194 J. HORNELL ON 



It does not seem that the direct sea-trade initiated by Solomon and Hiram be- 

 tween the Red Seaport of Ezion Geber (the modern Akaba) and India became permanent. 

 Doubtlese Sabaean power, seated astride the highway to India at the Straits of Bab- 

 el-mandeb, was able to check any but a powerfully armed fleet, while their alliances 

 with Indian coast rulers were doubtless strong and, as happened when the Portu- 

 guese arrived, they would oppose by force as well as guile the entry of any new sea- 

 power. Hence I cannot believe that Phoenician sea-trade penetrated to India directly 

 except on such exceptional occasions as Solomon's Ophir expeditions. We have no 

 knowledge of any Phoenician trading settlement towards India except the probability 

 of one upon Bahrein Island, which must have been maintained by the Phoenicians 

 principally as a pearl-purchasing station.' It would also form a convenient centre 

 for their purchase of Indian wares from Indian merchants resorting thereto on the 

 same errand as themselves. That no Phoenician settlements save Bahrein were made 

 on Asiatic coasts east of the Levant, whereas they had innumerable colonies and settle- 

 ments throughout the Mediterranean, must clearly have been due to the impossibility 

 of adequately supporting and reinforcing stations to which the only access was by 

 caravan through Babylonian or Egyptian territory. Hence their undoubted preference 

 for a concentration of effort in the Mediterranean v/here their sea-power permitted 

 direct communication by sea between the mother city and her daughter colonies. It 

 is obvious that Indian trade would be more safely carried on in co-operation with the 

 Sabaeans and other peoples of the Arabian littoral. Phoenician traders probably did 

 make their way east from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, but for the most 

 part it would be as individual traders on Arab or Indian ships and not in great com- 

 panies in fleets of their own. The difficulty of finding timber fit for constructing 

 large boats would be not the least of their difficulties seeing that neither the Egyptian 

 coast nor that of the Persian Gulf provides any really suitable timber nearer than 

 Syria and the Kurdish mountains respectively. When Sennacherib in 705 B.C. 

 wished for the assistance of a fleet for his attack on the sea-coast of Elam, he had to 

 send for Phoenician ship-builders and the timber used had to be brought laboriously 

 from Lebanon by caravan. Only the inferior native craft transformed on the Tigris 

 into galleys for the occasion were made of Kurdish wood and that also was not easily 

 procured.' It is very probable however that the coast people used imported Gujarat 

 and Malabar teak, for in the Achaemaenid city of Susa built by Darius within 200 

 years of Sennacherib's time we find fragments of this wood ; such a bulky article was 

 certainly not brought overland through the passes of Afghanistan. In the ruins of 

 the same city carved articles, libation vessels and bangles, made from the Indian conch 

 are abundant,- and as these are found plentiful at the present day on the coast of 



' Strabo {Geooyaphy, XVI, 3. 3-5) describes the shores as dotted with Phoenician temples, whilst of recent years 

 excavations of some of the myriad tumuli on this island, have yielded remains which are believed to be Phoenician 

 (Report. Indian Archael. Survey. 1912-13). 



* Maspero, G. Ancient Egypt and Assyria. London, 1892, p. 340. 



i Hornell, J. " The Indian Conch" in Mar. Zool. of Okhamandal, Pt. II, p. 2, London, 1916. These articles are 

 in the Louvre Museum, Paris. 



