

  69. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, pp. 121–2; Beaujard, Mondes, vol. 1, pp. 401–39, on Buddhism and trade; Swamy, Maritime Contacts, pp. 58–60.

  70. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 145.

  71. Warmington, Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, pp. 116–26.

  72. Cited from McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 56; also in Beaujard, Mondes, vol. 1, p. 371.

  73. D. Keys, Catastrophe: an Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World (London, 1999).

  74. Cf. V. Begley, ‘Arikamedu Reconsidered’, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 87 (1983), pp. 461–81.

  75. Warmington, Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, p. 68.

  76. Begley, ‘Arikamedu Reconsidered’, p. 461.

  77. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, pp. 133, 137; Begley, ‘Arikamedu Reconsidered’, p. 470.

  78. Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, p. 137; cf. the hyper-sceptical Darley, Indo-Byzantine Exchange, pp. 315–17.

  79. Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 88–9, 228–9;
Wheeler, Rome beyond the Imperial Frontiers, pp. 173–9, and plates 19a and b; J. M. and G. Casal, Fouilles de Virampatnam-Arikamedu: rapport de l’Inde et de l’Occident aux environs de l’Ère chrétienne (Paris, 1949).

  80. Hall, Maritime Trade and State Development, p. 35.

  81. Strabo, Geography, 15:1.4; McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 10.

  82. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, pp. 134–5.

  83. Ibid., p. 58.

  84. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 259–75.

  85. Ibid., pp. 204–5.

  86. Ibid., p. 200; McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 36.

  87. Sidebotham, Berenike, pp. 279–82; Darley, Indo-Byzantine Exchange, pp. 318–26.

  7. Brahmins, Buddhists and Businessmen

  1. P. Beaujard, Les Mondes de l’Océan Indien, vol. 1: De la formation de l’État au premier système-monde afro-eurasien (4e millénaire av. J.-C.–6e siècle ap. J.-C.) (Paris, 2012), p. 381.

  2. I. Strauch with M. D. Bukharin, P. de Geest, H. Dridi et al., Foreign Sailors on Socotra: the Inscriptions and Drawings from the Cave Hoq (Bremen, 2011), p. 13.

  3. L. Casson, ed. and transl., The Periplus Maris Erythraei (Princeton, 1989), pp. 68–9, with minor alterations.

  4. Casson in Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 167–70.

  5. Strauch, Foreign Sailors on Socotra, p. 44.

  6. K. Hall, Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu, 1985), p. 37; Strauch, Foreign Sailors on Socotra, p. 374.

  7. Strauch, Foreign Sailors on Socotra, pp. 52–3, 309, 344–5; Casson, ed. and transl., Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 76–7.

  8. Strauch, Foreign Sailors on Socotra, pp. 131–2, 141, 211; also p. 214; p. 181: ‘the son of the captain Humiyaka’.

  9. Ibid., pp. 227–8, 364–5, 377–9, and fig. 6.13.

  10. M. Gorea ibid., pp. 448–83 (šmmr: pp. 455–6); also comments by Strauch, pp. 79, 338, 377–9.

  11. Ibid., pp. 142, 183, 348, 497.

  12. Ibid., pp. 375–6, 542.

  13. Cited ibid., pp. 384–5.

  14. S. Randrianja and S. Ellis, Madagascar: a Short History (London, 2009), pp. 24–6; K. McDonald, Pirates, Merchants, Settlers, and Slaves: Colonial America and the Indo-Atlantic World (Oakland, 2015), p. 62; R. Boothby, A Briefe Discovery or Description of the Most Famous Island of Madagascar or St Laurence in Asia neare unto East-India; with relation of the healthfulnesse, pleasure, fertility and wealth of that country, also the condition of the natives: also the excellent meanes and accommodation to fit the planters there (London, 1646).