As continuation of a previous article, we will go through the excerpts of the Periplus of the Red Sea that concern the area of ‘the Other Berberia’ that almost 2000 years ago was delineated within the present borders of Somaliland.
Somaliland – 'The Other Berberia' according to ‘the Periplus of the Red Sea’ (Part I)
By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
From: http://www.somaliland.org/ns.asp?ID=05082402
As continuation of a previous article (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-20-2005-75188.asp), we will go through the excerpts of the Periplus of the Red Sea that concern the area of ‘the Other Berberia’ that almost 2000 years ago was delineated within the present borders of Somaliland. Although, we have earlier references to this area, these excerpts are the first text to mention a state union within the borders of modern Somaliland, taking therefore an important position in the Historiography of the new country.
As we mentioned in the earlier article, the text starts with references to the coast of Egypt, where in the Ptolemaic (330 – 30 BCE) and the Roman times (30 BCE – 642 CE) the major harbors and ports of call were: Arsinoe (Suez), Myos Hormos (lit. Mouse Bay, Hurghada), Filoteras (Safaga), Leukos Limen (lit. White Harbour, Qusseir), and Berenice (Ras Banas).
He continues describing the present Sudanese coast, which he names ‘Berberia’. There he names one harbor, Ptolemais Theron (lit. Ptolemais of the Hunters, Suakin), an Egyptian colony set up by the Ptolemies. The author states that the great inland Kushitic state at the southern border of Roman Egypt with Meroe (today Bagrawiyah in Sudan, between Shendi and Atbarah) as capital did not control ‘Berberia’, on the Red Sea coast.
Proceeding to the south, the author narrates many details about Adulis (nearby Massawa in Eritrea), the great harbor of the Abyssinian kingdom of Axum that was then ruled by king Zoscales. The entire coast beyond Adulis up to Avalites on the Bab el Mandeb straits belonged reportedly to Axum. Beyond that point extended ‘I Alli Berberia’, the Other Berberia.
The 7th Chapter of the Periplus of the Red Sea is dedicated to Avalites. We find useful to publish here integrally so that we give the reader full details about the Other Berberia.
Avalites in the Periplus of the Red Sea
Text
7. From this place the Arabian Gulf trends toward the east and becomes narrowest just before the Gulf of Avalites. After about four thousand stadia, for those sailing eastward along the same coast, there are other Berber market-towns, known as the 'far-side' ports; lying at intervals one after the other, without harbors but having roadsteads where ships can anchor and lie in good weather. The first is called Avalites; to this place the voyage from Arabia to the far-side coast is the shortest. Here there is a small market-town called Avalites, which must be reached by boats and rafts. There are imported into this place, flint glass, assorted; juice of sour grapes from Diospolis; dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers; wheat, wine, and a little tin. There are exported from the same place, and sometimes by the Berbers themselves crossing on rafts to Ocelis and Muza on the opposite shore, spices, a little ivory, tortoise-shell, and a very little myrrh, but better than the rest. And the Berbers who live in the place are very unruly.
Analysis
1. Where lies Avalites?
Based on this chapter's text, we are inclined to identify Avalites with Assab (at the southernmost end of the Eritrean coast, nearby the Djibouti borders) rather than Zeila (present Seylac at the borders of Somaliland with Djibouti). There are two reasons for this identification, first the distance mentioned in the text, and second the reference to Avalites as the narrowest point to cross the Red Sea to Yemen. Even if we agree that the ancient mariners sailed straightforward down to today's Seylac (without sailing around the Gulf of Tadjoura in Djibouti), the distance from Adulis (near today's Massawa) to Zeila is much more than 4000 or rather 4800 stadia, to put it correctly.
In this regard we should also take into consideration the reference in chapter 5 to another part of the Red Sea navigation:
"And about eight hundred stadia beyond there is another very deep bay, with a great mound of sand piled up at the right of the entrance; at the bottom of which the opsian stone is found, and this is the only place where it is produced".
The calculation mentioned in the aforementioned excerpt concerns the distance from Adulis to another bay further in the south for which the text offers us natural description but no name; we can identify this bay with the Ghela'elo bay before Tio in Eritrea. (For modern itinerary narration and pictures: http://www.asmera.nl/eritrea2003/eritrea-2003-14.htm). It is from this point that the author of the Periplus of the Red Sea calculates 4000 stadia further trip to Avalites in his chapter 7. The total distance (4800 stadia) information prohibits any identification of Zeyla/Seylac with Avalites.
Another equally important point is the reference to the narrowest point of crossing the Red Sea, which is said to be at Avalites. This cannot be on any other spot but in the south of Assab (Eritrea) and in the north of Obock (Djibouti). We have to admit that the reference to the Gulf of Avalites within the text leads us to its identification with the Gulf of Tadjoura in Djibouti, and not with the small Assab bay. But again, Avalites stands at its northernmost edge; let's say at its beginning for those coming from Adulis. The author tells us quite explicitly at the beginning of chapter 7:
'The Arabian Gulf trends toward the east and becomes narrowest just before the Gulf of Avalites'. So, certainly we cannot locate Avalites with precision at the position of Assab itself, but we feel safe to claim that Avalites was at the area of Assab, probably at the very border point between Eritrea and Djibouti.
This is even more so, because further in the text of chapter 7 we have a second reference to the Bab el Mandeb straits. When the author starts enumerating the harbours and ports of call in the Gulf of Avalites, he mentions Avalites first, and then adds:
'To this place the voyage from Arabia to the far-side coast is the shortest'.
2. Identification of the 'Arabian Gulf'
At the beginning of the chapter we find the reference to the 'Arabian Gulf', and through the earliest part of the analysis the reader may have already assumed correctly that, by using this term in Ancient Greek, one refers to what we call today 'Red Sea'.
The following question may arise to the non specialist readers:
- Why the author names the Red Sea like this, as 'Arabios kolpos', and does the author imply that the Arabs lived everywhere around this area?
The answer is simple, and it takes basics in Historical Geography to understand the reasons.
The first civilized people to enter in contact with the Arabs were the Assyrians; the first text to mention the existence of Arabs is an excerpt from the Annals of Shalmaneser III, Emperor of Assyria at the middle of 8th BCE. His expanding empire controlled the northern confines of the peninsula, and the Arabs had to pay tribute. Soon, the Yemenites (non Arabs, there must be no confusion in this regard) contacted Assyria the fame of which extended far. The kingdom of Sheba was mentioned thus in the same Assyrian Emperor's Annals. Since the Sabaean Yemenites occupied a land beyond the Arabs (who were concentrated around Hedjaz, in the northwestern part of the peninsula), the Assyrians used to confuse all those living beyond the Arabs with the latter, who were closer to Mesopotamia. The confusion covered the entire area of the peninsula, and was communicated to other peoples like the Persians, the Greeks, and consequently the Romans, who all entered in contact with the peninsula world in later times.
Not only did the confusion occur with regard to the peninsula, but also in connection with the Red Sea area. To properly shape an approach to this subject, we must get rid of preconceived schemes formed out of the consideration of modern maps. It is our mistake to project to early times the image of a modern political map on which Egypt, Sudan, Israel, Jordan, Eritrea, S. Arabia, Yemen, Djibouti, Somaliland, and Abyssinia are present. If we refer to the Late Antiquity, the consideration should be very different.
Egypt was not a Red Sea country. This statement may look extraordinary but it is not. For the Ancient Egyptians, even the desert that is included in the modern state's territory was not part of Egypt. Egypt was the valley and the Delta of the Nile. In addition to this surface, the various oases were considered Egyptian territory with some condescension; but it went up that point only. The Mediterranean coasts or the Red Sea coasts were never accepted by the Ancient Egyptians as true Egyptian soil; this is not strange, if we take into consideration the fact that the Ancient Egyptian name for Egypt was Kemet, which means 'the Black One' (with the feminine ending –t) with reference to the black soil of Abyssinia that the Blue Nile and the Nile's affluent Atbarah pull with them further to the north mostly at the times of the Nile's annual flood. This black land was 'Egypt' for the Ancient Egyptians, not the desert! So, certainly there were Egyptian harbours since the 2nd millennium BCE on the present Red Sea coast of Egypt, like Tshaaw ('Leukos Limen' in Ptolemaic and Roman times, today's Qusseir) but they were viewed as annexes, stations, not genuine Egyptian soil.
As far as the great Sudanese state of Kush / Meroe is concerned, we know that it was at times a strong continental power and it ruled Egypt at the times of the XXVth dynasty (750 – 670 BCE), but it had no significant maritime vocation and aspiration. More precisely, the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea that mentions in the area of 'Berberia' (today's Sudanese coast) the Berbers, and various semi-barbaric ethnic groups, namely the Fish-Eaters, the Wild-flesh-Eaters and the Calf-Eaters, bears evidence to the fact that Meroe did not control the coast!
What is left in the entire area of the Red Sea are the Axumite Abyssinians, who controlled Adulis and the coast of Eritrea down to Avalites, and the Yemenites. The latter had long been confused with the Arabs, as we already said. And the former were just Yemenites who crossed the Red Sea coast and settled in the African coast and to some small extent in the inland. So, they were either unknown to, or confused with the rest by, the 5th – 3rd century BCE Greeks, who named the Red Sea as Arabian Gulf.
So, the earlier Assyrian confusion between Arabs and Yemenites expanded to other peoples, and was extended from the peninsula to the Red Sea area. That is why the English translation of the Greek term as 'Arabian', not Arab or Arabic, is correct; the ending -ian gives a wider impression about issues pertaining to the surroundings of the Arabs, not the Arabs themselves.
3. Red Sea as geographical, geo-cultural, and geopolitical term in the Antiquity
With the aforementioned said, we contribute to the formation of an ensuing question, namely to what extent the terms 'Arabian Gull' and Red Sea are overlapping. At this point, we enter into a completely different concept.
What most of the unspecialized readers ignore is that in the Antiquity the term 'Red Sea' ('Erythra Thalassa' in Greek, and 'Mare Rubrum' in Latin) signified a vast area that encompassed the water mass and the coasts around
a) the Arabios kolpos (the 'Arabian' Gulf – which corresponds to what we call today 'Red Sea'),
b) the Persikos kolpos (the Persian Gulf) and
c) the entire Indian Ocean from Africa to Indochina and Indonesia. Sailing from Palaisimundu (also called Taprobane or Sarandib, i.e. Sri Lanka) to Rhapta in Azania, an ancient mariner sailed in what the Ancient Greeks and Romans called 'the Red Sea'. This is actually the reason the text we refer to, namely the 'Periplus of the Red Sea', is named like this; the author does not narrate about the navigation and the trade only in the area of what we call 'Red Sea' today (in such a case the author would terminate his text at the points of Avalites and Aden), but incorporates all the details he knows about the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
Quite interestingly, the famous Alexandrian scholar Agatharchides, who wrote in the Alexandrian Library around the middle of the 3rd century BCE, in his treatise (that has been only partly saved) 'On the Red Sea' ('Peri tis Erythras Thalassis' in Ancient Greek), when he narrates about the natural phenomena that stand behind the apparently 'odd' name of the Red Sea, describes details occurring in the area of the southern coast of the peninsula, somewhere between Hadhramawt and Dhofar (today's western Oman), which is of course a land far from the region we call 'Red Sea' today!
On the other hand, these Ancient Sources help end the false controversy about the name of the Persian Gulf (that fanatic followers of the Pan-Arabic totalitarian ideology in various countries futilely attempt to call ''Arabic Gulf', since the ancient term 'Arabic Gulf' (meant as we already said for what we call today 'Red Sea') has fallen in desuetude in modern times. The term 'Persikos kolpos' is fully justified historically for the area in question, and goes back at the times of Achaemenid Iran (550 – 330 BCE). The Persians, after invading Nabonid Babylonia (539 BCE) incorporated to their vast empire, the southern coasts of the Persian Gulf (the coasts of today's Kuwait, S. Arabia, Qatar, and Emirates) that were earlier controlled by the Babylonians, and before them by the Assyrians. These lands were mostly inhabited by Babylonians and Aramaeans. Furthermore, the Iranians early invaded the coasts of today's Oman that became Iranian province for many long centuries. In addition, there were no Arabs in all that area, since the Arabs were all concentrated in Hedjaz, as we already said.
The way to delineate the limits of the Red Sea was quite interesting indeed; since the African and Asiatic coasts and the islands of Indonesia demarcated the 'Red Sea' of the Ancients from the West, the North, and the East, what was left for erudite precision in the times of Antiquity was the south. Having explored the southernmost confines of Africa, and got the knowledge that the Black Continent can be circumnavigated, the Ancients clarified that at its southernmost confines the 'Red Sea' was surrounded by part of the primordial stream of Soft Waters, named Okeanos (Ocean, as mythical concept it was formed under Assyrian – Babylonian influence, and corresponded to the Sumerian – Assyrian Apsu), that encircled the entire Earth's circular surface. This approach is explicitly expressed also by the author of the Periplus of the Red Sea.
4. The population of Avalites
The text is very clear in this regard; there were no more Axumite Abyssinians in Avalites. The local population is Berberic. By stating that ' there are other Berber market-towns', and by presenting Avalites as the first of them, the author tells us very clearly that Berbers lived at the very edge of the Axumite kingdom that controlled the coasts in the north of Avalites up to Adulis and the Calf-Eaters. He repeats his argument, when he states later that 'sometimes' the Berbers themselves were involved in navigation and trade, exporting their local products by 'crossing on rafts to Ocelis and Muza on the opposite shore'.
The same argument is found for a third time at the point where mention of the imports is made; Avalites imports 'dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers'. Since these cloths were made to fit Berberic preference and taste, and then imported by the people of Avalites, we easily deduce that these people were Berbers. We have not doubt that they represent the African Kushitic background that expanded from Eastern to Western Africa, as attested throughout the Ages (Ibn Battuta in the middle Islamic times for instance). Whether they can be identified as the ancestors of the Modern Berbers of the Atlas area we are unable to specify.
What further information can we extract from this text about the Berbers of the Other Berberia?
First point, we have the inclination to consider them as the same ethnic – linguistic group as the Berbers living in Berberia, at the present day Sudanese coast. The difference is that in the Other Beberia, today's Somaliland, the Berbers were the only local inhabitants, whereas the Berbers of Berberia lived among the Fish-Eaters, in the coast, and the Wild-flesh Eaters and the Calf-Eaters further inland. To follow the text with accuracy, we are led to believe that the Berbers in Berberia (Sudanese coast and inland) lived in the inland, contrarily with the Berbers of the Other Berberia, who looked well versed in maritime activities. We cannot conclude anything about the Berbers' original place. Did they all first dwell in the Other Berberia, and some of them immigrated to the coast of present day Sudan that was named after them? If we accept this working hypothesis, we find difficult to explain the Other Berberia is called like this, and not Berberia which would seem more proper. It looks more plausible that they all first lived in the coast of modern Sudan, and, following the continuous pressure exercised on them by the Fish-Eaters, the Wild-flesh Eaters and the Calf-Eaters, the largest part of the Berbers emigrated to the south and settled in present day Somaliland's coast, whereas the smallest part was pushed in the inland. This justifies to some extent the identification of the two names with the respective areas. However, we cannot exclude the opposite, and in that case the names were rather due to the order in which the two areas became known to the Egyptians and the Greeks of Egypt who sailed to the south (Berberia first, and the Other Berberia second).
Second, we realize that, having limited maritime experience, the Berbers of Avalites tried to exploit their natural resources and to export them by themselves. If we combine the text's reference to their navigation to the Red Sea Yemenite coast (Ocelis and Mouza, in the are of Al Mokha today) and their political – military attitude, which is mention immediately after (' And the Berbers who live in the place are very unruly'), we understand why both, the Yemenite kingdom of Saba and Himyar and the Abyssinian kingdom of Axum, failed to put this area under control.
Realizing the value of their products in the various markets of the trade network around the Red Sea, the Avalites' Berbers were disobedient to any foreign ruler, who would exploit the natural resources of the Other Berberia.
It would be safe to hypothesize that there had been many efforts anterior to the text we study, and the continuous resistance of the Berbers made the neighboring kings' dreams fail and the foreign navigators' and merchants' opinion focalize on the Avalites' Berbers' unruliness. Of course, the efforts to subdue Avalites must have been mostly deployed by the King of Axum, and this not because of the land vicinity. First, Axum did not control many harbours and ports of call; Abyssinian income hinged mostly on Adulis. Contrarily to that, the Yemenite kingdom of Saba and Himyar controlled the Yemenite coast and its African colonies, the entire Azania in the south of Cape Guardafui down to Rhapta. So, Yemenite income would not increase dramatically with the Avalites port subdued and controlled. Finally, the fact that the Avalites Berbers preferred to export their products from Mouza and Ocelis, and not from Adulis (where they could supposedly bring their products) is quite telling!
It is obvious that, by acting like this, the Avalites' Berbers wished to avoid extra interest or taxation on their products that would minimize their own income. By bringing independently their products to Ocelis and Muza, the Avalites' Berbers were present in one of the two most important ports of call (Muza and Adulis) in the entire area between Arsinoe (Egypt) and Barygaza (India).
If we now take into consideration the excerpt's reference to the local Berberic products, the Avalites' Berbers exported, namely 'spices, a little ivory, tortoise-shell, and a very little myrrh, but better than the rest'. If we view this information in the light of the entire text, we realize that Avalites' most valuable products were spices and myrrh. Tortoise shell was abundant in other places as well, whereas the Avalites' ivory was little, and in addition it could be found elsewhere too.
Through this text we can evaluate the strength and the significance of the Other Berberia in comparison with the other lands and peoples of the area. Without having the importance of the Saba-Himyarite kingdom or the Axum Abyssinian sovereignty, the Other Berberia had risen to a significant level of power, contrarily to Azania that was colonized and to Berberia and Arabia, which were chaotic realms of barbarism with one Roman colony or outpost in every case (Ptolemais Theron in Berberia, and Leuke Kome in Arabia).
In the next feature, we will continue the analysis, referring to the next harbours of the Other Berberia, namely Malao, Mundu, Mosyllon, etc.
By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
From: http://www.somaliland.org/ns.asp?ID=05082402
As continuation of a previous article (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-20-2005-75188.asp), we will go through the excerpts of the Periplus of the Red Sea that concern the area of ‘the Other Berberia’ that almost 2000 years ago was delineated within the present borders of Somaliland. Although, we have earlier references to this area, these excerpts are the first text to mention a state union within the borders of modern Somaliland, taking therefore an important position in the Historiography of the new country.
As we mentioned in the earlier article, the text starts with references to the coast of Egypt, where in the Ptolemaic (330 – 30 BCE) and the Roman times (30 BCE – 642 CE) the major harbors and ports of call were: Arsinoe (Suez), Myos Hormos (lit. Mouse Bay, Hurghada), Filoteras (Safaga), Leukos Limen (lit. White Harbour, Qusseir), and Berenice (Ras Banas).
He continues describing the present Sudanese coast, which he names ‘Berberia’. There he names one harbor, Ptolemais Theron (lit. Ptolemais of the Hunters, Suakin), an Egyptian colony set up by the Ptolemies. The author states that the great inland Kushitic state at the southern border of Roman Egypt with Meroe (today Bagrawiyah in Sudan, between Shendi and Atbarah) as capital did not control ‘Berberia’, on the Red Sea coast.
Proceeding to the south, the author narrates many details about Adulis (nearby Massawa in Eritrea), the great harbor of the Abyssinian kingdom of Axum that was then ruled by king Zoscales. The entire coast beyond Adulis up to Avalites on the Bab el Mandeb straits belonged reportedly to Axum. Beyond that point extended ‘I Alli Berberia’, the Other Berberia.
The 7th Chapter of the Periplus of the Red Sea is dedicated to Avalites. We find useful to publish here integrally so that we give the reader full details about the Other Berberia.
Avalites in the Periplus of the Red Sea
Text
7. From this place the Arabian Gulf trends toward the east and becomes narrowest just before the Gulf of Avalites. After about four thousand stadia, for those sailing eastward along the same coast, there are other Berber market-towns, known as the 'far-side' ports; lying at intervals one after the other, without harbors but having roadsteads where ships can anchor and lie in good weather. The first is called Avalites; to this place the voyage from Arabia to the far-side coast is the shortest. Here there is a small market-town called Avalites, which must be reached by boats and rafts. There are imported into this place, flint glass, assorted; juice of sour grapes from Diospolis; dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers; wheat, wine, and a little tin. There are exported from the same place, and sometimes by the Berbers themselves crossing on rafts to Ocelis and Muza on the opposite shore, spices, a little ivory, tortoise-shell, and a very little myrrh, but better than the rest. And the Berbers who live in the place are very unruly.
Analysis
1. Where lies Avalites?
Based on this chapter's text, we are inclined to identify Avalites with Assab (at the southernmost end of the Eritrean coast, nearby the Djibouti borders) rather than Zeila (present Seylac at the borders of Somaliland with Djibouti). There are two reasons for this identification, first the distance mentioned in the text, and second the reference to Avalites as the narrowest point to cross the Red Sea to Yemen. Even if we agree that the ancient mariners sailed straightforward down to today's Seylac (without sailing around the Gulf of Tadjoura in Djibouti), the distance from Adulis (near today's Massawa) to Zeila is much more than 4000 or rather 4800 stadia, to put it correctly.
In this regard we should also take into consideration the reference in chapter 5 to another part of the Red Sea navigation:
"And about eight hundred stadia beyond there is another very deep bay, with a great mound of sand piled up at the right of the entrance; at the bottom of which the opsian stone is found, and this is the only place where it is produced".
The calculation mentioned in the aforementioned excerpt concerns the distance from Adulis to another bay further in the south for which the text offers us natural description but no name; we can identify this bay with the Ghela'elo bay before Tio in Eritrea. (For modern itinerary narration and pictures: http://www.asmera.nl/eritrea2003/eritrea-2003-14.htm). It is from this point that the author of the Periplus of the Red Sea calculates 4000 stadia further trip to Avalites in his chapter 7. The total distance (4800 stadia) information prohibits any identification of Zeyla/Seylac with Avalites.
Another equally important point is the reference to the narrowest point of crossing the Red Sea, which is said to be at Avalites. This cannot be on any other spot but in the south of Assab (Eritrea) and in the north of Obock (Djibouti). We have to admit that the reference to the Gulf of Avalites within the text leads us to its identification with the Gulf of Tadjoura in Djibouti, and not with the small Assab bay. But again, Avalites stands at its northernmost edge; let's say at its beginning for those coming from Adulis. The author tells us quite explicitly at the beginning of chapter 7:
'The Arabian Gulf trends toward the east and becomes narrowest just before the Gulf of Avalites'. So, certainly we cannot locate Avalites with precision at the position of Assab itself, but we feel safe to claim that Avalites was at the area of Assab, probably at the very border point between Eritrea and Djibouti.
This is even more so, because further in the text of chapter 7 we have a second reference to the Bab el Mandeb straits. When the author starts enumerating the harbours and ports of call in the Gulf of Avalites, he mentions Avalites first, and then adds:
'To this place the voyage from Arabia to the far-side coast is the shortest'.
2. Identification of the 'Arabian Gulf'
At the beginning of the chapter we find the reference to the 'Arabian Gulf', and through the earliest part of the analysis the reader may have already assumed correctly that, by using this term in Ancient Greek, one refers to what we call today 'Red Sea'.
The following question may arise to the non specialist readers:
- Why the author names the Red Sea like this, as 'Arabios kolpos', and does the author imply that the Arabs lived everywhere around this area?
The answer is simple, and it takes basics in Historical Geography to understand the reasons.
The first civilized people to enter in contact with the Arabs were the Assyrians; the first text to mention the existence of Arabs is an excerpt from the Annals of Shalmaneser III, Emperor of Assyria at the middle of 8th BCE. His expanding empire controlled the northern confines of the peninsula, and the Arabs had to pay tribute. Soon, the Yemenites (non Arabs, there must be no confusion in this regard) contacted Assyria the fame of which extended far. The kingdom of Sheba was mentioned thus in the same Assyrian Emperor's Annals. Since the Sabaean Yemenites occupied a land beyond the Arabs (who were concentrated around Hedjaz, in the northwestern part of the peninsula), the Assyrians used to confuse all those living beyond the Arabs with the latter, who were closer to Mesopotamia. The confusion covered the entire area of the peninsula, and was communicated to other peoples like the Persians, the Greeks, and consequently the Romans, who all entered in contact with the peninsula world in later times.
Not only did the confusion occur with regard to the peninsula, but also in connection with the Red Sea area. To properly shape an approach to this subject, we must get rid of preconceived schemes formed out of the consideration of modern maps. It is our mistake to project to early times the image of a modern political map on which Egypt, Sudan, Israel, Jordan, Eritrea, S. Arabia, Yemen, Djibouti, Somaliland, and Abyssinia are present. If we refer to the Late Antiquity, the consideration should be very different.
Egypt was not a Red Sea country. This statement may look extraordinary but it is not. For the Ancient Egyptians, even the desert that is included in the modern state's territory was not part of Egypt. Egypt was the valley and the Delta of the Nile. In addition to this surface, the various oases were considered Egyptian territory with some condescension; but it went up that point only. The Mediterranean coasts or the Red Sea coasts were never accepted by the Ancient Egyptians as true Egyptian soil; this is not strange, if we take into consideration the fact that the Ancient Egyptian name for Egypt was Kemet, which means 'the Black One' (with the feminine ending –t) with reference to the black soil of Abyssinia that the Blue Nile and the Nile's affluent Atbarah pull with them further to the north mostly at the times of the Nile's annual flood. This black land was 'Egypt' for the Ancient Egyptians, not the desert! So, certainly there were Egyptian harbours since the 2nd millennium BCE on the present Red Sea coast of Egypt, like Tshaaw ('Leukos Limen' in Ptolemaic and Roman times, today's Qusseir) but they were viewed as annexes, stations, not genuine Egyptian soil.
As far as the great Sudanese state of Kush / Meroe is concerned, we know that it was at times a strong continental power and it ruled Egypt at the times of the XXVth dynasty (750 – 670 BCE), but it had no significant maritime vocation and aspiration. More precisely, the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea that mentions in the area of 'Berberia' (today's Sudanese coast) the Berbers, and various semi-barbaric ethnic groups, namely the Fish-Eaters, the Wild-flesh-Eaters and the Calf-Eaters, bears evidence to the fact that Meroe did not control the coast!
What is left in the entire area of the Red Sea are the Axumite Abyssinians, who controlled Adulis and the coast of Eritrea down to Avalites, and the Yemenites. The latter had long been confused with the Arabs, as we already said. And the former were just Yemenites who crossed the Red Sea coast and settled in the African coast and to some small extent in the inland. So, they were either unknown to, or confused with the rest by, the 5th – 3rd century BCE Greeks, who named the Red Sea as Arabian Gulf.
So, the earlier Assyrian confusion between Arabs and Yemenites expanded to other peoples, and was extended from the peninsula to the Red Sea area. That is why the English translation of the Greek term as 'Arabian', not Arab or Arabic, is correct; the ending -ian gives a wider impression about issues pertaining to the surroundings of the Arabs, not the Arabs themselves.
3. Red Sea as geographical, geo-cultural, and geopolitical term in the Antiquity
With the aforementioned said, we contribute to the formation of an ensuing question, namely to what extent the terms 'Arabian Gull' and Red Sea are overlapping. At this point, we enter into a completely different concept.
What most of the unspecialized readers ignore is that in the Antiquity the term 'Red Sea' ('Erythra Thalassa' in Greek, and 'Mare Rubrum' in Latin) signified a vast area that encompassed the water mass and the coasts around
a) the Arabios kolpos (the 'Arabian' Gulf – which corresponds to what we call today 'Red Sea'),
b) the Persikos kolpos (the Persian Gulf) and
c) the entire Indian Ocean from Africa to Indochina and Indonesia. Sailing from Palaisimundu (also called Taprobane or Sarandib, i.e. Sri Lanka) to Rhapta in Azania, an ancient mariner sailed in what the Ancient Greeks and Romans called 'the Red Sea'. This is actually the reason the text we refer to, namely the 'Periplus of the Red Sea', is named like this; the author does not narrate about the navigation and the trade only in the area of what we call 'Red Sea' today (in such a case the author would terminate his text at the points of Avalites and Aden), but incorporates all the details he knows about the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
Quite interestingly, the famous Alexandrian scholar Agatharchides, who wrote in the Alexandrian Library around the middle of the 3rd century BCE, in his treatise (that has been only partly saved) 'On the Red Sea' ('Peri tis Erythras Thalassis' in Ancient Greek), when he narrates about the natural phenomena that stand behind the apparently 'odd' name of the Red Sea, describes details occurring in the area of the southern coast of the peninsula, somewhere between Hadhramawt and Dhofar (today's western Oman), which is of course a land far from the region we call 'Red Sea' today!
On the other hand, these Ancient Sources help end the false controversy about the name of the Persian Gulf (that fanatic followers of the Pan-Arabic totalitarian ideology in various countries futilely attempt to call ''Arabic Gulf', since the ancient term 'Arabic Gulf' (meant as we already said for what we call today 'Red Sea') has fallen in desuetude in modern times. The term 'Persikos kolpos' is fully justified historically for the area in question, and goes back at the times of Achaemenid Iran (550 – 330 BCE). The Persians, after invading Nabonid Babylonia (539 BCE) incorporated to their vast empire, the southern coasts of the Persian Gulf (the coasts of today's Kuwait, S. Arabia, Qatar, and Emirates) that were earlier controlled by the Babylonians, and before them by the Assyrians. These lands were mostly inhabited by Babylonians and Aramaeans. Furthermore, the Iranians early invaded the coasts of today's Oman that became Iranian province for many long centuries. In addition, there were no Arabs in all that area, since the Arabs were all concentrated in Hedjaz, as we already said.
The way to delineate the limits of the Red Sea was quite interesting indeed; since the African and Asiatic coasts and the islands of Indonesia demarcated the 'Red Sea' of the Ancients from the West, the North, and the East, what was left for erudite precision in the times of Antiquity was the south. Having explored the southernmost confines of Africa, and got the knowledge that the Black Continent can be circumnavigated, the Ancients clarified that at its southernmost confines the 'Red Sea' was surrounded by part of the primordial stream of Soft Waters, named Okeanos (Ocean, as mythical concept it was formed under Assyrian – Babylonian influence, and corresponded to the Sumerian – Assyrian Apsu), that encircled the entire Earth's circular surface. This approach is explicitly expressed also by the author of the Periplus of the Red Sea.
4. The population of Avalites
The text is very clear in this regard; there were no more Axumite Abyssinians in Avalites. The local population is Berberic. By stating that ' there are other Berber market-towns', and by presenting Avalites as the first of them, the author tells us very clearly that Berbers lived at the very edge of the Axumite kingdom that controlled the coasts in the north of Avalites up to Adulis and the Calf-Eaters. He repeats his argument, when he states later that 'sometimes' the Berbers themselves were involved in navigation and trade, exporting their local products by 'crossing on rafts to Ocelis and Muza on the opposite shore'.
The same argument is found for a third time at the point where mention of the imports is made; Avalites imports 'dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers'. Since these cloths were made to fit Berberic preference and taste, and then imported by the people of Avalites, we easily deduce that these people were Berbers. We have not doubt that they represent the African Kushitic background that expanded from Eastern to Western Africa, as attested throughout the Ages (Ibn Battuta in the middle Islamic times for instance). Whether they can be identified as the ancestors of the Modern Berbers of the Atlas area we are unable to specify.
What further information can we extract from this text about the Berbers of the Other Berberia?
First point, we have the inclination to consider them as the same ethnic – linguistic group as the Berbers living in Berberia, at the present day Sudanese coast. The difference is that in the Other Beberia, today's Somaliland, the Berbers were the only local inhabitants, whereas the Berbers of Berberia lived among the Fish-Eaters, in the coast, and the Wild-flesh Eaters and the Calf-Eaters further inland. To follow the text with accuracy, we are led to believe that the Berbers in Berberia (Sudanese coast and inland) lived in the inland, contrarily with the Berbers of the Other Berberia, who looked well versed in maritime activities. We cannot conclude anything about the Berbers' original place. Did they all first dwell in the Other Berberia, and some of them immigrated to the coast of present day Sudan that was named after them? If we accept this working hypothesis, we find difficult to explain the Other Berberia is called like this, and not Berberia which would seem more proper. It looks more plausible that they all first lived in the coast of modern Sudan, and, following the continuous pressure exercised on them by the Fish-Eaters, the Wild-flesh Eaters and the Calf-Eaters, the largest part of the Berbers emigrated to the south and settled in present day Somaliland's coast, whereas the smallest part was pushed in the inland. This justifies to some extent the identification of the two names with the respective areas. However, we cannot exclude the opposite, and in that case the names were rather due to the order in which the two areas became known to the Egyptians and the Greeks of Egypt who sailed to the south (Berberia first, and the Other Berberia second).
Second, we realize that, having limited maritime experience, the Berbers of Avalites tried to exploit their natural resources and to export them by themselves. If we combine the text's reference to their navigation to the Red Sea Yemenite coast (Ocelis and Mouza, in the are of Al Mokha today) and their political – military attitude, which is mention immediately after (' And the Berbers who live in the place are very unruly'), we understand why both, the Yemenite kingdom of Saba and Himyar and the Abyssinian kingdom of Axum, failed to put this area under control.
Realizing the value of their products in the various markets of the trade network around the Red Sea, the Avalites' Berbers were disobedient to any foreign ruler, who would exploit the natural resources of the Other Berberia.
It would be safe to hypothesize that there had been many efforts anterior to the text we study, and the continuous resistance of the Berbers made the neighboring kings' dreams fail and the foreign navigators' and merchants' opinion focalize on the Avalites' Berbers' unruliness. Of course, the efforts to subdue Avalites must have been mostly deployed by the King of Axum, and this not because of the land vicinity. First, Axum did not control many harbours and ports of call; Abyssinian income hinged mostly on Adulis. Contrarily to that, the Yemenite kingdom of Saba and Himyar controlled the Yemenite coast and its African colonies, the entire Azania in the south of Cape Guardafui down to Rhapta. So, Yemenite income would not increase dramatically with the Avalites port subdued and controlled. Finally, the fact that the Avalites Berbers preferred to export their products from Mouza and Ocelis, and not from Adulis (where they could supposedly bring their products) is quite telling!
It is obvious that, by acting like this, the Avalites' Berbers wished to avoid extra interest or taxation on their products that would minimize their own income. By bringing independently their products to Ocelis and Muza, the Avalites' Berbers were present in one of the two most important ports of call (Muza and Adulis) in the entire area between Arsinoe (Egypt) and Barygaza (India).
If we now take into consideration the excerpt's reference to the local Berberic products, the Avalites' Berbers exported, namely 'spices, a little ivory, tortoise-shell, and a very little myrrh, but better than the rest'. If we view this information in the light of the entire text, we realize that Avalites' most valuable products were spices and myrrh. Tortoise shell was abundant in other places as well, whereas the Avalites' ivory was little, and in addition it could be found elsewhere too.
Through this text we can evaluate the strength and the significance of the Other Berberia in comparison with the other lands and peoples of the area. Without having the importance of the Saba-Himyarite kingdom or the Axum Abyssinian sovereignty, the Other Berberia had risen to a significant level of power, contrarily to Azania that was colonized and to Berberia and Arabia, which were chaotic realms of barbarism with one Roman colony or outpost in every case (Ptolemais Theron in Berberia, and Leuke Kome in Arabia).
In the next feature, we will continue the analysis, referring to the next harbours of the Other Berberia, namely Malao, Mundu, Mosyllon, etc.
