Tuesday, July 09, 2002

Maritime Silk Road Send this entry to: Del.icio.us Spurl Ma.gnolia Digg Newsvine Reddit

Maritime Silk Road This New York Times article reports on the excavations of the ancient port of Berenice. Anyone who knows about the Periplus Maris Erythraei knows something of Berenice. But the big surprise? The ships (and possibly the sailors than) in Berenice might have been Indian-rather than Roman. What I find humorous is this again shows that ancient Indians were very different in their values than their descendents, for many high caste Hindus believe that it is unclean to leave Mother India (this is now not put much into practice-but it was strong enough in the early 20th century that it concerned the mathematical genius Ramanujan).