scholarly journals Pinctada margaritifera box from Viminacium

Starinar ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 75-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragana Spasic-Djuric
Keyword(s):  
Red Sea ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Near East ◽  
Pearl Oyster ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Pinctada Margaritifera ◽  
Initiation Rites ◽  
Functional Aspects ◽  
The Persian Gulf

A Pinctada margaritifera box was unearthed at Viminacium in 1985, at the site of Pe}ine, in a grave containing cremated remains. It was made from the shell of a pearl oyster (Pinctada margaritifera), an exotic clam whose habitat is tropical seas: the Indo-Pacific region, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. Based on the grave type and a coin found in it, the box has been dated to the second half of the first and the first half of the second century AD. Morphologically and functionally, it represents a rare find in the territory of present-day Serbia and, together with the finds from Aquincum and Savaria, it is also a rare find of P. margaritiferae in the Central Balkans. It is a high-prestige item, indicative of contacts between Viminacium and the Near East, i.e. the area of present-day Israel, Jordan and Syria, where the workshops producing Pinctada boxes are alleged to have been. This text discusses the geographic-historical and, in particular, functional aspects of the P. margaritifera box as a symbol of Venus and a cultic prop in initiation rites.

On Some Inscribed Babylonian Alabastra

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
I. L. Finkel ◽  
J. E. Reade
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Near East ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Persian Gulf

AbstractDemand for scents, spices and comparable products from India and further east was a major incentive for the naval expeditions which led, after 1497 AD, to the creation of European empires in the Orient. There was the same demand in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East, to which these goods travelled through the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf. People in Egypt and Babylonia in the classical period were both middlemen and consumers, and this paper draws attention to the existence of a few alabaster jars that reflect the trade. They are mainly in the Department of the Ancient Near East at the British Museum (previously called the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities), and are inscribed in Babylonian or Greek with the names of scents or spices. While these inscriptions are unusual, perhaps many more jars were once inscribed in ink which is no longer visible.

scholarly journals The life cycle of submesoscale eddies generated by topographic interactions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathieu Morvan ◽  
Pierre L'Hégaret ◽  
Xavier Carton ◽  
Jonathan Gula ◽  
Clément Vic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Sea Water ◽  
Mesoscale Eddies ◽  
Shear Instability ◽  
Gulf Of Oman ◽  
Coherent Vortices ◽  
Persian Gulf Water ◽  
The Persian Gulf

Abstract. The Persian Gulf Water and Red Sea Water are salty and dense waters recirculating at subsurface in the Gulf of Oman and the Gulf of Aden respectively, under the influence of mesoscale eddies which dominate the surface flow in both semi-enclosed basins. In situ measurements combined with altimetry indicate that the Persian Gulf Water is driven by mesoscale eddies in the form of filaments and submesoscale structures. In this paper, we study the formation and the life cycle of intense submesoscale vortices and their impact on the spread of Persian Gulf Water and Red Sea Water. We use a three-dimensional hydrostatic model with submesoscale-resolving resolution to study the evolution of submesoscale vortices. Our configuration is an idealized version of the Gulf of Oman and Aden: a zonal row of mesoscale vortices interacting with north and south topographic slopes. Intense submesoscale vortices are generated in the simulations along the continental slopes due to two different mechanisms. The first mechanism is due to frictional generation of vorticity in the bottom boundary layer, which detaches from the topography, forms an unstable vorticity filament, and undergoes horizontal shear instability that leads to the formation of submesoscale coherent vortices. The second mechanism is inviscid and implies arrested topographic Rossby waves breaking and forming submesoscale coherent vortices where a mesoscale anticyclone interacts with the topographic slope. Submesoscale vortices subsequently drift away, merge and form larger vortices. They can also pair with opposite signed vortices and travel across the domain. They can weaken or disappear via several mechanisms, in particular fusion into the larger eddies or erosion on the topography. Particle patches are advected and sheared by vortices and are entrained into filaments. Their size first grows as the square root of time, a signature of the merging processes, then it increases linearly with time, corresponding to their ballistic advection by submesoscale eddies. On the contrary, witout intense submesoscale eddies, particles are mainly advected by mesoscale eddies; this implies a weaker dispersion of particles than in the previous case. This shows the important role of submesoscale eddies in spreading Persian Gulf Water and Red Sea Water.

Across Arabia: From the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea: Discussion

1920 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 463
Author(s):  
Mr. Hogarth ◽  
Haddad Pasha ◽  
William Haggard
Keyword(s):  
Red Sea ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
The Persian Gulf

Sea-trade in Early Times

Antiquity ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 15 (59) ◽  
pp. 233-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Hornell
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Eastern Desert ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Egyptian Desert ◽  
The Persian Gulf

The few indications that have come down to us of ancient sea-traffic between the countries lying around the shores of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean are so fragmentary and obscure that it is extremely difficult to reconstruct any definite picture of their character and extent. In spite of this handicap study of the meagre evidence available compels the belief that movement by sea, although of a fluctuating character and confined for the most part to coastwise voyaging, was far more active and advanced in parts of this area in very early times than is generally realized. Had it been otherwise how could we interpret the signs graven on the rocks of the ravines of the Egyptian desert, and the transport by sea of great blocks of stone to Sumer in the time of Gudea of Lagash?The earliest evidence at present available comes from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, though it does not follow that either area is the cradle of sea-faring. It consists of :—(A) innumerable prehistoric and predynastic petroglyphs of ships engraved upon the rocks of the eastern desert of Egypt, particularly those in the Wadi Hammamat region;(B) the discovery on Sumerian sites of diorite statues, stated specifically to have been brought by sea from foreign lands early in the third millennium B.C.;(c) the presence in the ruins of Ur, Kish, and Lagash of artifacts cut from the shell of the sacred Indian chank (Xancus pyrum);(D) historical records of trading expeditions sent by sea from Egypt to Somaliland extending from the Vth to the XIIth Dynasties, and repeated in the XVIIIth Dynasty.

Anahilapura: Understanding Its Expansive Network during the Time of the Chaulukyas

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-245
Author(s):  
Suchandra Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Trade Network ◽  
Trading Zone ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Sea Area ◽  
International Trade Network

Abstract Gujarat’s role in the international trade network has long been researched. During the first half of the second millennium CE, the Indian Ocean emerged as a vast trading zone; its western termini were Siraf/Basra/Baghdad in the Persian Gulf zone and Alexandria/Fustat (old Cairo) in the Red Sea area, while the eastern terminus extended up to the ports in China. However, this essay privileges a single place, Anahilapura, which acted as a hinterland to many of the ports of Gujarat.

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