Anna Katalin Aklan Mediterranean and Mediterraneanisms Professor: Tijana Krstic Fall 2011/2012 January 6, 2012 Final Paper

Commercial exchange networks in the Northwestern Indian Ocean from the 4th millennium BC to the 13th century AD

(A case study in thalassology)

Theoretical background

Historians of the Indian Ocean, despite their divergent opinions and debates, are largely inspired by the seminal researches of Fernand Braudel, who, in the context of the Mediterranean region, emphasized the unity between the land and the sea.1

Indian Ocean studies have been experiencing a revival in the past two decades. An exhaustive list of relatively recent publications can be found in Markus Vinks article Indian Ocean and new thalassology.2 As the title of the article suggests, Vink elaborates on the concept of thalassology, first propounded by Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell3 in the June 2006 American Historical Review Forum on Oceans of History, which issue covered the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Pacific regions, but regrettably omitted the Indian Ocean Basin. Vink, in his detailed study, fills in this lacuna, and admits that Indian Ocean studies are less known in the scholarly world than the other three areas, despite the fact that there are centers and institutions devoted to Indian Ocean studies in India, in Mauritius, in Australia, in Germany, and in Canada, which regularly hold conferences. Indian Ocean studies gained an impetus in the 1980s from a blend of Braudelian Mediterraneism with its emphasis on geo-historical concepts, and the French Annales school, together with Immanuel Wallersteins world systems approach. Three historians of the Indian Ocean area provided influential works that determined subsequent historiography:

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Chakravarti, 1998, 100 Vink 3 Horden and Purcell, 2006

Kirti N. Chaudhuri, Michael Pearson and Kenneth McPherson4. All three scholars approach the Indian Ocean in truly and consciously Braudelian terms, regarding the area an analytical unit. The unity of the region is analyzed variously, but natural geography of the littoral, climate, long-distance trade and travel (both means of travel and travelling people) represented cohesion, which facilitated an exchange of goods, people, religions and ideas. Despite these factors, all three historians agree that the vast area of the Indian Ocean can be divided into several sub-categories (sub-Mediterraneans, as the mediterraneanist term has been used to denote sub-regions of the Indian Ocean), which all have their distinctive characteristics in this respect, the Indian Ocean is just as fragmented as its Mediterranean sister. One of the main criticisms of the new thalassology paradigm applied to the Indian Ocean was put forward by Niels Steensgaard5, who pointed at the lack of interdependence between regional economies, which characterizes the Mediterranean, even according to Horden and Purcell. In the case of the Indian Ocean, the driving force of long-distance trade was luxury items instead of bulk trade of necessities thus the traditional historiographical conceptualization of long-distance trade in the Indian Ocean Basin. In my opinion, the question of long-distance trade has to be re-considered as it offers such a riddle that has not been efficiently addressed in historiography. Why would people risk so much at so long distances for dispensable items for such a long period of time, persistent through centuries? Three answers present themselves. First, it was not only luxury trade on the Indian Ocean, but the amount of bulk trade of necessities is underplayed. Himanshu Prabha Ray6 emphasizes this: This argument [of luxury trade], however, does not take into account the uncertainties of agricultural production in the ancient period and the fact that while agricultural output varies annually, the demand for food does not. Thus the hazardous nature of early farming and variations in output would presuppose a sizeable flow of trade in staple products. Especially the coasts of the Arab peninsula and the Red Sea are inhospitable to farming, so grain might have been imported. Oil, garum and wine were exported to India from the Mediterranean. These food items, along with trade in raw metal or cloth, can be considered as trade in necessities.

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Vink, 44 Vink 46 6 Ray 41.

The second answer addresses the question of luxury items. Wallerstein, the founder of world systems analysis himself regarded the Indian Ocean external to the European system before the coming of the Portuguese to India, based on a simplistic and inconsistent interpretation of necessities and luxuries. Although Wallerstein qualifies pepper as a luxury, it was clearly a necessity for many in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa from the fifteenth century onwards.7 I would argue that pepper became a necessity even in Roman times. The case of pepper, one of the top products of import trade from India, exemplifies the changing categories of luxury and necessity, as these categories shift according to the times, places and societies. Indian pearls were known in ancient Greece from the 5th century BC, and pepper from the 4th century BC8. Another example is precious metal: precious metals imported from beyond the Indian Ocean were a vital commodity of fundamental importance for the Indian Ocean Basin by the ninth century, where they underpinned the synchronous operation of complex indigenous states, economies, societies and cultures.9 Incense and spices can be regarded luxury items if we conceive a society as primarily self-sufficient based on local agriculture. Even from the earliest known historical times, from the emergence of the early civilizations of Harappa, Mesopotamia and Egypt in the 4th millennium BC, we have evidence of much more complex societies with well-established long-distance overland and maritime connections. The application of incenses could be prominent mainly in rituals, which places them into the category of necessity. The same can be said about spices, which can become indispensable, even more so if we consider them as the main source for medicine. One should bear in mind that chemistry and the industries connected with it were not as advanced as we have it today, so pharmacology10, perfume industry, hygienic products were dependent on incenses and spices. While stating this, I do not intend to question the existence of a luxury trade of jewelry or silk, or products of fine craftsmanship as sculpture, glass vessels or intaglios, etc., but simply attempt to indicate the permeability and vagueness of the alleged binary opposition of necessity and luxury. Another ramification of this argument about the value of the trade items concerns societies involved in the trade: there is a strong solvent demand in the importing society for these goods, which indicates the complexity and wealth of the receiving society. On this basis, we can conclude that since the beginnings of maritime networks, littoral and farther terminal societies in the hinterland did produce and possess a surplus which they could offer as exchange for the products imported. This
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Vink 50 Ray 54 9 Vink 50 10 Parker 150

conclusion also undermines the concept of the simple, self-sufficient, primitive societies of the early millennia of human history. Furthermore, one should not only consider the volume, but also the profits involved and the prestige invested in those products, as well as their effects on employment11. To fully unfold the implications of this statement, we need to observe the parallel of contemporary economics: contrary to common sense expectations, some items have much higher price due to their prestige value, such as special brand items, fashion and perfume industry products. Contemporary economics terminology could help better understand this long-lasting and persistent long-distance trade as it yielded such a profit that made it lucrative for the most practical-minded businessmen from antiquity on. Consequently, I would question the arduousness of the route. A parallel of modern-day air travel jumps to mind: flying an aircraft can seem frightening and dangerous, but looking at the boosting numbers of air traffic, it seems to be a reliable way of long-distance travelling. It seems to me that a merchant crossing the Red Sea or the Arabian Desert might have felt the same way: it is uncomfortable, even dangerous, but it was a natural way of travel and transport12. The scientific way to support the above arguments about long-distance trade in Antiquity would be using statistics. Unfortunately, there are very little and random data preserved from these times concerning economic activities between the Mediterranean and India, e.g. the bulk of the cargo in general from antiquity, together with the numbers of ships sailing annually. The alleged 50 million sesterces which India draws out from the Roman economy annually, as stated by Pliny13, has been questioned on many grounds14. Neither are there sufficient data to make statistical analysis concerning the volume of trade. The extreme paucity of data on commercial activities and the virtual absence of any statistical information are major obstacles for the economic historian of early India to present the case.15 Historians are still limited to making assumptions based on the variously reliable sources. Turning back to the historiographical path, Wallerstein world-systems analysis, which treated the Indian Ocean world economy16 a single, distinct unit, external to the European system, triggered various responses from historians of the Indian Ocean, especially regarding the late
Vink 10 This is even more true in a Mediterranean context in the Roman times, where ordinary citizens travelled between Egypt, Athens, Rome, Palestine naturally, for private and public matters alike. 13 Pliny. Historia Naturalis 6.101. 14 Parker, 186 15 Chakravarti, 1998,98 16 Vink, 48
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Middle Ages and the early modern period. Some17 argued that the Afro-Eurasian economic system had already been created due to the flow of goods and merchant networks before the beginnings of the European colonization. The global historians of the California School argued that before the 19th century, a polycentric world-system prevailed, without a single prominent centre. Braudel and others held the view that between the 16th and 19th centuries, the Indian Ocean trade became incorporated into the European system as a lower component, on the basis of a fourfold classification: economics, politics, culture, and social hierarchy18. Muslim Indian scholars, and especially the Muslim-Nationalist Aligarh school argues that an autonomous Indian Ocean world-system or Islamic world-economy was centered on India, due to its halfway-house position between Europe and Southeast Asia. Late precolonial and early colonial historians 19 maintain that the Wallersteinian analysis overlooks the internal dynamism of the area, while washing away the distinctive and unique features of the region. As is clear from the above synopsis, the most recent historiographical debates are focusing on the Medieval and Early Modern periods, the time after 1500 AD. Regarding the period of Hellenism and Late Antiquity, historians seem to stay out of the discourse. Roberta Tomber, Steven E. Sidebotham, Himanshu Prabha Ray and other specialists in Late Antique maritime history and archaeology of the Indian Ocean Basin seem to avoid direct engagement in the ongoing theoretical discourse. Their works concentrate rather on data and palpable results than on abstract constructions of systems. Mediterraneism and new thalassology terminology and conceptualization seem to be missing even from their most recent works. These historians work in the field: they provide the basic data on which theoretization can be built. The reason why I included the above synthesis of the discourse concerning Medieval history of the area is that the categories of the debate could well be applied to Late Antique history, as well. I would agree with the scholars who maintain the connection of the Afro-Eurasian ecumene. Although separate and distinct networks did exist, such as the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean Basin, the Silk Route area, the Amber Route area, etc., which all had their subnetworks, all these networks were connected to form a single unit, and had overlapping areas (such as the Arab Peninsula, which belonged both to the Mediterranean network and to the Indian Ocean one). From the beginnings of the three ancient civilizations up to the 19th century, new and new areas became involved in the networks, and the intensity of connections

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Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills, Samuel Adshead, Janet Abu-Lughod, quoted by Vink, 49 Vink, 50 19 Vink, 51
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between the separate areas were changing. The development and the gradual formation of the bigger unit, i.e. how the smaller networks became connected and started to be organized in larger systems, deserves research, historical analysis and conceptualization. Although this seems to be an even more ambitious project than Horden and Purcells Mediterranean, results from the studies of trade connections point to this direction.

The geography and toponymy of the Indian Ocean Basin

The body of water which is today called Indian Ocean, stretches from the coasts of the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa in the West to Indochina, the Sunda Islands and Australia in the East, and from the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent in the North to the Southern Ocean in the South. The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface.20 It includes the Andaman Sea, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, Flores Sea, Great Australian Bight, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Java Sea, Mozambique Channel, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Savu Sea, Strait of Malacca, Timor Sea, and other tributary water bodies.21 Taking all this into consideration, historians again are talking about an immensely vast territory on Earth. The processing and understanding of its history requires the work of many specialists of African, Southeast Asian, South Asian, and Australian history, together with scholars of the Arabian Peninsula both before and after the rise of Islam. Although the research seems rewarding, an extraordinarily large material and feel for analysis and synthesis is needed to interpret the history of this large area, which, just as the Mediterranean, has its fragmented and separate units. The scope of my study is less ambitious: the focus is on the trade between the Mediterranean and India in the beginning centuries of Christianity, from the 1st to 6th centuries AD, with an outlook to preceding and the following periods, but not later than the 13th century AD. This trade involved three major bodies of water: the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. The main Greek literary source for the study of the trade between the Mediterranean and India for the first centuries AD is the Periplus Maris Erythraei by an anonymous author. He calls the area of the present-day Red Sea and present-day Arabian Sea together Red Sea, while
20 21

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xo.html

calls the Persian Gulf the same name as it is called today22. Pliny, the Roman authority on the trade with India, calls the sea mare Indicum, although the territory coincided with the Red Sea of the Periplus author.

Maritime Exchange Networks A Thalassological Case Study

In the second part of the paper I attempt to re-consider the maritime trade between India and the Mediterranean from a broader chronological perspective, arguing against the mainstream historiographical position which claims that Roman trade with India was a novelty that started in the 1st century AD. I intend to point out23 that it was an expansion of earlier trade routes, a continuation of much earlier trading activities, with more or less the same items involved. Whether the items of exchange can be labeled luxury or necessity lies out of the scope of the study in this case. As mentioned above, there is evidence for long-distance maritime trade from the time of the three known earliest civilizations. The island called Dilmun by Sumerian sources was identified as Bahrein in the excavations undertaken from the 1950s on. Corroborating the written Sumerian evidence, the finds suggest that Dilmun dominated trade activity in the Persian Gulf, which was intensive around 3300-2200BC24. The island participated in the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus valley civilizations. Akkadian texts refer to a number of commodities imported from Meluhha, generally identified with a part of the Indian subcontinent. These included timber, copper, carnelian, gold dust, lapis lazuli and birds25 Furthermore, there may have been raw materials involved in the long distance trade between the Indus valley, the Persian Gulf, Iran and Mesopotamia.26 With the decline of the Harappan civilization in 1750 BC these trade contacts also lost their intensity, but archaeological data especially from the northern coast of the Arabian Peninsula from the island of Failaka in Kuwait down to Oman and the mouth of the Gulf shows that the densely populated coastline retained some maritime connections with the western shore of India. It is also suggested that the navigation was coastal, which probably extended along all
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Casson, Periplus, 150 following Ray 1994 24 Parker, 181 25 Ray, 12 26 Lahiri, 441
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coasts of the Arabian Peninsula. Thus we can speak of the first exchange network in the Persian Gulf as early as the 4th millennium BC, which lost its vigour during the first half of the second millennium, but retained its continuity. In the beginning centuries of the first millennium, trade in the Gulf was reinvigorated. The Achaemenid and Seleucid periods were also witnesses to strong and busy maritime exchange activity. Although the legend about Scylax cannot be verified, it is an indicator of the Achaemenids geographical knowledge. In the 5th century BC, Scylax of Caryanda was sent by emperor Darius to discover the realm of the sea. Scylax travelled down the Indus river to the Arabian sea, and from there to the Red Sea, up to its northernmost point27. After Alexanders Indian campaign, Greek population spread over the area, who joined in the existing overland and maritime trading activities. The Greeks did not develop the trade routes, they merely tried to expand the commercial axis inherited by the Achaemenids.28 The most authoritative work on maritime trade of the 1st century AD, the Periplus mentions the city of Eudaimon Arabia29, or else Arabia Felix (present-day Aden) as an old port which used to be an intermediary between Egyptian and Indian vessels, before the time of the writing of the Periplus. This also supports the assumption that just as the Greeks before them, neither did the Romans discover the trade with India, but only step into an existing trading system, albeit altering and expanding it. There was a shift in the geographical location of the trade, as the Red Sea became intensively involved in maritime commerce, even at the expense of the importance of the Persian Gulf. One reason for this is the blocking of the Northern overland routes by the Parthian Empire, another is the so-called discovery of the monsoon winds. A third reason (although I have found no mention of it) can be the cost-effectiveness of the southern, maritime route via the Red Sea, compared to the overland route crossing the Arab Peninsula / Anatolia. The shift affected the Indian ports as well, as now Southern India gained more prominence with sites as Muziris and Nelkynda, or Arikamedu. By Roman times, the main commodities of exchange were frankincense30 and spices, along with cotton, gold, and luxury items. The main Roman export goods were wine, olive oil, and
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Herodotos. Histories 4.44., Suda s.v. Scylax Ray, 55 29 Periplus 26 30 Frankincense was among the top three commodities of exchange at least from the first millennium BC to about the 4th-5th centuries AD, then later revived and exported to Western Europe by the Cruseders hence the common name: frank-incense. It is an aromatic resin obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia, whose separate species are native to the Arab Peninsula, India, Southeast Asian islands and East Africa. (I suspect that the tree originated in one place and was transplanted and spread in the others, as the distribution corresponds so well with the northern Indian Ocean exchange network area, though I have not found any speculations about that in the literature). The main producer was the Arab Peninsula in antiquity. Frankincense was widely used in religious rites in temples and at funerals as an incense. It was also used in medicine as an anti-inflammation,

fish sauce, garum, and coins intended either to melt down and reuse, or use as bullion, but definitely not at their face value of the Mediterranean economy 31. From the 3rd to 7th centuries, a southern Red Sea state, the Axumite kingdom gained prominence, overshadowing the Graeco-Roman trade with India. After a relatively calm period (of sources?), Cosmas Indicopleustes in the 6th century reports trade between India and Byzantine ports32. Concerning the acting agents in Indo-Roman trade, the picture in historiography seems to be clear. It is Roman merchants, maybe through Egyptian middleman, who own and send ships to India. It is admitted than Indian merchants also participated, and on inscriptional and epigraphical basis it is known that there were Indian merchant colonies living on the southern coast of the Red Sea33. The actual trading, navigation and travel seems more complex to me. First of all, when we talk about trade between India and the Mediterranean, three seas are involved without having a common name to address the area. Second, we are not dealing with cargoes straight from one port in the Mediterranean to another port in the Indian coast (certainly including an overland transportation somewhere, as the two seas were not connected), or vice versa. As is clear from the Periplus, ships often stopped during their course, and changed part of the cargo. Many peoples lived on the shores it is probable that they also took part in the interaction. Arab people are almost never mentioned as possible participants in maritime commerce during Late Antiquity in the secondary literature. Jewish merchants became very significant during the period from 10-13th century34, but when did their involvement start? Axumite participants were active from the 3rd century on. Greeks heavily populated the area, to the extent that the most significant legal document concerning Indian trade, the so-called Muziris papyrus35 was written in Greek. As Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions attest, there were instances of Indian merchants living in Egypt, but there is no
anti-infection, and antiseptic plant, as attested for example in Pliny and in Avicenna. Present-day researches have found that its fume has drug-like effects as antidepressant and removes anxiety. Internal consumption proved to be effective in Crohns disease, osteoarthritis and in vitro experiments proved effective for various forms of cancer. In ancient Egypt, frankincense was a basic ingredient to create the powder called kohl, which was the characteristic Egyptian black eye-liner. In present-day Oman, it is used for everything from deodorant and toothpaste to food and drink flavoring. In the light of this, I wonder whether this item was considered a luxury or a necessity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankincense#Traditional_medicine http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/f/franki31.html http://www.planetbotanic.ca/fact_sheets/frankincense_fs2.htm http://www.mei.edu/SQCC/EducationalResources/TheHistoryofFrankincense.aspx 31 Hall 32 Chakravarti 1986, 208 33 Salomon 34 Wink 35 Casson, 1990

evidence for a Roman emporium in India. Furthermore, state involvement in commerce was limited to taxation only. On this basis, I would contest the term Roman trade, suggesting Indo-Mediterranean trade instead. Conventionally, the long-distance trade between the Mediterranean and India is said to decline gradually from the 4th century, and going through a revival in the 10th century. Andre Wink assumes that in the centuries preceding Islam, Zoroastrian Persians or Christian Persians had dominated commerce in the western Indian Ocean36. He also asserts that a Persianized Arab trading groups controlled a trade diaspora and were influential in the expansion of Islam, and became hegemonic in the Persian Gulf commerce, competing with Parsis and Persians living on both sides of the Arab Sea. It was in the 9th century Abbasid Caliphate that the India trade became the backbone of the international economy37. Jewish diaspora in the caliphate became involved in this trade and grew to great prominence in and due to this commerce. After 1055, when the Persian Gulf became blocked by the SeljuqTurkish interference, trade again shifted to the Red Sea. The participation of the Jewish diaspora became dominant in the India trade until the 13th century, but when their position in hinterland caliphate declined, their significance in India also decreased38.

Conclusion In the paper I delineated the recent historiographical debates concerning Indian Ocean trade in the Medieval times, and attempted to apply the concepts of thalassology and world systems analysis to the Northwestern Indian Ocean trade prior to the 13th century, demonstrating the continuous existence of commercial exchange networks from the 4th millennia BC to the 13th century. These networks were in connection with the Mediterranean from at least the 15th century BC, when Egypt had direct trade connections with Anatolia, and acquired lapis lazuli from the area of the present-day Afghanistan. The argument presented here, in the purported style of thalassology, that smaller networks of trade existed from the beginnings of literacy, which very early became connected with each other, thus creating ever larger units. To distinct but interrelated maritime networks were outlined: one in the Persian Gulf, and the other in the Red Sea. An additional third network in our study area was coastal shipping along the Western Indian coasts. For these three systems, the long duree constituent, the wider geographical unit of the Northwestern Indian Ocean provided cohesion. The intensity of these

36 37

Wink, 350 Wink, 353 38 Wink, 366

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connections was changing over time, but the continuity remained. An outlook on the nature of the commodities transported was also present, outlining an argument about the permeable bounderies between the categories luxury and necessity item. In this paper the focus was limited on the existence and interactions of trading networks. Secondary material has also been selected to demonstrate this issue. Other topics of investigation would be also exciting and challenging, such as the closer examination of the commodities exchanged, merchants involved, an ecological approach focusing on timber as an important resource especially for shipment, ports, navigational techniques, language, or the intellectual commodities exchanged, religion being one possible topic among them. These could supply material for further studies.

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http://www.nationmaster.com/country/xo-indian-ocean

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Bibliography Primary sources Casson, Lionel (ed.) The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Herodotus. Histories. with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1920. Pliny. Historia Naturalis. edited by Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff. Lipsiae: Teubner, 1906. Secondary sources Casson, Lionel. New light on maritime loans: P. Vindob. G. 40822. Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigraphik 84 (1990): 195-206. Chakravarti, Ranabir. "Coastal trade and voyages in Konkan: The early medieval scenario." The Indian Economic and Social History Review. 35, 2 (1998): 97-122. Chakravarti, Ranabir. Merchants of Konkan. Indian Economic & Social History Review 23, 2 (1986): 207-215. Hall, Kenneth R. Coinage, trade and economy in early South India and its Southeast Asian neighbours. Indian Economic & Social History Review 36, 4 (1999): 431-459. Horden, Peregrine and Nicholas Purcell. The Mediterranean and the new thalassology. American Historical Review 111, 3 (2006): 722-40. Lahiri, Nayanjot. Harappa as a centre of trade and trade routes: A case study of the resourceuse, resource-access and lines of communication in the Indus civilization. Indian Economic & Social History Review. 27, 4 (1990): 405-444. Parker, Grant. The making of Roman India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Ray, Himanshu Prabha. Winds of change: Buddhism and the maritime links of early South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press: 1994. Ray, Himanshu Prabha. The archaeology of seafaring in ancient South India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Salomon, Richard. Epigraphic remains of Indian Traders in Egypt. Journal of the American Oriental Society 111/4 (1991): 731-736. Sidebotham, Steven E. Berenike and the ancient maritime spice route. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Tomber, Roberta. Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepper. London: Duckworth, 2008. Vink, Markus P.M. Indian Ocean Studies and the new thalassology. Journal of Global History 2 (2007): 41-62. Wink, Andr. The Jewish diaspora in India: eighth to thirteenth centuries. Indian Economic & Social History Review 24, 4 (1987): 349-366.

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