Aromata (Greek: Αρώματα, lit. "spices, aromatics"), also called the Spice Port,[1] was an ancient seaport and emporium in the Horn of Africa, today a part of Somalia. It lay near the tip of Cape Guardafui, which was itself called the "promontory of spices" (Aromaton akron, Αρώματον ἄκρον).[2][3] It was notable for its produce of resins and various herbs.[4]

Location

It is to be identified with Damo, a site protected on the south but exposed on the north.[2][5] British archaeologist Neville Chittick discovered Roman pottery near Damo, confirming the identification.[2] Previously, G. W. B. Huntingford had identified with Olok (Olog), which is 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to the west.[6][7]

Descriptions

According to the 1st-century Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, the "port of spices" (Aromaton emporion, Ἀρωμάτων ἐμπόριον) had a roadstead or anchorage (hormos) in the land of the Barbaroi.[8][9][10] It was one of the "far side" ports that lay in a line along the north Somali coast. They were "far" because they came after Adulis and beyond the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. Merchants left Egypt in July to reach them.[11] Aromata was the sixth port after Zeyla (Aualites), Berbera (Malao), Heis (Moundou), Bandar Kasim (Mosullon) and Bandar Alula (Akannai).[6] It could occasionally be dangerous to ships.[12]

According to the 2nd-century Geography of Ptolemy, a merchant named Diogenes, returning from India, was driven south by a north wind as he approached Aromata. He sailed for 25 days with the coast of the Troglodytae on his right (west) almost as far as Rhapta in Azania. Citing Marinus of Tyre, Ptolemy adds that a merchant named Theophilos sailed from Rhapta to Aromata in twenty days with a south wind blowing. Ptolemy emphasises that these were single sailings and he does not know the average number of days to sail between Aromata and Rhapta.[13] He places Aromata 6°N, while Marinus places it 4.25°N. He cites a certain Dioskoros for the location of Cape Prason, the southernmost point the Greeks reached in Africa, being "many days" beyond Rhapta. He then estimates the distance from Aromata to Cape Prason as 20.67° of latitude.[14] Ptolemy also says that he has heard from traders that the direction from Arabia Felix to Aromata is southwest not due south.[15] He places Aromata on the Gulf of Aden and not in the Indian Ocean.[1]

Aromata, like all other ports on the Gulf of Aden, was independent and ruled by its own chief.[1] Its major exports were frankincense and all grades of cassia (gizeir, asuphe, magla and moto).[16] It may have served as a major transshipment port for goods coming from India and Southeast Asia, the latter being the main source for cassia. It also exported grain, rice, sesame oil and cotton cloth.[17] According to the Periplus, a ship warned at Aromata of an approaching storm on the Indian Ocean could take refuge at Tabai (Chori Hordio), two days' sailing and on the other side of the cape.[2]

Land of Aromatics

The Monumentum Adulitanum is a third-century monumental inscription by an anonymous King of Axum recording his various victories in war. It is lost, but its text was copied down in the 6th century by Cosmas Indicopleustes in his Christian Topography.[18] It describes the King's conquest of a country towards the east as the "Land of Aromatics",[19][20] also translated "Land of Incense"[21] or "Frankincense Country":[22]

I am the first and only of the kings my predecessors to have subdued all these peoples by the grace given me by my mighty god Ares [Maḥrem], who also engendered me. It is through him that I have submitted to my power all the peoples neighbouring my empire, in the east to the Land of Aromatics, to the west to the land of Ethiopia [Kush] and the Sasou [?Sesea]; some I fought myself, against others I sent my armies.[19][20]

Paul Henze takes this to refer to the whole of the "dry coastal region, a major source of incense" from the lowlands of what is today Eritrea through Somalia and perhaps even a part of South Arabia.[23] Yuzo Shitomi suggests that it may in fact have been Ḥaḍramawt in South Arabia.[21] L. P. Kirwan distinguishes two lands of incense: that of the Monumentum Adulitanum (which he places in South Arabia) and that of the Christian Topography itself (which is the Aromata of the Periplus and Ptolemy).[24]

References

  1. ^ a b c Lionel Casson (ed.), The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 115.
  2. ^ a b c d Casson 1989, pp. 129–30.
  3. ^ G. W. B. Huntingford (ed.), The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Hakluyt Society, 1980), p. 25.
  4. ^ Glasgow, University of (1955). Transactions. p. 26. South of the Aromatic Coast, the present Somali country in which frankincense was gathered, he mentions Zengisa Acra, Cape Zenj or Zengg
  5. ^ Neville Chittick (1979), "Early Ports in the Horn of Africa", International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 8(4), 273–277. doi:10.1111/j.1095-9270.1979.tb01131.x
  6. ^ a b Huntingford 1980, p. 83.
  7. ^ Neville Chittick (1976), "An Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Horn: The British-Somali Expedition, 1975", Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 11(1), 117–133. doi:10.1080/00672707609511233
  8. ^ J. W. McCrindle (ed.), The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk: Translated from the Greek, and Edited with Notes and Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2010 [1897]), pp. 34 n3, 38 n5. Cosmas and the Periplus place it at the end of Barbaria, while Ptolemy makes it the start of Barbaria, which he extends to Rhapta.
  9. ^ Huntingford 1980, p. 58.
  10. ^ Casson 1989, p. 57.
  11. ^ Casson 1989, pp. 59, 115.
  12. ^ Casson 1989, p. 277.
  13. ^ J. Lennart Berggren and Alexander Jones (eds.), Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters (Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 68.
  14. ^ Berggren and Jones 2000, p. 76.
  15. ^ Huntingford 1980, pp. 173–74.
  16. ^ Huntingford 1980, p. 124.
  17. ^ Sunil Gupta, "Aromata Emporion", in Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine and Sabine R. Huebner, The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Wiley, 2012), p. 754.
  18. ^ Hatke, George (2013-01-07), "3. The Third Century CE: Monumentum Adulitanum II (RIE 277)", 3. The Third Century CE: Monumentum Adulitanum II (RIE 277), New York University Press, pp. 37–66, ISBN 978-0-8147-6278-3
  19. ^ a b Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity (Edinburgh University Press, 1991), p. 187.
  20. ^ a b Stuart Munro-Hay, Ethiopia, the Unknown Land: A Cultural and Historical Guide (I. B. Tauris, 2003), p. 235.
  21. ^ a b Y. Shitomi (1997), "A New Interpretation of the Monumentum Adulitanum", Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 55, 81–102.
  22. ^ McCrindle 2010, p. 63.
  23. ^ Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (Palgrave, 2000), pp. 29–30.
  24. ^ L. P. Kirwan (1972), "The Christian Topography and the Kingdom of Axum", The Geographical Journal 138(2), 166–177. doi:10.2307/1795960

11°50′N 51°14′E / 11.83°N 51.24°E / 11.83; 51.24

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