| Periplus Of The Erythraean Sea |
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Although the "Erythraean Sea" is generally held to be the ancient term for the Red Sea, to the Greeks it included the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf . The work consists of 66 chapters, most of them about the length of a long paragraph in English. For instance, the short Chapter 9 reads in its entirety: :"From Malao ( Berbera ) it is two courses to the mart of Moundou, where ships anchor more safely by an island lying very close to the land. The imports to this are as aforesaid 8 mentions iron, gold, silver, drinking cups, etc , and from it likewise are exported the same goods 8 mentions myrrh, douaka, makeir, and slaves , and fragrant gum called ''mokrotou''. The inhabitants who trade here are more stubborn." In many cases the description of places is sufficiently accurate to identify their present locations; for others there is considerable debate. For instance, a " Rhapta " is mentioned as the farthest market down the African coast of " Azania ", but there at least five locations matching the description, ranging from Tanga south to the Rufiji River delta. The description of the Indian coast mentions the Ganges River clearly, yet after that is somewhat garbled, describing China as a " Great Inland City Thina " that is a source of raw Silk . Another interesting feature of the ''Periplus'' is that some of the words describing trade goods are seen nowhere else in ancient literature, and so we can only guess as to what they might mean. The ''Periplus'' also describes how Hippalus first discovered the direct route from the Red Sea to southern India. The text derives from a Byzantine or 15th Century in the British Museum (B.M. Add 19391 9r-12r). In the 10th century manuscript the text is attributed to Arrian , probably for no deeper reason than that the manuscript was adjacent to the ''Periplus Pontus Euxini'' written by him. The ''Periplus'' was first published in a modern edition by Sigismund Gelenius in 1553 . REFERENCES
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