Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T20:13:57.222Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On the Problem of Sea Voyages of Ancient Africans in the Indian Ocean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Extract

Ancient and early Byzantine authors: Diodorus (II, 55), ‘Pseudo-Callisthenes’, Cosmas Indicopleustes and Procopius Caesarensis—mention the navigation of the Indian Ocean by ‘Ethiopians’ of the African Horn and the Axumite Kingdom in their own ships. The hoard of Kushana gold moneys found at Dabra-Dammo confirms this. The legend in the Kebra Nagast of Ethiopian military expeditions to India incorporates reminiscences about sea voyages to India by ancient Axumites.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Numerous sources of an epigraphical and documentary character tell about voyages of Axurnites to South Arabia from the third century A.D. onwards. There are data which testify to more ancient migrations from Ethiopia to the Arabian Peninsula.

2 Pseudo-Arrianus, Periplus man Erythrei, 7.

3 Pascha, Ahined Zéki, ‘Une seconde tentative des Musulmans pour découvrir l'Amérique’, Bulletin de l'Institut d'Égypte, 19191920, II, 57 sqq.Google Scholar

4 Strabo, II, 3, 4.

5 Diodorus, II, 55.

6 Stechow, E., ‘Kannte des Altertum die Insel Madagaskar?’, Petermanns Mitteilungen, 1944, 84 sqq.Google Scholar

7 Strabo, XVII, I, 5.

8 Priaulx, , ‘On the Indian embassies to Rome, from the reign of Claudius to the death of Justinian’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, XX, 278.Google Scholar

9 Op. cit., 277; Pigulevskaya, N., Vizantiya na putyakh v Indiyu (Moscow-Leningrad, 1951), 70.Google Scholar

10 The Christian Topography of Indicopleustes. Ed. with the geographic notes by Winstedt, E. O. (Cambridge, 1909), 322.Google Scholar

11 Op. cit., 324.

12 Procopius Caesarensis, De bello persico, I, 19, 100.

13 Ibid., 20, 108.

15 Mordini, A., ‘Gli rurei Kushāna, del convento di Dabra-Dāmmò. Un'indizio sui rapporti commerciali fra I'India e l'Etiopia nei primi secoli dell'era volgare’, Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi etiopici (Roma, 1959). Roma, 1960, p. 253.Google Scholar

16 Op. Cit., 252–253.

17 Bezold, C., Kebra Nagast: Die Herrlichkeit der Konige (München, 1905), chap. 10;Google ScholarStrelcyn, Stefan, ‘Kebra Nagast czyli Chwala Królów Abisynil’, Fragmenty (Warszawa, 1956), 70.Google Scholar

18 Bezold, op. cit., chap. II; Strelcyn, op. cit., 157.