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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 rivalled 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
artefacts 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 BC 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 seven kilograms of black peppercorns,
the largest slash of the prized Indian spice ever recovered from a Roman
archaeological site.
Berenike lies at what was the south-eastern
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 386
km 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 find tableware, moved in the opposite
direction.
