The ancient history behind the maritime trade route between India and Europe

Subject: IR

Section: Place in news

Context:

The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor announced at the G20 Summit.

Details:

This corridor resembles an ancient trade route between the subcontinent and the Roman Empire.
The existence of this trade, which peaked in the early centuries of the common era, has been known for a long time.
The head and torso of a magnificent Buddha, the first ever found to the west of Afghanistan, was discovered at the site in Berenike along with a triad of early Vaishnav deities

What do we know about the ancient Red Sea trade route?

There was flourishing trade between Rome and India during ancient times.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler established the existence of Indo-Roman trade in the 1st century CE.
Estimates from a source document, Muziris papyrus, shows that the trade between India and Rome is enormous and the custom taxes on the Red Sea trade with India, Persia and Ethiopia may have generated as much as one-third of the income of the Roman exchequers.
Papyrus also provided the precise details of one cargo sent to the Egyptian port of Berenike from Muziris aboard the ship Harmapollon.
Oxyrhynchus is an Egyptian archaeological site on the Nile.
Arikamedu: ancient archaeological site in Kerala.
Euripides’ play, Iphegenia Among the Taurians– mentions India and the language of people of India.

And how much would the Roman Empire earn from such a cargo?

According to the Muziris Papyrus, the import tax paid on the cargo of almost nine million sesterces was over two million sesterces.
These vast revenues surpassed those of entire subject countries: Julius Caesar imposed tribute of 40 million sesterces after his conquests in Gaul while the vital Rhineland frontier was defended by eight legions at an annual cost of 88 million sesterces.
The estimates suggests that one-third of total revenue of the Roman empire was coming from the Red Sea trade.

What was being traded on this route?

Trade from India includes: Cinnamon-like plant called malabathrum whose leaves were pressed to create perfume, ivory, pearls, precious gemstones, wild animals like elephants and tigers, spices (mainly pepper).
Trade from Rome to India includes: Gold (mainly in the form of payments and not as an imported goods), roman wine, olive oil and Garum.

Was there trade on this route before the Common Era?

Yes, we have evidence of an Indian diaspora in the Middle East even at the time of Meluha (the Indus Valley Civilisation, c. 3300-1300 BCE).
But it seems to have been more coastal and involved small quantities of goods.

How organised was the trade, and how long did a typical journey take?

The evidence points to the trade being highly organised.
Contracts were written between merchants in Kerala and shippers in Alexandria.
Goods were shipped in containers just like today.
There are even references to insurance. It was a highly sophisticated trade network.
With the help of monsoon winds one could reach Egypt in about six to eight weeks, and back again in about the same time at that time.

Role of Indians in this trade:

Of the 219 inscriptions here, dating from the second to the fifth century CE, 192 are in the Indian Brahmi script, and one each in Bactrian and Kharosthi. They give names that are unquestionably Indian: “Vishnu, son of the merchant Ganja”, “Skandabhuti, the Sea Captain”, or the nicely laconic, “Bhadra arrived”.
There are also images of Buddhist stupas, Shaivite tridents, swastikas, Syrian Christian crosses, and pictures of large three-masted Indian ships, as well as prayers to Krishna and Radha, and invocations to the Buddha.

How does this route compare with the Silk Road?

The centrality of the Indian subcontinent as the ancient economic and cultural hub of Asia, and its ports as the place of maritime East-West exchange.
Silk Road — an overland trade route supposedly stretching all the way across Asia from Xian in China to Antioch in Turkey — was completely unknown in ancient: not a single ancient record, either Chinese or Western, refers to its existence.
Though it existed during the Mongol period (13th and 14th centuries CE) when the whole area between China and the Mediterranean was under one Mongol Empire.
Marco Polo, the man now most closely associated with the Silk Road, never once mentions it.
The term (Silk route) was first coined in 1877 by the Prussian geographer Baron von Richthofen.