Abstract
The long littoral of eastern Africa, from the Somali coast to the edge of South Africa, was part of the Indian Ocean exchange system since deep antiquity. This is indicated by the discovery of copal of possible Mozambiqan provenance from an early second millennium BC grave in Iraq, as also the transportation of banana cultigens from Southeast Asia into Africa in the early first millennium BC. The Periplus Maris Erythraei, a Greek sea guide of the first century AD, informs of Roman, Arab and Indian sea trade reaching from the Somali “far side” harbours and the coast of Azania till the ancient port of Rhapta (Tanzanian coast). This chapter reviews the evidence of east Africa’s contacts with Indian Ocean lands—particularly India—up to the eighth century AD when a commercial “surge” was witnessed. There is a close look at the period between the first and the eighth century AD, the time of a supposed “discontinuity” in African contacts with India and the Indian Ocean world..
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Gupta, S. (2016). Contact between East Africa and India in the First Millennium CE. In: Campbell, G. (eds) Early Exchange between Africa and the Wider Indian Ocean World . Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33822-4_7
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