Т. 1. «Азия и Африка: Наследие и современность»

16 Азия и Африка: Наследие и современность. Т. 1 Секция I It should be noted that the Martyrdom of St. Arethas indicates that in ca. 525 AD, a great number of Indian merchants possessed ships which anchored in the port of Adulis 1 . Nine of these ships were confiscated by the Ethiopians and were used for their invasion of the land of the Himyarites in the same year 2 . More important details are found in the Martyrdom about the type of ships used for the transportation of the Ethiopian army in this invasion. It reveals that ten of the ships made in Adulis were built according to the local Indian sewn boat method 3 . Likewise, the nine Indian ships were undoubtedly also constructed according to the Indian method while we can assume that the rest of the ships, owed by traders from the Byzantine ports of Bereniki and Klysma, were of the Mediterranean type 4 . Recent, significant, underwater archaeological discoveries have amply demon- strated that in ancient and medieval times many ships, sailing in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, were constructed according to the Mediterranean design with few differentiations. Thus the insufficient iconographic evidence is augmented with the reliable archaeological finds 5 . Unfortunately, concerning the sewn boats used on the silk route, only the iconographic evidence enhances our literary sources 6 . The 1 Martyrdom of St. Arethas , p. 263, § 29, line 4: “πλοῖα τῶν ἐμπόρων …Ἰνδῶν”. 2 Martyrdom of St. Arethas , p. 263, § 29, line 6: “ἀπὸ Ἰνδίας ἐννέα». For this Ethiopian expedition see a detailed description in Christides, “The Dawn of the Urbanization in the Kingdom of the HImyarites in the 6 th century”. P. 40–44. For the trustworthiness of the above passage of the Martyrdom , see Detoraki’s (editor) comment, Le martyre de Saint Aréthas , p. 262, note 177: “L’auteur du Martyre montre sa familiarité avec la terminologie et les coutumes navales à plusieurs reprises dans le texte.” 3 Martyrdom of Saint Arethas , p. 263, §29, line 9: “Ἰνδικὰ δέκα πλοῖα”. 4 For the Mediterranean type of construction we do have ample information from the ship- wrecks of Yassiada and Serçe Limani; see D. N. Carlson, J. Leidwanger and S. M. Kambell, eds., Maritime Studies in the Wake of the Byzantine Shipwreck at Yassiada Turkey , College Station, TX, 2015; F. H. van Doorninck, Jr., “The Byzantine Ship at Serçe Limani: An Exam- ple of Small-Scale Maritime Commerce with Fatimid Syria in the Early Eleventh Century”, in Travel in the Byzantine World , ed. R. Macrides, Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies Publications 10, Aldershor 2002. P. 137–148. 5 J. Whitewright, “Roman Rigging Material from the Red Sea Port of Myos Hormos”, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 36.2 (2007). P. 282–292; L. Blue, J. White- wright and R. Thomas, “Ships and Ships’ Fittings”, in Myos Hormos — Quseir al-Qadim. Roman and Islamic Ports on the Red Sea , Volume 2: Finds from the Excavations 1999–2003 , ed. D. Peacock and L. Blue, BAR International Series 2286, Oxford 2011. P. 179–205; L. Paine, “The Indian Ocean in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries”, in Maritime Contacts of the Past , ed. S. Tripati, New Delhi 2015. P. 37–53. 6 For the various types and names of sewn boats see N. Chittick, “Sewn Boats in the Western Indian Ocean and Survival in Somalia”, in The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration , 9.4 (1980). P. 297–309; D. Agius, Classic Ships of Islam: From Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean , Leiden 2008; Z. A. Shaikh, “A Study of the Sewn-Plank Boats of Goa, India”, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology