Rome+India Ancient Contacts

[Guest guest]

"milliondollarbet" <vaidix@h...>

Tue Jun 11, 2002 10:32 pm

Archaeological dig: Roman sea trade with India

http://story.news./news?

tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020611/ap_wo_en_ge/us_ancient_trade_1

 

http://www.archbase.com/berenike/

 

http://www.saharajournal.com/

 

Archaeological dig shows extensive Roman sea trade with India, at

times rivaling the Silk Road

Tue Jun 11, 5:59 PM ET

By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer

 

LOS ANGELES - Spices, gems and other exotic cargo excavated from an

ancient port on Egypt's Red Sea show that the sea trade 2,000 years

ago between the Roman Empire and India was more extensive than

previously thought and even rivaled the legendary Silk Road,

archaeologists say.

 

 

"We talk today about globalism as if it were the latest thing, but

trade was going on in antiquity at a scale and scope that is truly

impressive," said the co-director of the dig, Willeke Wendrich of

the

University of California at Los Angeles.

 

Wendrich and Steven Sidebotham of the University of Delaware report

their findings in the July issue of the journal Sahara.

 

Historians have long known that Egypt and India traded by land and

sea during the Roman era, in part because of texts detailing the

commercial exchange of luxury goods, including fabrics, spices and

wine.

 

Now, archaeologists who have spent the last nine years excavating

the

town of Berenike say they have recovered artifacts that are the best

physical evidence yet of the extent of sea trade between the Roman

Empire and India.

 

They say the evidence indicates that trade between the Roman Empire

and India was as extensive as that of the Silk Road, the trade route

that stretched from Venice to Japan. Silk, spices, perfume, glass

and

other goods moved along the Silk Road between about 100 B.C. and the

15th century.

 

"The Silk Road gets a lot of attention as a trade route, but we've

found a wealth of evidence indicating that sea trade between Egypt

and India was also important for transporting exotic cargo, and it

may have even served as a link with the Far East," Sidebotham said.

 

Among their finds at the site near Egypt's border with Sudan: more

than 16 pounds (7 kilograms) of black peppercorns, the largest stash

of the prized Indian spice ever recovered from a Roman

archaeological

site.

 

Berenike lies at what was the southeastern extreme of the Roman

Empire and probably functioned as a transfer port for goods shipped

through the Red Sea. Trade activity at the port peaked twice, in the

first century and again around 500, before it ceased altogether,

possibly after a plague.

 

Ships would sail between Berenike and India during the summer, when

monsoon winds were strongest, Wendrich said. From Berenike, camel

caravans probably carried the goods 240 miles (386 kilometers) west

to the Nile, where they were shipped by boat to the Mediterranean

port of Alexandria, she said. From there, they could have moved by

ship through the rest of the Roman world.

 

Mediterranean goods, including wine from the Greek island of Kos and

fine tableware, moved in the opposite direction.