The Periplus of the Red Sea, edition Prof. Megalommatis
The present video offers readers the possibility to read the Ancient Greek text of the Periplus of the Red (or Erythrean) Sea, and its Modern Greek translation from the beginning of the text, which refers to Arsinoe / Suez, until Malao / Berbera, in Somalia's northern coastland. The video features also photographical documentation from the book, as well as pictures from Arsinoe (Suez), Myos Hormos (Hurghada), Berenice, Ptolemais Theron (Suakin), Adoulis (Massawa, and more specifically Zula), Avalites (Assab), and Malao (Berbera). It is the first of a series of videos that will offer modern visualization to a 2000-year old text written by an anonymous Alexandrian Egyptian merchant and captain.
Online edition:
Online edition:
http://community.webshots.com/user/re...
Book review:
The Periplus of the Red Sea and the Trade between East and West
The Ancient Greek text of an anonymous, but certainly Alexandrian Egyptian, author dates back to the times of the Roman Emperor Nero and the Rekem/Petra Aramaean Nabatean king Malichus (mentioned in the text). The text of the Periplus of the Red Sea (O Periplous tes Erythras Thalasses) is by definition the central text in the study of the East - West Trade, an interdisciplinary field where more than two dozens of historical branches have been contributing to the scholarly research and to the academic understanding of the phenomenon in question.
Published in Greek, in 1994 (STOHASTIS Publishing House, Athens - Greece), 272 p., the book consists in a theoretical approach and analytical presentation of a major historical phenomenon that shaped to a very large extent the World History: the development of the trade between East and West.
The Ancient Greek text of an anonymous, but certainly Alexandrian Egyptian, author dates back to the times of the Roman Emperor Nero and the Rekem/Petra king Malichus (mentioned in the text).
It is essential to note at this point that Megalommatis does not accept the exceptional approach of Pirenne for a later date of the text, thus following the mainstream, traditional interpretation, like Lionel Casson who had published his Periplus Maris Erythraei a few years earlier.
As Historian with theoretical affinities with M. Bernal, and with strong criticism of the Colonial Orientalism, Megalommatis deploys throughout this vast analysis an effort to implement an ideological approach and interpretational method that are diametrically opposed to the customary, ´Occidentalo-centric´ approaches of specialists like L. Casson, M. Raschke, or J. Miller. For Megalommatis, this generation of specialists pay little attention to the impact of the Orient over the Occident. By proceeding so throughout that book, Megalommatis pinpoints and highlights the Oriental impact in the formation of the Greek and the Roman civilizations as a permanent phenomenon. In sheer distinction with the famous author of Black Athena, Prof. Martin Bernal, Megalommatis demonstrates through the analysis of the Periplus of the Red Sea that not only the foundations of the West are to be found in the East, but the entire phenomenon of the Classical world seems to have been a series of numerous, successive Oriental waves of influences.
As a matter of fact, the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea describes the navigation and the trade between the Mediterranean World and various confines of the ´East´: the Eastern coast of Africa down to Rhapta (in the area of Dar al Salam and Zanzibar in today's Tanzania), India, Sri Lanka (then called Palaisimundu), Central Asia, Indochina and Indonesia (then called Chryse, which means the "Golden" in Ancient Greek), as well as China.
Bookreview:
https://www.academia.edu/23401500/The_Periplus_of_the_Red_Erythraean_Sea_O_Periplous_tes_Erythras_Thalasses_-_edition_Muhammad_Shamsaddin_Megalommatis._A_Book_Review
The entire book is available online:
periplusmariserythraei.wordpress.com
