RICERCA ITALIANA     

Along the aroma and spice routes. The port of Sumhuram and the trade between the Mediterranean, Arabia and India in preislamic times in the light of recent archaeological, historical-literary, palaeo-environmental and archaeometric data.

Università di Pisa

Abstract

A University of Pisa mission directed by the coordinator of this project Alessandra Avanzini has been working on the site of the ancient city of Sumhuram, in the territory of Khor Rori (southern Oman), since ancient times a region famed for the excellence of the frankincense it produced.
The recent discoveries made by IMTO (Italian Mission to Oman) setting the foundation of Sumhuram back to the early 3rd Century B.C., have cast doubt over a concept which up to now had been generally accepted by scholars, namely that all the seaports along the southern coast of Arabia were established at the beginning of the 1st Century A.D. after the Roman conquest of Egypt and consequent to the development of navigation between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Sumhuram is therefore the first seaport on the Arabian coast to be studied archaeologically, and it can be set with certainty in the phase of development of long-distance traffic between the Mediterranean and India.
The scope of the project is to reconstruct the history of the city, its palaeo-environment and the ancient trade routes that linked the Mediterranean with India by way of the Red Sea and the coasts of Arabia. The multidisciplinary character of the investigation which will involve scholars from the Universities of Pisa, Tuscia and Florence (Departments of Plant Biology and Earth Science) will enable the situation to be tackled in terms of archaeology, history, literature, palaeo-environment and archaeometry. <<<

Principal Investigator

Alessandra Avanzini Università degli Studi di PISA

Research Objectives

The project has two main aims:
1. to increase knowledge about the ancient south Arabian city of Sumhuram (fourth Century B.C. – fifth Century A.D.), a seaport in Dhofar in the region of frankincense.
2. to increase knowledge of the trade routes which crossed the Indian Ocean from the last Centuries B.C. up to the early centuries of our era.

The first objective will be pursued through a multi-disciplinary approach. Archaeological excavation will continue in various areas of the city in order to arrive at a better understanding of the architectural structure of the city and the building techniques used. The excavations conducted in the area of the storerooms will be of particular interest; from the excavations conducted there, the structure of the area leads to the belief that it was restricted with an access point closely controlled by the city authorities.
The excavation of the settlements in the area adjacent to the city will shed light on the social and economic structure of the inhabitants of the Dhofar region and their relationship with the city. Particular attention will be focused on studying materials. Metallurgical materials, in particular significant metallic discoveries, will be subjected to on-site archaeo-metallurgical examination. Defining the stratigraphical distribution of the materials found will be of special interest for identifying potential evolutions of the types of production over time.
A study the coins which were found in abundance in Sumhuram will also be of great interest in ascertaining whether they were minted locally. The American archaeologists who worked on site in the ’Fifties did suggest that there was a mint at Sumhuram but this has still to be proved.
The most significant metallic artefacts will be analysed in detail using avant-garde techniques.
The archaeo-metric study of the pottery will seek to establish its composition and the techniques used in manufacturing some typologies of pottery artefacts. Studying the origins of the raw material used in pottery manufacture will focus on locally-made products, comparing them with the minero-petrographic and geo-chemical characteristics of the rock around the archaeological site.
Reconstructing the plant environment (flora, vegetation, the agricultural use of the soil) in recent years has proved very interesting. In the upcoming years we shall pursue the objective of increasing our understanding of the city-territory relationship over time and how this developed after the site was abandoned, and, indeed, why it was abandoned. Comparison with the present-day floristic-vegetational situation will highlight the human activities of the past leaving traces which have come down through the years to us. The project will conduct in-depth palaeo-floristic studies of the area of the city. Grains of pollen can last for long periods of time and they will give precise information on how the territory was used for agriculture or herding in ancient times. Equally important will be to survey the extant vegetation and its composition in order to draw reliable comparisons with the composition and structure of the vegetation of the past.

The study approach to the second objective will also be multi-faceted.
A re-interpretation of the literary, epigraphic and papyrological sources is crucial to gaining for a proper historical perspective. A correct interpretation and integrated use of the various sources both classic and Semitic is fundamental for identifying the relationship between the port and the capital of the Hadramawt kingdom that the city depended on, and between the port and far-off places with which Sumhuram was in contact.
Studying the relationship between the port and the Hadramawt kingdom is important towards a better understanding the various phases of the history of south Arabia, and the relationships between the states that flourished in south Arabia from the beginning of the first millennium B.C. up to the sixth Century A.D. and trade.
Studying the amphorae will be particularly useful in understanding the long-distance trade that reached Sumhuram. Preliminary results from the most ancient strata of the city point to amphorae produced in the Aegean area. The study will shed light on the relationship between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean in the last centuries B.C. The close links between Sumhuram and India will be the subject of a specific analysis involving Indian archaeologists. We shall seek corroborating evidence for the hypothesis that a lot of material imported from the Mediterranean – including the amphorae – reached Sumhuram by way of India and not directly from the Mediterranean. The dynamics of trade leading up to and contemporary with the great flourishing of Roman trade with the East will therefore become clearer.
A further material useful for understanding the trade routes is the stones used as ballast on board the ships. Generally speaking, this ballast consists of stone blocks in a variety of sizes, mainly big river of beach stones. They were on-loaded or off-loaded depending on the quantity of cargo shipped; the petrographic analysis of these artefacts might tell where they came from and thence provide a qualitative idea of the ancient routes that passed along the Omani coast.
The study of the pollen will provide secondary anthropic indications on the indirect spread of the exotic plants traded.
Full light will be cast on the city’s trade, the products imported and exported, the latter assuredly including frankincense resin, but also the other activities that took place in the city apart from trade.
Studying the routes that converged on Sumhuram will not only seek to trace those used for trade but also to reconstruct social and economic dynamics and to identify their repercussions on the mentality and behaviour patterns in the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean in ancient times. <<<

First Results

The multi-discipline investigations performed on site in Sumhuram will reconstruct the role of the city within the framework of the trade routes that linked the Mediterranean with India by way of the Red Sea and the coasts of Arabia.
The research conducted by IMTO in Sumhuram in recent years has led to a new dating of its foundation, now set at the end of the fourth Century B.C. Further investigation towards understanding the role and the identity of Sumhuram as a seaport active in such ancient times will contribute to retracing the framework of trade between the Mediterranean and India in the pre-Christian world, and much earlier than the great flourishing of maritime trade in Roman times. In particular, the most significant novelty in this field of study will emerge from studying Sumhuram in relation to other seaports of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean which have been recently dated to the same period and which were therefore contemporary with it: Berenice in Egypt and Arikamedu in India. Furthermore, the investigations scheduled for these two years of the project might confirm a hypothesis which has only recently been put forward and which is therefore completely new in studies, namely that Sumhuram, which probably had close links with India even as early as ancient times, was not a stopping-off point for Roman ships en route to India but, instead for ships coming from India en route westwards.
The various research units involved in the project will conduct research along different lines. The University of Pisa (unit 1, coordinator of the project) will examine the historical and archaeological aspects of the site of Sumhuram by carrying on with the excavations of various parts of the city. This will advance south Arabian studies, both of the urban structure of large fortified south Arabian cities of which Sumhuram is a splendid example and also the mechanisms that regulated certain important economic activities such as the production and trade of frankincense of which the city was an important centre.
The team from the University of Pisa will also continue its studies in the field of the history and language of the kingdom of Hadramawt, and the most significant results will include the publication of the Corpus of Hadramawt inscriptions by the end of 2009. This volume, with an appendix on grammar and lexicon, will be a fundamental tool in south Arabian studies on this language which is still less known and understood than other south Arabic languages.
In order to reconstruct the new historic framework of Sumhuram and the trade of merchandise in which the city was a main player, the team of the Department of Science of the Ancient World of the University of Tuscia (unit 3) will carry out an in-depth study on the literary sources regarding the routes and trade across the Indian Ocean from the Arabian peninsula to India in Roman times. Studying the available documentation will shed light on the historical and geographical aspects of the places and the trade routes, and it will also clarify some anthropological aspects on the mentality and behaviour patterns of the social fabric of these places, which are still largely unknown.
In order to understand the trade routes which, in ancient times, converged on Sumhuram the researchers from the Department of Earth Science of the University of Florence jointly with the Superintendency of the Archaeological Heritage of Tuscany and the University of Ferrara (unit 4), will carry out archaeometric analyses on metallurgical, ceramic and stone-based material discovered on site at Sumhuram. Appropriate analysis of the numerous ceramic containers (amphorae in particular) discovered in the excavations will reveal a lot of useful information on archaeological issues including the localisation of the raw materials used in manufacturing, and hence identifying their point of origin. Of not lesser importance by the same token is the study of the organic and inorganic remains of the matter that had been stored inside these containers, traces of which remain in sufficient quantities for modern technology to examine. This will provide us with data on the nature and origin of the material transported. Information on the trade routes that converged on the city of Sumhuram can also be obtained by analysing the rocks used as ballast for ships with a light cargo load. Lastly, archaeometric analyses will also be carried out on the wealth of metallurgical material discovered in Sumhuram. In particular, the chemical-mineralogical analyses of the metallurgic slag and other waste products of metal-working will enable the type of metal produced to be identified and the manufacturing processes used. The archaeometric analyses will be carried out using both traditional methods (transmitted light optical microscopy – XRD, SEM/EDS, EPMA/WDS, XRF, ICP-MS) and innovative techniques such as the Time-of-Flight Neutron technique.
These studies are highly innovative for south Arabian archaeology where minero-petrographic, geo-chemical and metallographic tests have rarely been carried out on ancient artefacts. These methods will produce the most original results and contribute important information on the ancient trade routes that merchant shipping followed along the Omani coast.
Lastly, the team from the Department of Plant Biology of the University of Florence (operating unit 2), will take part in the programme of the project to contribute to studying the relationship between man and the territory of Sumhuram. In addition to trade, interest lies in reconstructing the agricultural activity of the inhabitants of this city, and in this regard the vegetation of the area (past and present) needs to be identified so as to understand the changes that have occurred between then and now and the anthropic and climatic factors that brought these changes about and what may have been the reasons for the abandonment of the city around the 5th Century A.D. Preliminary research has indicated that over the centuries of its existence, the city had its ups and downs which might not have been exclusively attributable to human events but in some way also caused by variations in the climate and the environment. The latter possibility has only been partially investigated and researched (in the various strata of excavation) through pollen fossils that give indications on climate change. Palynological investigation conducted to date indicates that the climate of the city was less arid than now, more suited to more vegetation and, therefore, more suited to cultivation.
This type of research, therefore, will seek to increase our awareness of the differences between the environment of the past and that of today and to identifying changes in the climate or other factors which through time modified the natural vegetation and the estuary on which the city stood. This will provide information on the weight that these natural causes had in slowing agriculture, determining the fall in trade and the consequent abandonment of the port and of the city itself.
In conclusion, thanks to its marked multi-discipline approach and the integration ensuing from differing skills and approaches, the project will increase knowledge on the general issues concerning the city of Sumhuram and in particular its foundation, the relationship with the surrounding territory and its outward vision through its trade with the Mediterranean, India and the Persian Gulf.
In theoretical terms, the most eagerly awaited result is the verification by hard proof of two “new” ideas which so far are only hypotheses but which, if borne out would revolutionise the state of the art in the studies of this field, namely that Sumhuram was part of the major international trade network before the flourishing of Roman trade, and that it was not so much a stopping-off point for ships en-route to India but rather for those returning from India westwards.
In terms of scientific production the various threads of investigation will be drawn together at the end of the project and the results published in two volumes, one of which will be epigraphic including the Hadramawt corpus with remarks on the lexicon and the grammar in an appendix, and another volume containing the results of the archaeometric studies on the ceramic, stone-based and metallurgical artefacts. The two volumes will be published in the Arabia Antica series edited by Alessandra Avanzini and published by Erma di Bretschneider in Rome.
In order for the results to reach a broader public than interested scholars alone, more space will be given to the general introduction of the historical issues in Arabia in ancient times in the portal Arabia Antica created by IMTO. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The results achieved by the Italian mission to Oman (IMTO) which has been working in the area of Khor Rori (Dhofar, Sultanate of Oman) since 1996 are the basis for this project. To date, the IMTO has published two reports: Avanzini (ed.) 2002 and Avanzini (ed.) 2007.
A series of multimedia tools has also been created in these years (http://arabiantica.humnet.unipi.it).
A United States archaeological mission (American Foundation for the Study of Man) worked in the area in the ’Fifties (Albright 1982); the Transarabic Expedition (Zarins 2001) and the German Archaeological Expedition to Oman (Yule, Kevran 1993) carried out some important surface surveys in the area.
The need to re-think the economic dynamics of the links between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean emerges from many studies that have been published since the ’Nineties (Salles 1993, Read 1996) and the relationship between Arabia and India in particular has been examined under a new light in very recent years (Gupta 2007).
The domestic history of the south Arabian kingdoms and their connection with trade has been further clarified by a historical and epigraphic study of documentation from the port of Sumhuram.
Many recent studies have shown that Roman trade which developed after the Roman conquest of Egypt exploited segments of maritime trade that had existed in previous centuries. A study conducted on possible alternative routes in the Persian Gulf area to those preferred by Roman ships, even contemporary to the presence of Rome in the Indian Ocean (Salles 1993) deserves further investigation.
However, there are aspects on the direct presence of the Romans in the area which still have to be made public deriving from the discovery of the Farasan inscription in the southern Red Sea (Phillips C., Villeneuve F., Facey W., “A Latin inscription from South Arabia”, in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 34 2004, pp. 239-250.).
The study of the territory of Khor Rori near to the city of Sumhuram, which will continue in the coming years, sheds light on the relationship between the inhabitants of the city and the locals.
The botanical and palynological studies (Raffaelli et al. 2006, Mariotti Lippi et al. 2007) have been extremely useful in proving that the natural environment of the settlement was very different from what it is today.
The city was a hive of activity in the frankincense trade – the best quality frankincense resin still comes from the Dhofar hinterland – but also a centre of production; excavations up to now indicate a local metallurgical production.
It is now commonly accepted that a multi-disciplinary approach based on the integrated application of a variety of historical, archaeological, geological and chemical-physical skills is of great help in comprehending the human and technological activity which took place in archaeological contexts. Furthermore this type of approach generally provides important information on the network of economics and trade that took place.
The enormous importance of the studying this material in order to identify the times and trade routes has already emerged with the amphorae discovered in other seaports along the Indian Ocean coast (for example Arikamedu, see Bengley 2004).
The petrolographical study of the ballast (Peacock 2007) has also produced further information in this sense. <<<