Cyber Ethiopia

This series of articles began last week presents excerpts from historically interesting accounts of Ethiopian markets, and merchants, as seen mainly by foreign observers. For our next glimpse of Ethiopian markets we turn to the renowned early sixth century Egyptian merchant, Kosmas Indikopleustes, who subsequently became a monk. He visited the Aksumite empire (and its Red Sea port of Adulis) around 525AD, and subsequently described his travels to Ethiopia and other lands to the East in an early classic, written in Greek, and translated into English as "The Christian Topography". Adulis and the Frankincense Country Kosmas describes Adulis as "the port of the Aksumites", and says that it was "much frequented" by traders from Alexandria, and the Elanitic Gulf (which we now know as the

Gulf of Aqaba), i.e. in general Egypt. He also mentions meeting Greek-speaking people from the Island of Sokotra, in the Gulf of Aden, and says that the Aksumites exported "even unto India and Persia and the Homerite country [Arabia] and the Roman dominion", i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire. Elsewhere he states that Ceylon was "much frequented ", by ships from Ethiopia, and that "men from Adulis" exported their produce there, and brought back pepper from the Malabar coast of southern India. Kosmas also writes of an export of frankincense and other aromatic materials from what he terms Barbaria [modern Berbera?], or the Frankincense Country. The latter was situated, he says, at "the projecting parts of Ethiopia", and was "washed by the ocean on the other side" - an apparent reference, it would appear, to what is now known as Somaliland. State and Private Enterprise Kosmas proceeds to describe the early Aksumite gold trade with a territory then known as Sasu, which was situated to the south-west of the capital, Aksum. This commerce was based, he reveals, on a mixture of what we would now term state and private enterprise. Trade, however, often took the form of barter, i.e. the direct, or reciprocal, exchange of goods, without the intermediary use of coins, or of money of any kind. Aksumite Currency The Aksumites had been producing coins, as we know, from the time of King Endubis in or around the first century AD. Such currency does not seem to have been used in the gold trade with which, dear reader, we are here concerned Two Main Actors Describing how the rulers and people of Aksum obtained their gold from the people of the mineral-producing country of Sasu, Kosmas explains that there were two main actors in this trade: (1) the King of the Aksumites, who, through his governor of Agaw (a land, and people, to the west of Aksum), despatched "special agents" every other year "to bargain for the gold"; and (2) "many other traders - upwards, say, of five hundred", who were "bound on the same errand as themselves". "Dumb Commerce" or "Silent Trade" The Aksumite trade in gold with the people of Sasu took the form of what economic historians have chosen to call "dumb commerce" or "silent trade". The King's "special agents", as Kosmas calls them, and the private traders, who accompanied them, thus travelled to the country of Sasu, and took with them, he states: "oxen, lumps of salt, and iron, and when they reach its neighbourhood they make a halt at a certain spot and form an encampment which they fence round with a great hedge of thorns. Within this they live, and having slaughtered the oxen, cut them in pieces, and lay pieces on the top of the thorns, along with the lumps of salt and the iron. Then come the natives bringing gold in nuggets like peas, called Tancharas, and lay one or two or more of these upon what pleases them - the pieces of flesh or the salt or the iron, and they retire to some distance off". This done, Kosmas reports: "the owner of the meat approaches, and if he is satisfied he takes the gold away, and upon seeing this its owner comes and takes the flesh or the salt or the iron. If, however, he is not satisfied, he leaves the gold, when the native seeing that he has not taken it, comes and either puts down more gold, or takes up what he had laid down, and goes away". The time the officials and private traders spent in Sasu, according to Kosmas, was "five days more or less'', according as the people of the country "more or less readily" came forward to buy up all their wares. The outward journey to Sasu was a slow affair, as the merchants could travel no faster than the cattle that accompanied them (poor cattle!). On the return journey, however, the traders had nothing to detain them, and wished to hurry before the outbreak of the heavy rainy season. Moreover, they all agreed, we are told, to "travel well-armed, since some of the tribes through whose country they must pass might to attack them from a desire to rob them of their gold". These were of course the good old days before Securicor and Interpol! An Aksumite Inscription That a commercial caravan was on at least one occasion attacked is evident from a much earlier Aksumite inscription. Erected by King Ezana, in the early fourth century AD, and written in the then vernacular language, Ge'ez, its opening sentence declares that: The Tsarane [i.e. a neighbouring people], whose country is Afan [a territory not identified with any real precision], attacked a merchant caravan..." Ezana, apparently angered by this evil-doing, continues by recalling that, in consequence, he "went to war against them", to punish them, after which he "killed some of the Tsarane, and captured others and took booty". Thereupon, flushed with his victory, he erected the said inscription, and threatened that "should anyone remove or displace it, let him and his race be exterminated; let him be extirpated from these lands". Whether because of this memorable curse or not, Ezana's historic inscription about the assault on the commercial caravan has survived to this day!