Indian Ocean trade

[3] Such long-distance sea trade became feasible with the development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.

Recent archaeological study has highlighted the growing corpus of evidence supporting direct maritime contacts between bronze age Egypt and India via the Red Sea.

[9][10][11][12][13] Indonesians, in particular were trading in spices (mainly cinnamon and cassia) with East Africa using catamaran and outrigger boats and sailing with the help of the Westerlies in the Indian Ocean.

This trade network possibly expanded to reach as far as Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and also resulting in the Austronesian colonization of Madagascar by the first half of the first millennium AD.

The Kingdom's opening of Red Sea ports and improved knowledge of the seasonal monsoons resulted in a substantial increase in trade.

According to Strabo:[18] At any rate, when Gallus was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Syene and the frontiers of Kingdom of Aksum (Ethiopia), and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos to the subcontinent, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise.Strabo's mention of the vast increase in trade following the Roman annexation of Egypt indicates that the monsoon was known and utilized for trade in his time.

[25] However, the precise location of Myos Hormos is disputed with the latig Abu Sha'ar and the accounts given in classical literature and satellite images indicating a probable identification with Quseir el-Quadim at the end of a fortified road from Koptos on the Nile.

[25] The regional ports of Barbaricum (modern Karachi), Sounagoura (central Bangladesh) Barygaza, Muziris in Kerala, Korkai, Kaveripattinam and Arikamedu on the southern tip of present-day India were the main centers of this trade, along with Kodumanal, an inland city.

The Periplus Maris Erythraei describes Greco-Roman merchants selling in Barbaricum "thin clothing, figured linens, topaz, coral, storax, frankincense, vessels of glass, silver and gold plate, and a little wine" in exchange for "costus, bdellium, lycium, nard, turquoise, lapis lazuli, Seric skins, cotton cloth, silk yarn, and indigo".

[26] Trade with Barigaza, under the control of the Indo-Scythian Western Satrap Nahapana ("Nambanus"), was especially flourishing:[26] There are imported into this market-town (Barigaza), wine, Italian preferred, also Laodicean and Arabian; copper, tin, and lead; coral and topaz; thin clothing and inferior sorts of all kinds; bright-colored girdles a cubit wide; storax, sweet clover, flint glass, realgar, antimony, gold and silver coin, on which there is a profit when exchanged for the money of the country; and ointment, but not very costly and not much.

And for the King there are brought into those places very costly vessels of silver, singing boys, beautiful maidens for the harem, fine wines, thin clothing of the finest weaves, and the choicest ointments.

Those bound for this market-town from Egypt make the voyage favorably about the month of July, that is Epiphi.Muziris is a lost port city on the southwestern coast of India which was a major center of trade in the ancient Tamil land between the Chera kingdom and the Roman Empire.

[28][29] Large hoards of coins and innumerable shards of amphorae found at the town of Pattanam (near Cranganore) have elicited recent archeological interest in finding a probable location of this port city.

Huntingford identified as possibly being Arikamedu in Tamil Nadu, a centre of early Chola trade (now part of Ariyankuppam), about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from the modern Pondicherry.

[32] This advance marked the beginning of the Islamic conquest of Egypt[32] and the fall of ports such as Alexandria,[33] which used to secure trade with the Indian subcontinent by the Roman world since the Ptolemaic dynasty.

[36] Calicut was the center of Indian pepper exports to the Red Sea and Europe at this time[36] with Egyptian and Arab traders being particularly active.

[38] In Madagascar, merchants and slave traders from the Middle East (Shirazi Persians, Omani Arabs, Arabized Jews, accompanied by Bantus from southeast Africa) and from Asia (Gujaratis, Malays, Javanese, Bugis) were sometimes integrated within the indigenous Malagasy clans[39][40] New waves of Austronesian migrants arrived in Madagascar at this time leaving behind a lasting cultural and genetic legacy.

[36] European slave trade in the Indian Ocean began when Portugal established Estado da Índia in the early 16th century.

Venice broke diplomatic relations with Portugal and started to look at ways to counter its intervention in the Indian Ocean, sending an ambassador to the Egyptian court.

Monkeys with S-shaped tail depicted in 18th and 17th century BCE frescoes at Akrotiri on the Aegean island of Thera were recently identified as South Asian gray langurs [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
Austronesian proto-historic and historic maritime trade network in the Indian Ocean [ 8 ]
Roman trade with India according to the Periplus Maris Erythraei , 1st century CE.
Indian ship on lead coin of Vasisthiputra Sri Pulamavi .
Relief panel of a ship at Borobudur , 8th–9th century.
Sites of Egyptian Red Sea ports, including Alexandria and Berenice.
Roman piece of pottery from Arezzo , Latium , found at Virampatnam, Arikamedu (1st century CE). Musee Guimet .
Muziris, as shown in the Tabula Peutingeriana , with a "Templum Augusti".
Part of Zheng He 's navigation map providing instruction for aligning ship to travel from Hormuz to Calicut , 1430
Japanese portolan sailing map, depicting the Indian Ocean and the East Asian coast, early 17th century.
Portuguese discoveries and explorations: first arrival places and dates
Reception of Venetian ambassadors in Damascus in the time of Qaitbay .
The island of Hormuz was captured by an Anglo-Persian force in the 1622 Capture of Ormuz .