Today I Learned

"Roman texts convey little meaningful information about Indian political dynasties and offer even less about the practical operations of Indo-Roman trade. A series of Egyptian documents has recently revolutionised understanding of the logistical and political requirements for moving bulk goods from India across the Sahara and down the Nile to the Mediterranean market. One of these records, the so-called Muziris Papyrus, is a second-century loan contract between a Roman financier and a merchant in Muziris, on the southwest coast of India. The agreement concerns a large cargo shipment to Alexandria that left India on the Hermapollon, which sailed to Myos Hormos on the Red Sea. Weighing more than 250 tons, the freight included 140 tons of pepper, 80 boxes of spikenard, and 167 elephant tusks. It was then transported by camel across the Sahara to the Nile port of Coptos before making the ten-day voyage downriver to Alexandria. Loading and unloading the vessels in itself would have been an onerous task, while the overland desert journey would have required scores of camels and camel drivers, an equally demanding and expensive operation. The value of the cargo, some 6,911,852 drachmas – worth between 23 and 28 metric tons of silver – more than defrayed the transportation costs. If 120 or so vessels were unloading in Egypt annually, the ancient Sahara must have teemed with desert caravans and river flotillas ladened with the products of Mediterranean–Indian Ocean exchange."