At the crossroads of three continents:
Smells
paint
tar
sandalwood
cinnamon
spikenard
pepper
ginger
baled silks
barreled wines
barreled dyes
sour smell of slaves drowning spices
Ships
galleys
cogs
dromonds
dhows
feluccas
Men
Iberians
Italians
Frenchmen
Germans
Flemings
Englishmen
Moors
Armenians
Syrians
Turks
Tartars
Indians
a Cypriote labourer
a Frankish baron
slaves
Another Andersonian list-description.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
A bit surprised by the presence of Indians, but I can see some adventurous Indian merchants going that far west.
Ad astra! Sean
There was always trade between India, Europe, and China. Usually the goods were 'handed on' several times, but occasionally (like Marco Polo) people made the whole trip themselves. A body that was buried on an Imperial estate in 1st-century Italy has turned out to be Chinese by the DNA.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I did think of that, how most goods were passed along, east or west, thru a chain of middlemen. Yes, there would be exceptions, easterners or westerners, going all the way in either direction. And, during the Yuan Dynasty, there was even a short lived Catholic Diocese of Peking.
And I wonder if Roman writers ever mentioned that Chines whose remains were found.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: we'll never know. Survival of writing from that period is seriously random, due to the low numbers of any particular written document.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Too true, not when books had to be laboriously copied by hand. The Bible, because of the devoted zeal of Jewish/Christian scribes, was something of an exception.
We even have the MEDITATIONS of Marcus Aurelius because of a SINGLE surviving Ms. from the ninth or tenth centuries.
Ad astra! Sean
Just having abundant paper cheaper than papyrus would make for more copies of any given book even without printing. Though printing makes a much larger difference on top of that.
Kaor, Jim!
I agree, except I don't think paper was known in Europe before about 1300. And mechanical printing was not invented/used before1450.
Ad astra! Sean
sean: well, the Chinese had it earlier, but their script was less well adapted to it than an alphabetic one.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I'll say! I know individual Chinese characters are simple to learn--but, when you have to master about 10,000 characters for basic literacy, that makes learning written Chinese discouragingly difficult. And hence limited to a small minority who could afford the time needed for mastering it. And that would limit how many books were printed.
Ad astra! Sean
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