Economic Boundaries? Late Antiquity and Early Islam

2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Morony
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Irrigated Agriculture ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
The Mediterranean

AbstractThe Mediterranean economy was retracting from the mid-sixth century while the Sasanian economy was expanding. Six trends are identified during Late Antiquity that extended into the Islamic period: (1) the development and spread of large estates with tenant labor, (2) the monetization of the economy, (3) the development and spread of irrigated agriculture, (4) the revival of mining, (5) the emergence of merchant diasporas, and (6) the domination of Indian Ocean commerce by Persian shipping. It is argued that these trends were strongest in Sasanian territory where the economic system identified as "Islamic" originated. À partir du milieu du sixième siècle l'économie méditerranéenne connaissait une régression alors que celle de l'Empire sasanide était en plein essor. Durant l'époque de l'Antiquité tardive et au cours de la période islamique, six tendances peuvent être relevées: 1) le développement et la diffusion des grands domaines avec fermiers à bail; (2) la monétarisation de l'économie; (3) l'extension de l'agriculture irriguée; (4) la revivi fication du secteur minier; (5) l'émergence des diasporas commerciales; et (6) la domination commerciale de la marine perse dans l'Océan indien. Selon notre analyse, ces tendances étaient plus fortement ressenties en territoire sasanide où le système économique dit "islamique" connut le jour.

The Archaeological Record of Indian Ocean Engagements in the Red Sea

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eivind Heldaas Seland
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reviews the evidence, nature, and development of maritime contacts in the Red Sea and from the Red Sea into the western Indian Ocean from the Neolithic until the start of the Islamic period, c. 4000 BCE–700 CE. In addition to summarizing and highlighting recent archaeological research and ongoing scholarly debates, emphasis is placed on identifying and explaining periods of intensified as well as reduced interaction, and on the relationship between internal Red Sea dynamics and contacts with the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean worlds in light of climate, natural environment, hinterland interest, and a changing geopolitical situation.

Bridging Disconnected Seas

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-58
Author(s):  
Federico De Romanis
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Commercial Enterprise ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Over Time

This chapter is a review of how the challenges to the interchange between the Mediterranean and Red Seas were met during Antiquity. Over the centuries, the need to overcome the logistical problems posed by navigating the Red Sea, crossing the desert, and sailing the Nile in order to link the Mediterranean and Red Seas resulted in a series of different strategies for each stage of the journey. The fact that each combination could be deemed more suitable to a particular kind of business explains why, over time, one was chosen over another or why several were practised simultaneously. When the texts of the Muziris papyrus were written, Roman trade in the Indian Ocean was evolving from its Early Imperial forms to those of Late Antiquity. As in all transitional periods, there was a mix of old and new, of past and future. The past forms are attested by the Muziris papyrus itself, which still envisages a commercial enterprise involving a direct sea route to Muziris and a connection to the Mediterranean that comprises a limited Red Sea sailing, a desert crossing to Coptos, and a voyage down the Nile to Alexandria. The future forms were heralded by the opening of Trajan’s Canal.

The Mediterranean Jewish Diaspora of Late Antiquity

2021 ◽  
pp. 277-307
Author(s):  
Ross S. Kraemer
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Distribution ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
Jewish Diaspora ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Elite Professions ◽  
Communal Organizations ◽  
Jewish Populations

No known literary sources survive from Jews living in the Mediterranean diaspora from the early fourth to the end of the sixth century. Mining the writings of non-Jews (primarily Christians), late Roman laws, the physical remains of a few synagogues, donor inscriptions, and numerous epitaphs, this chapter sketches aspects of their lives, including geographic distribution, economics, participation in ancient civic life, communal organizations, communication between Jewish populations, and their possible homogeneity or diversity. It also examines the pressures exerted on Jews to convert to Christianity, including the destruction of synagogues and exclusions from public offices and elite professions, and considers both the efficacy of such pressures and possible Jewish responses.

The Origin of Icons

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-30
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Mathews
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Panel Painting ◽  
Hagia Sophia ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Panel Paintings

The origin of icons, and by extension of Christian painting, can now be traced to the panel painting tradition of pagan divinities in wide use in Late Antiquity throughout the Mediterranean. Both pagan and Christian panel paintings were employed as votive or thank offerings. According to an ancient phenomenon known as “syncretism,” emperors were identified with gods and Greek gods with Egyptian ones. Triptych paintings were a new way of exploring the implications of syncretism. In the sixth century, icons went from being single offerings to an assembly on the templon barrier. The earliest surviving evidence of church iconography, decoration and ritual cult, or liturgy, comes from Constantinople, at the churches of St. Polyeuktos and Hagia Sophia.

Unfinished and Less Authored Texts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. C. Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Jewish Writers

The concept of textual unfinishedness played a role in a wide variety of cultures and contexts across the Mediterranean basin in antiquity and late antiquity. Chapter 2 documents examples of Greek, Roman, and Jewish writers reflecting explicitly in their own words about unfinished texts. Many writers claimed to have written unfinished texts on purpose for specific cultural reasons, while others claimed to have written texts that slipped out of their hands somehow with their permission.

scholarly journals THE HISTORY OF BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES RECONSIDERED: AN ANCIENT FRAGMENT RELATED TO PS.-PHILOXENUS (P.VARS. 6) AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Eleanor Dickey
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Alphabetical Order ◽  
Bilingual Dictionaries ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

Abstract This article identifies a papyrus in Warsaw, P.Vars. 6, as a fragment of the large Latin–Greek glossary known as Ps.-Philoxenus. That glossary, published in volume II of G. Goetz's Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum on the basis of a ninth-century manuscript, is by far the most important of the bilingual glossaries surviving from antiquity, being derived from lost works of Roman scholarship and preserving valuable information about rare and archaic Latin words. It has long been considered a product of the sixth century a.d., but the papyrus dates to c.200, and internal evidence indicates that the glossary itself must be substantially older than that copy. The Ps.-Philoxenus glossary is therefore not a creation of Late Antiquity but of the Early Empire or perhaps even the Republic. Large bilingual glossaries in alphabetical order must have existed far earlier than has hitherto been believed.

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