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In two earlier articles, entitled ´Somalia as Part of the East West Trade during the Antiquity´ (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/61989) and ´Somalia, the Other Berberia, Abyssinia, Yemen and the Periplus of the Red Sea´ (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/62124), we briefly described the place of Somalia as commercial and navigational hub at the times of the Late Antiquity, and we explained how the Yemenite kingdom of Sheba and Himyar and the Abyssinian kingdom of Axum, failed to put the area of Assab (Avalites) under control; it belonged to the Somalis of the 'Other Berberia'.
We referred to the Ancient Greek text ´Periplus of the Red Sea´, which consists in a valuable information about all the coastal countries of the ´Red Sea´ (Erythra Thalassa in Greek), a geographic term that in the Antiquity denoted the Arabian Gulf (this is what we call today ´Red Sea"), the Persian Gulf, and the entire Indian Ocean from Eastern Africa until Chryse (the ´Golden´, as Indonesia and Indochina were called then). The ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ was written ca. 70 CE by an anonymous Alexandrian Egyptian merchant and captain, who certainly had personal experience in vast parts of that navigation and trade network area, and wished to compile a kind of guide for sailors and traders. As continuation of our previous article, we will study further excerpts of ´the Periplus of the Red Sea´ pertaining to ´the Other Berberia´.
Malao - Berbera as possible Capital of 'The Other Berberia'
It is true that we have somewhat earlier references to this area, but they are rather due to hearsay (f.i. diplomatic reports of those times) and not to personal autopsy and navigational experience in the area in question as is the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea. Consequently, these references offer at times self-contradictory, confusing and/or erroneous information, which does not necessarily damage the importance of the author (in this case the famous Roman erudite Pliny the Elder) but makes of the excerpt a less valuable piece of puzzle in the reconstruction of the Ancient History of Somalia and Eastern Africa.
Sailing around Malao Berbera
The 8th chapter of the Periplus of the Red Sea is focused on Malao, a port of call that has been identified with the modern harbour of Berbera. We publish it integrally, adding our commentary next.
Text
8. After Avalites there is another market-town, better than this, called Malao, distant a sail of about eight hundred stadia. The anchorage is an open roadstead, sheltered by a spit running out from the east. Here the natives are more peaceable. There are imported into this place the things already mentioned, and many tunics, cloaks from Arsinoe, dressed and dyed; drinking-cups, sheets of soft copper in small quantity, iron, and gold and silver coin, not much. There are exported from these places myrrh, a little frankincense, (that known as far-side), the harder cinnamon, duaca, Indian copal and macir, which are imported into Arabia; and slaves, but rarely.
Analysis
In the previous article, we analyzed the reasons for the identification of Avalites with the area at the southern suburbs of Assab, in Eritrea, and not Zeila (Seylac) in Somaliland. The distance mentioned in this chapter (800 stadia) makes now plausible the identification of Malao with Berbera, and it seems that the mariners sailed at those days straight from the Bab el Mandeb to Berbera, without circumnavigating the Tadjoura Gulf in the area of modern Djibouti.
Quite interestingly, the author, after identifying Avalites as ´harbour´ and ´small market-town´, describes Malao as ´market-town´, which makes us conclude that Malao was larger than Avalites. This is also corroborated by the fact that more products were imported here than in Avalites, "the things already mentioned" being a textual hint at those earlier listed in chapter 7 about Avalites. Immediately after these words, the author comes up with an ´additional´ list of imported items at Malao.
Here starts the most interesting part of the Avalites and Malao imports comparison. Whereas in Avalites there are six different products mentioned as imported ("flint glass, assorted; juice of sour grapes from Diospolis; dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers; wheat, wine, and a little tin"), in Malao seven more types of products are reportedly traded in. More than double!
The Valuable Merchandise of Malao Berbera
If we now pay attention to the quality (and consequently the value) of the products mentioned in both cases, we find out a striking difference. Let´s concentrate first on the Textile Sector.
In Avalites were imported: "dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers".
In Malao were imported: "many tunics, cloaks from Arsinoe, dressed and dyed".
We notice a kind of contempt in the textual precision ´made for the Berbers´; it sounds like the French colonial expression ´bon pour l´ Orient´ (´´good for the East"), which implies that this sort of low(ly) French production was to be distributed outside France and Europe, somewhere in colonized areas (or at least in countries that were not technologically advanced as much as Europe was).
It is apparent that nobody in Alexandria or Egypt would wear "dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers", except possibly traveling Berberic traders of course. But this concerns Avalites only!
With respect to Malao textile imports, the atmosphere changes totally! Tunics were expensive cloths for important people in Alexandria, Rome and other important cities of the Roman world. On the other hand, cloaks from Arsinoe (Suez) were famous in Roman Egypt, and also expensive.
Subsequently, we feel that at Malao we are met with a richer and more important environment where people are not dressed as in the countryside! Why is it so?
Precious Wares for the Malao Elders
Further comparison between the Avalites and Malao imports helps us shed more light on the issue. Let´s focus now on the Metals Sector, which involves also currency in cash (there was no plastic or even paper money at those days!).
In Avalites were imported: "a little tin" only.
In Malao were imported: "drinking-cups, sheets of soft copper in small quantity, iron, and gold and silver coin, not much".
It becomes clear that not only more metal was imported in Malao, but also that the Malao imports corresponded to the needs of a local administration, not provincial authorities.
Drinking cups were metallic in the Antiquity; that is why this product is mentioned at this order. But who would use at those days a metallic cup to drink except high-ranking magistrates, top military, wealthy merchants, local noblesse, palatial employees, and royal families? If this concerns the Malao imported drinking cups, it is even more so for more exquisite imports, such as gold and silver coin.
The entire sentence allows us to assume that Malao was the capital of the Other Berberia, although the author does not state something like that explicitly. So, iron was necessary for the needs of the local arsenal, and currency (silver coin) and gold were for the payment of the various Malao exports.
Everything indicates that there was power centralization at Malao, whereas Avalites was a border point where fights and disputes happened frequently.
The Inhabitants of Malao
There is another point in the text to support this approach; the description of the Malao inhabitants as ´more peaceable´ signifies presence of central power, culture and education, security and civil society. We can most probably assume the presence of a local royal authority that controlled as far as Avalites in the northwest.
This stands in striking contradiction with the last sentence of the Avalites chapter (´And the Berbers who live in the place are very unruly´), which should be interpreted as revealing the defensive attitude of the Avalites natives, with regard to foreigners, Axumite Abyssinians or any navigators and merchants; the attitude was due to the need of defending the Berberic exports´ maritime transportation to the Yemenite coast (Ocelis and Mouza).
Malao Berbera exports to Yemen, not Abyssinia
The mention of the Malao exports offers further information. Certainly the Malao exports were more numerous and more valuable than those of Avalites. Quite interestingly, they were exported to the Yemenite Kingdom of Haribael, the king of the merged Sheba (Saba) and Himyar states. This happened in accordance with the maritime transport of the Avalites products to Yemen.
It represents therefore the choice of a royal authority of which we hear nothing, although through the text´s lines we feel its existence. The independence of the Other Berberia and the existence of a central, royal power around Berbera are also indicated by the export of slaves. Since no foreign colons or invaders were present, the export of slaves can be a matter of a victorious central power of some size. We could assume that these Malao exported slaves were not local Berbers, but war prisoners held captive by the local king who had to fight various inland tribes.
Another interesting point is that faraway products, such as Indian copal and macir, ´had´ to be transported to Malao to be further exported to Yemen. If there were no local authority, the omnipresent Yemenites of the two kingdoms, Saba/Himyar and Hadhramawt, who had already colonized Azania (the coast from Cape Guardafui down to Zanzibar) and Soqotra, would have ´arranged´ that these Indian products, like many other Indian exports, be transported straight to their harbours, either in Yemen or in Azania, and consequently be sold to them in lower price!
In the following chapter, the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea describes in detail eastern harbors at the coast of ´the Other Berberia´, like Mundu (Bandar Hais), Mosyllon, etc. We will continue our analysis in a forthcoming article; here we intend to correct false interpretations that deliberately minimize the importance of the coast of the Other Berberia in the entire East West trade network of those days.
Maritime and Land routes in Eastern Africa
Although the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea describes mostly coastal and open sea navigation, the author occasionally refers to land roads linking two harbours or an inland city with coastal ports of call.
At a later point in the text, the author hints at a land road from the Azanian coast of Eastern Africa and the area of Rhapta (Daressalam in Tanzania) to Axum and to the Nile Valley. It is clear that this land alternative was not the frequent choice, and the reason is simple: it was not that safe because of the lack of central administrations, royal authorities, and proper communication network. The prevailing jungle conditions made the land trip extremely dangerous and unsafe. The alternative existed only, when there were major reasons to avoid the ordinary, maritime route of circumnavigating the Horn of Africa.
However, academic ´militantism´ often disregards textual sources, epigraphic documentation, and archeological evidence in order to impose preconceived schemes and efforts of interpretation that lead to inaccurate reconstruction of the historical past.
A typical example of this sort of militant historiography is the article "Of Nubians and Nabateans: Implications of Research on Neglected Dimensions of Ancient World History" by Jesse Benjamin of the Department of Sociology of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Geneva, NY 14456, USA), which was published in the academic periodical ´Journal of Asian and African Studies´ {November 2001, v36 i4 p361(22)}. An abstract can be found in the following link: http://www.stcloudstate.edu/socialresponsibility/articles/nubians.asp
In his contribution, Jesse Benjamin, in the name of an inconsistent and rather erratic Afro-centrism that damages the pertinent reconstruction of the Eastern African past, tries to make a link between the Nubians (a Nilo-Saharan African people) with the Semitic Nabataeans of the Rekem / Petra kingdom at the area of modern Jordan. The article seems irrelevant of our subject, but in his effort to distort Eastern African History, Jesse Benjamin disregards outrageously the Ancient sources. We reproduce here two paragraphs from his aforementioned abstract that bear evidence to total alteration of truth with respect to the frequency of the trade routes in the area we discuss. In addition, Jesse Benjamin attempts to introduce a novelty by presenting a foreign people as totally infiltrated in and even controlling large areas of Eastern Africa. All this is attempted in a completely mischievous way. After the selected excerpt, we will analyze the basic historical mistakes and inaccuracies of the author.
Jesse Benjamin´s Imaginative Nabataeans in Control of African Land Routes
"While the search for the ruins of Rhapta still continues, Miller (1969) has also suggested, and with some substantial corroboration, that the transshipment from Rhapta and the East Coast of Africa followed several routes. While occasionally the route taken was the coasting trade around the Horn and into the ports of Aromata, Mosyllum, Mundus, Malao, and Avalites, the goods usually reached these entrepot ports via overland routes north from Mogadishu and Mombasa. It is even suggested that the Mombasa / Maji / Avalites route also diverged westward at Maji, to the Nile Valley routes from Juba and Malakal in Central Africa, northward to Egypt and its port, Alexandria.
The first two overland routes (from Mombasa and Mogadishu) would certainly have been in Nabatean hands as soon as they moved northward in the Arabian Peninsula toward various Mediterranean ports. The latter route, much less traversed and less constant over time, would have furnished an alternative route outside of the Nabatean monopoly. Such extensive attempts to circumvent the main trade routes further demonstrate the centrality of Nabatean stewardship of this trade between distant regions of the Ancient World. This is demonstrated by Rome's later annexation of Nabatea under the title, Arabia Petraea (Houston 1926:111-114; Miller 1969), in their efforts to confront the power of Petra as a pivotal entrepot between Africa and China, on the one hand, and the Mediterranean, on the other".
Refutation
In the aforementioned excerpt, Jesse Benjamin misinterprets Miller first, because that scholar suggested alternative possibilities, whereas Jesse Benjamin pretends hereby that these routes were not the alternatives but the mainly used routes, which is false.
Miller´s approach and text are in straight opposition to Jesse Benjamin´s sentence "While occasionally the route taken was the coasting trade around the Horn and into the ports of Aromata, Mosyllum, Mundus, Malao, and Avalites, the goods usually reached these entrepot ports via overland routes north from Mogadishu and Mombasa".
We have actually no textual, epigraphic and/or archeological material records to allow us to imagine that the maritime route was taken "occasionally". There is no source indicating such a possibility. Contrarily, the Periplus of the Red Sea, along with other textual evidence, corroborates the evaluation of the maritime road from Avalites (Assab) to Rhapta (Dar es Salam and Zanzibar) as the main, usual, ordinary, most frequented one.
We can assume the land short ways were an exception that did not represent more than 2% of the trips effectuated. For a scholar, the baseless conclusion that "the goods usually reached these entrepot ports via overland routes north from Mogadishu and Mombasa" constitutes a serious blow for his credibility and seriousness.
Even worse, Jesse Benjamin presents his erroneous assumptions and preconceived schemes as expressing other scholars´ opinions, without caring to specify who said so. Whereas he is the only to suggest the following, the argumentation is presented by him as an objective observation with a verb in passive form ("It is even suggested that the Mombasa / Maji / Avalites route also diverged westward at Maji, to the Nile Valley routes from Juba and Malakal in Central Africa, northward to Egypt and its port, Alexandria"); his presumably academic contribution takes therefore the form of deceitful treachery, which cannot possibly be the way a scholar develops ideas and approaches.
There is no actual proof for the identification of the land road ´Mombasa / Maji / Avalites´, and it would take years for an academic interdisciplinary team to undertake explorations to find support (archeological and/or epigraphic) for this imaginative theory of Benjamin´s.
Another Colonial ´Academic´ Anti-African Bias
What any specialist of the subject would have rejected is the next paragraph of Benjamin´s, which consists in the paramount attempt of falsification of the Eastern African History. After the land roads are presented as the most frequented routes, they are ´attributed´ to foreigners´ inspection and control.
The Nabataeans who never crossed the Eastern African land trade roads in the South of Egypt are used here by Jesse Benjamin in order to help promote another colonial ´academic´ Anti-African bias, by belittling all the African peoples involved and by portraying them in need of an Asiatic, Semitic, Middle Eastern people to manage the African land trade routes!
The sentence "The first two overland routes (from Mombasa and Mogadishu) would certainly have been in Nabatean hands as soon as they moved northward in the Arabian Peninsula toward various Mediterranean ports" is relevant of sheer fiction.
We have no indication of Aramaean Nabataean presence in the south of Yemen (where they constantly traveled through the Arabian Peninsula land trade roads) and with respect to Africa in the south of Egypt (where other Aramaeans, mostly Palmyrene from Tadmor / Palmyra, had also formed commercial communities and entrepots, particularly in the area of Qena Kaine (´New´) in Greek).
Somalis, Yemenites and Nabataean Aramaeans
The Nabataeans had no significant maritime tradition even in the area of the Red Sea (´Arabian Gulf´ in the Antiquity). One wonders how the Sabaean / Himyarite Yemenites, who had colonized and controlled the entire Azania in the south of the Other Berberia, would have accepted Nabataeans from the north to cross to Africa and establish there a land road trade network that would have led the maritime network (that the Yemenites controlled) to extinction!
Not only this assumption is totally out of purpose, but if such an incredible event had taken place, we would have certainly found textual evidence narrating the details so important an event it would have been!
A second, similar, question should be expressed with regard to the Axumite Abyssinian Kingdom. How would king Zoscales of Axum, mentioned in the Periplus of the Red Sea, have allowed the faraway Nabataeans to cross its territory (and if he had not done so, from where would they have arrived beyond Axum´s southern border?) to do something that, if it had been possible, he would have already tried to it (namely to control the land routes between Avalites and Rhapta and to impose the land routes as the most frequent ones).
Since Axumite Abyssinia would have been the greatest beneficiary of such a development, if it had ever occurred, how did Axum fail to materialize such a great achievement and change? And how are the faraway Nabataeans, a virtual intruder, reported to have managed to do it instead?
One can safely claim that if this mythical issue had even been a matter of attempt for the Nabataeans, whose king Melichus II is modestly mentioned in the Periplus of the Red Sea, the Yemenites would have undertaken all possible efforts and made a military expedition to erase the tiny Rekem / Petra kingdom from the earth; so perilous this sort of attempt from the part of the Nabataean Aramaeans would have been considered.
When one adds to this aberration the expression "the centrality of Nabatean stewardship of this trade between distant regions of the Ancient World", we are sure that we enter into the realm of the ludicrous.
At the end, Jesse Benjamin proves how little he knows of Roman History, let alone the History of the Trade between East and West. Rome´s annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom has nothing to do with a wrongly surmised strong position of that kingdom in the Horn of Africa area, but with the need of Rome to be closer to the area where its main rival, the Arsacid Parthian Empire of Iran, tried to levy the greatest commercial profit.
Jesse Benjamin seems to forget that a few years after Octavian invaded Egypt (30 BCE), Rome sent a military naval expedition against Arabia Felix (Aden) to minimize the Yemenite control of the maritime trade routes. The author of Periplus of the Red Sea, although writing the text we analyze hereby about 100 years after the Roman naval expedition, expands a lot narrating the reminiscences of the greatest Roman effort in the East (up to his time). If the Nabatean Aramaeans had managed such a great exploit, namely to control the land routes of Eastern Africa and to make of them the preferred choice of the Roman and other merchants, certainly the author of the Periplus of the Red Sea would have expanded even more on this issue.
Finally, if the Nabataeans had controlled the Eastern African routes (and had managed to make of them the ´most frequented ones´), how had they not managed to kick out the Roman garrisons from Leuke Kome (the major town at the northernmost confines of the Arabic Red Sea coast, so close to the southernmost confines of the Nabataean Kingdom)? It is to be correctly assumed that the Roman soldiers in Leuke Kome, defending the interests of Rome and not the Nabataean king Malichus II, had put the Nabataean Kingdom under quasi-total financial and military control; so if Jesse Benjamin´s theories were correct, the Nabataeans would have reacted against the Roman garrison to preserve their supposed privileges.
Note
Picture: For thousands of years the ancient Yemenite ships helped sailors and merchants reach destination thanks to an excellent knowledge of the monsoons and unsurpassed navigational skills; these same boats are today still in use, named ´dhows´.
We referred to the Ancient Greek text ´Periplus of the Red Sea´, which consists in a valuable information about all the coastal countries of the ´Red Sea´ (Erythra Thalassa in Greek), a geographic term that in the Antiquity denoted the Arabian Gulf (this is what we call today ´Red Sea"), the Persian Gulf, and the entire Indian Ocean from Eastern Africa until Chryse (the ´Golden´, as Indonesia and Indochina were called then). The ´Periplus of the Red Sea´ was written ca. 70 CE by an anonymous Alexandrian Egyptian merchant and captain, who certainly had personal experience in vast parts of that navigation and trade network area, and wished to compile a kind of guide for sailors and traders. As continuation of our previous article, we will study further excerpts of ´the Periplus of the Red Sea´ pertaining to ´the Other Berberia´.
Malao - Berbera as possible Capital of 'The Other Berberia'
It is true that we have somewhat earlier references to this area, but they are rather due to hearsay (f.i. diplomatic reports of those times) and not to personal autopsy and navigational experience in the area in question as is the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea. Consequently, these references offer at times self-contradictory, confusing and/or erroneous information, which does not necessarily damage the importance of the author (in this case the famous Roman erudite Pliny the Elder) but makes of the excerpt a less valuable piece of puzzle in the reconstruction of the Ancient History of Somalia and Eastern Africa.
Sailing around Malao Berbera
The 8th chapter of the Periplus of the Red Sea is focused on Malao, a port of call that has been identified with the modern harbour of Berbera. We publish it integrally, adding our commentary next.
Text
8. After Avalites there is another market-town, better than this, called Malao, distant a sail of about eight hundred stadia. The anchorage is an open roadstead, sheltered by a spit running out from the east. Here the natives are more peaceable. There are imported into this place the things already mentioned, and many tunics, cloaks from Arsinoe, dressed and dyed; drinking-cups, sheets of soft copper in small quantity, iron, and gold and silver coin, not much. There are exported from these places myrrh, a little frankincense, (that known as far-side), the harder cinnamon, duaca, Indian copal and macir, which are imported into Arabia; and slaves, but rarely.
Analysis
In the previous article, we analyzed the reasons for the identification of Avalites with the area at the southern suburbs of Assab, in Eritrea, and not Zeila (Seylac) in Somaliland. The distance mentioned in this chapter (800 stadia) makes now plausible the identification of Malao with Berbera, and it seems that the mariners sailed at those days straight from the Bab el Mandeb to Berbera, without circumnavigating the Tadjoura Gulf in the area of modern Djibouti.
Quite interestingly, the author, after identifying Avalites as ´harbour´ and ´small market-town´, describes Malao as ´market-town´, which makes us conclude that Malao was larger than Avalites. This is also corroborated by the fact that more products were imported here than in Avalites, "the things already mentioned" being a textual hint at those earlier listed in chapter 7 about Avalites. Immediately after these words, the author comes up with an ´additional´ list of imported items at Malao.
Here starts the most interesting part of the Avalites and Malao imports comparison. Whereas in Avalites there are six different products mentioned as imported ("flint glass, assorted; juice of sour grapes from Diospolis; dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers; wheat, wine, and a little tin"), in Malao seven more types of products are reportedly traded in. More than double!
The Valuable Merchandise of Malao Berbera
If we now pay attention to the quality (and consequently the value) of the products mentioned in both cases, we find out a striking difference. Let´s concentrate first on the Textile Sector.
In Avalites were imported: "dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers".
In Malao were imported: "many tunics, cloaks from Arsinoe, dressed and dyed".
We notice a kind of contempt in the textual precision ´made for the Berbers´; it sounds like the French colonial expression ´bon pour l´ Orient´ (´´good for the East"), which implies that this sort of low(ly) French production was to be distributed outside France and Europe, somewhere in colonized areas (or at least in countries that were not technologically advanced as much as Europe was).
It is apparent that nobody in Alexandria or Egypt would wear "dressed cloth, assorted, made for the Berbers", except possibly traveling Berberic traders of course. But this concerns Avalites only!
With respect to Malao textile imports, the atmosphere changes totally! Tunics were expensive cloths for important people in Alexandria, Rome and other important cities of the Roman world. On the other hand, cloaks from Arsinoe (Suez) were famous in Roman Egypt, and also expensive.
Subsequently, we feel that at Malao we are met with a richer and more important environment where people are not dressed as in the countryside! Why is it so?
Precious Wares for the Malao Elders
Further comparison between the Avalites and Malao imports helps us shed more light on the issue. Let´s focus now on the Metals Sector, which involves also currency in cash (there was no plastic or even paper money at those days!).
In Avalites were imported: "a little tin" only.
In Malao were imported: "drinking-cups, sheets of soft copper in small quantity, iron, and gold and silver coin, not much".
It becomes clear that not only more metal was imported in Malao, but also that the Malao imports corresponded to the needs of a local administration, not provincial authorities.
Drinking cups were metallic in the Antiquity; that is why this product is mentioned at this order. But who would use at those days a metallic cup to drink except high-ranking magistrates, top military, wealthy merchants, local noblesse, palatial employees, and royal families? If this concerns the Malao imported drinking cups, it is even more so for more exquisite imports, such as gold and silver coin.
The entire sentence allows us to assume that Malao was the capital of the Other Berberia, although the author does not state something like that explicitly. So, iron was necessary for the needs of the local arsenal, and currency (silver coin) and gold were for the payment of the various Malao exports.
Everything indicates that there was power centralization at Malao, whereas Avalites was a border point where fights and disputes happened frequently.
The Inhabitants of Malao
There is another point in the text to support this approach; the description of the Malao inhabitants as ´more peaceable´ signifies presence of central power, culture and education, security and civil society. We can most probably assume the presence of a local royal authority that controlled as far as Avalites in the northwest.
This stands in striking contradiction with the last sentence of the Avalites chapter (´And the Berbers who live in the place are very unruly´), which should be interpreted as revealing the defensive attitude of the Avalites natives, with regard to foreigners, Axumite Abyssinians or any navigators and merchants; the attitude was due to the need of defending the Berberic exports´ maritime transportation to the Yemenite coast (Ocelis and Mouza).
Malao Berbera exports to Yemen, not Abyssinia
The mention of the Malao exports offers further information. Certainly the Malao exports were more numerous and more valuable than those of Avalites. Quite interestingly, they were exported to the Yemenite Kingdom of Haribael, the king of the merged Sheba (Saba) and Himyar states. This happened in accordance with the maritime transport of the Avalites products to Yemen.
It represents therefore the choice of a royal authority of which we hear nothing, although through the text´s lines we feel its existence. The independence of the Other Berberia and the existence of a central, royal power around Berbera are also indicated by the export of slaves. Since no foreign colons or invaders were present, the export of slaves can be a matter of a victorious central power of some size. We could assume that these Malao exported slaves were not local Berbers, but war prisoners held captive by the local king who had to fight various inland tribes.
Another interesting point is that faraway products, such as Indian copal and macir, ´had´ to be transported to Malao to be further exported to Yemen. If there were no local authority, the omnipresent Yemenites of the two kingdoms, Saba/Himyar and Hadhramawt, who had already colonized Azania (the coast from Cape Guardafui down to Zanzibar) and Soqotra, would have ´arranged´ that these Indian products, like many other Indian exports, be transported straight to their harbours, either in Yemen or in Azania, and consequently be sold to them in lower price!
In the following chapter, the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea describes in detail eastern harbors at the coast of ´the Other Berberia´, like Mundu (Bandar Hais), Mosyllon, etc. We will continue our analysis in a forthcoming article; here we intend to correct false interpretations that deliberately minimize the importance of the coast of the Other Berberia in the entire East West trade network of those days.
Maritime and Land routes in Eastern Africa
Although the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea describes mostly coastal and open sea navigation, the author occasionally refers to land roads linking two harbours or an inland city with coastal ports of call.
At a later point in the text, the author hints at a land road from the Azanian coast of Eastern Africa and the area of Rhapta (Daressalam in Tanzania) to Axum and to the Nile Valley. It is clear that this land alternative was not the frequent choice, and the reason is simple: it was not that safe because of the lack of central administrations, royal authorities, and proper communication network. The prevailing jungle conditions made the land trip extremely dangerous and unsafe. The alternative existed only, when there were major reasons to avoid the ordinary, maritime route of circumnavigating the Horn of Africa.
However, academic ´militantism´ often disregards textual sources, epigraphic documentation, and archeological evidence in order to impose preconceived schemes and efforts of interpretation that lead to inaccurate reconstruction of the historical past.
A typical example of this sort of militant historiography is the article "Of Nubians and Nabateans: Implications of Research on Neglected Dimensions of Ancient World History" by Jesse Benjamin of the Department of Sociology of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Geneva, NY 14456, USA), which was published in the academic periodical ´Journal of Asian and African Studies´ {November 2001, v36 i4 p361(22)}. An abstract can be found in the following link: http://www.stcloudstate.edu/socialresponsibility/articles/nubians.asp
In his contribution, Jesse Benjamin, in the name of an inconsistent and rather erratic Afro-centrism that damages the pertinent reconstruction of the Eastern African past, tries to make a link between the Nubians (a Nilo-Saharan African people) with the Semitic Nabataeans of the Rekem / Petra kingdom at the area of modern Jordan. The article seems irrelevant of our subject, but in his effort to distort Eastern African History, Jesse Benjamin disregards outrageously the Ancient sources. We reproduce here two paragraphs from his aforementioned abstract that bear evidence to total alteration of truth with respect to the frequency of the trade routes in the area we discuss. In addition, Jesse Benjamin attempts to introduce a novelty by presenting a foreign people as totally infiltrated in and even controlling large areas of Eastern Africa. All this is attempted in a completely mischievous way. After the selected excerpt, we will analyze the basic historical mistakes and inaccuracies of the author.
Jesse Benjamin´s Imaginative Nabataeans in Control of African Land Routes
"While the search for the ruins of Rhapta still continues, Miller (1969) has also suggested, and with some substantial corroboration, that the transshipment from Rhapta and the East Coast of Africa followed several routes. While occasionally the route taken was the coasting trade around the Horn and into the ports of Aromata, Mosyllum, Mundus, Malao, and Avalites, the goods usually reached these entrepot ports via overland routes north from Mogadishu and Mombasa. It is even suggested that the Mombasa / Maji / Avalites route also diverged westward at Maji, to the Nile Valley routes from Juba and Malakal in Central Africa, northward to Egypt and its port, Alexandria.
The first two overland routes (from Mombasa and Mogadishu) would certainly have been in Nabatean hands as soon as they moved northward in the Arabian Peninsula toward various Mediterranean ports. The latter route, much less traversed and less constant over time, would have furnished an alternative route outside of the Nabatean monopoly. Such extensive attempts to circumvent the main trade routes further demonstrate the centrality of Nabatean stewardship of this trade between distant regions of the Ancient World. This is demonstrated by Rome's later annexation of Nabatea under the title, Arabia Petraea (Houston 1926:111-114; Miller 1969), in their efforts to confront the power of Petra as a pivotal entrepot between Africa and China, on the one hand, and the Mediterranean, on the other".
Refutation
In the aforementioned excerpt, Jesse Benjamin misinterprets Miller first, because that scholar suggested alternative possibilities, whereas Jesse Benjamin pretends hereby that these routes were not the alternatives but the mainly used routes, which is false.
Miller´s approach and text are in straight opposition to Jesse Benjamin´s sentence "While occasionally the route taken was the coasting trade around the Horn and into the ports of Aromata, Mosyllum, Mundus, Malao, and Avalites, the goods usually reached these entrepot ports via overland routes north from Mogadishu and Mombasa".
We have actually no textual, epigraphic and/or archeological material records to allow us to imagine that the maritime route was taken "occasionally". There is no source indicating such a possibility. Contrarily, the Periplus of the Red Sea, along with other textual evidence, corroborates the evaluation of the maritime road from Avalites (Assab) to Rhapta (Dar es Salam and Zanzibar) as the main, usual, ordinary, most frequented one.
We can assume the land short ways were an exception that did not represent more than 2% of the trips effectuated. For a scholar, the baseless conclusion that "the goods usually reached these entrepot ports via overland routes north from Mogadishu and Mombasa" constitutes a serious blow for his credibility and seriousness.
Even worse, Jesse Benjamin presents his erroneous assumptions and preconceived schemes as expressing other scholars´ opinions, without caring to specify who said so. Whereas he is the only to suggest the following, the argumentation is presented by him as an objective observation with a verb in passive form ("It is even suggested that the Mombasa / Maji / Avalites route also diverged westward at Maji, to the Nile Valley routes from Juba and Malakal in Central Africa, northward to Egypt and its port, Alexandria"); his presumably academic contribution takes therefore the form of deceitful treachery, which cannot possibly be the way a scholar develops ideas and approaches.
There is no actual proof for the identification of the land road ´Mombasa / Maji / Avalites´, and it would take years for an academic interdisciplinary team to undertake explorations to find support (archeological and/or epigraphic) for this imaginative theory of Benjamin´s.
Another Colonial ´Academic´ Anti-African Bias
What any specialist of the subject would have rejected is the next paragraph of Benjamin´s, which consists in the paramount attempt of falsification of the Eastern African History. After the land roads are presented as the most frequented routes, they are ´attributed´ to foreigners´ inspection and control.
The Nabataeans who never crossed the Eastern African land trade roads in the South of Egypt are used here by Jesse Benjamin in order to help promote another colonial ´academic´ Anti-African bias, by belittling all the African peoples involved and by portraying them in need of an Asiatic, Semitic, Middle Eastern people to manage the African land trade routes!
The sentence "The first two overland routes (from Mombasa and Mogadishu) would certainly have been in Nabatean hands as soon as they moved northward in the Arabian Peninsula toward various Mediterranean ports" is relevant of sheer fiction.
We have no indication of Aramaean Nabataean presence in the south of Yemen (where they constantly traveled through the Arabian Peninsula land trade roads) and with respect to Africa in the south of Egypt (where other Aramaeans, mostly Palmyrene from Tadmor / Palmyra, had also formed commercial communities and entrepots, particularly in the area of Qena Kaine (´New´) in Greek).
Somalis, Yemenites and Nabataean Aramaeans
The Nabataeans had no significant maritime tradition even in the area of the Red Sea (´Arabian Gulf´ in the Antiquity). One wonders how the Sabaean / Himyarite Yemenites, who had colonized and controlled the entire Azania in the south of the Other Berberia, would have accepted Nabataeans from the north to cross to Africa and establish there a land road trade network that would have led the maritime network (that the Yemenites controlled) to extinction!
Not only this assumption is totally out of purpose, but if such an incredible event had taken place, we would have certainly found textual evidence narrating the details so important an event it would have been!
A second, similar, question should be expressed with regard to the Axumite Abyssinian Kingdom. How would king Zoscales of Axum, mentioned in the Periplus of the Red Sea, have allowed the faraway Nabataeans to cross its territory (and if he had not done so, from where would they have arrived beyond Axum´s southern border?) to do something that, if it had been possible, he would have already tried to it (namely to control the land routes between Avalites and Rhapta and to impose the land routes as the most frequent ones).
Since Axumite Abyssinia would have been the greatest beneficiary of such a development, if it had ever occurred, how did Axum fail to materialize such a great achievement and change? And how are the faraway Nabataeans, a virtual intruder, reported to have managed to do it instead?
One can safely claim that if this mythical issue had even been a matter of attempt for the Nabataeans, whose king Melichus II is modestly mentioned in the Periplus of the Red Sea, the Yemenites would have undertaken all possible efforts and made a military expedition to erase the tiny Rekem / Petra kingdom from the earth; so perilous this sort of attempt from the part of the Nabataean Aramaeans would have been considered.
When one adds to this aberration the expression "the centrality of Nabatean stewardship of this trade between distant regions of the Ancient World", we are sure that we enter into the realm of the ludicrous.
At the end, Jesse Benjamin proves how little he knows of Roman History, let alone the History of the Trade between East and West. Rome´s annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom has nothing to do with a wrongly surmised strong position of that kingdom in the Horn of Africa area, but with the need of Rome to be closer to the area where its main rival, the Arsacid Parthian Empire of Iran, tried to levy the greatest commercial profit.
Jesse Benjamin seems to forget that a few years after Octavian invaded Egypt (30 BCE), Rome sent a military naval expedition against Arabia Felix (Aden) to minimize the Yemenite control of the maritime trade routes. The author of Periplus of the Red Sea, although writing the text we analyze hereby about 100 years after the Roman naval expedition, expands a lot narrating the reminiscences of the greatest Roman effort in the East (up to his time). If the Nabatean Aramaeans had managed such a great exploit, namely to control the land routes of Eastern Africa and to make of them the preferred choice of the Roman and other merchants, certainly the author of the Periplus of the Red Sea would have expanded even more on this issue.
Finally, if the Nabataeans had controlled the Eastern African routes (and had managed to make of them the ´most frequented ones´), how had they not managed to kick out the Roman garrisons from Leuke Kome (the major town at the northernmost confines of the Arabic Red Sea coast, so close to the southernmost confines of the Nabataean Kingdom)? It is to be correctly assumed that the Roman soldiers in Leuke Kome, defending the interests of Rome and not the Nabataean king Malichus II, had put the Nabataean Kingdom under quasi-total financial and military control; so if Jesse Benjamin´s theories were correct, the Nabataeans would have reacted against the Roman garrison to preserve their supposed privileges.
Note
Picture: For thousands of years the ancient Yemenite ships helped sailors and merchants reach destination thanks to an excellent knowledge of the monsoons and unsurpassed navigational skills; these same boats are today still in use, named ´dhows´.
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