At its greatest extent Kushan rule extended along the Indus River to the ocean, so there was less threat of such delays.61 Vasudeva might not have had his own fleet and might instead have relied, as did many diplomatic missions of the time, on getting passage on a merchant ship, probably for the river voyage and, at Barbarikon, changing to a seafaring vessel for the crossing of the Indian Ocean.
INDIAN OCEAN TRADE
Chapter 2 looked briefly at the maritime trade between India, the Red Sea, and the Gulf up to the first century BC. In the first centuries AD this trade continued and grew as new players came into the equation. In northern India and Central Asia the Kushan Empire provided a climate for trade by both land and sea. This was a major factor in the growth and success of the Silk Road. The stability provided by the Kushan enabled safe travel from the steppe to India through north-south routes, and from the Iranian Plateau to the Tarim, by east-west routes. Striking evidence for the trade is seen in the rock-cut graffiti at a way station called Shatial, high in the Indus River valley on the route from the north through Gilgit.62 Most are in Sogdian, left by merchants from Samarkand, Penjikent, and other cities north of the Kushan. But there are also inscriptions in Bactrian, Middle Persian, and Parthian. The routes south led from the Kushan capitals—such as Bagram and Taxila—to the Indus valley and thence to the seaport of Barbarikon—near Karachi in present-day Pakistan. There is plentiful evidence, archaeological and textual, to show the existence of Kushan-Roman trade at this time, most notably the Roman bronzes and glass and the ivories uncovered during excavations at Bagram.63
One of the main textual sources is the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, an anonymous handbook on Indian Ocean trade, written in Greek probably by a merchant based in Egypt in the mid-first century. Although at this time the Kushan Empire did not extend to the seaport of Babarikon, it is likely that items found in Bagram and elsewhere came in through this route and were traded at a site a little way inland. The Periplus lists glass as among the items traded there, along with gemstones, frankincense, textiles, silverware, wine, and coins.64 It is supplemented by other texts, and although the imports from Asia have mainly long disappeared, scholars have made a strong argument for regular trade “undertaken for commercial profit, facilitated by the use of coinage and underwritten by accumulated capital.”65 By this time ships were making use of the monsoon winds. These are caused by the Asian land mass heating up during the summer months; the rising hot air creates a vacuum that is filled by air from the ocean, causing strong winds that blow from the southwest. The opposite happens in the winter months, with the winds changing direction to come from the northeast. This system is supplemented by other regular patterns, such as equatorial winds and southeast trade winds. It was possible for ships to take advantage to sail from the mouth of the Red Sea and the coasts of East Africa and southern Arabia in summer, helped by the southwest monsoon, and for ships to set sail in winter from the ports on the east coast of South Asia, from Barbarikon to Taprobane (Sri Lanka), to be helped across to the Gulf and Red Sea. There was also the alternative of coast hopping from port to port, used from earliest times.
From the western edges of the Indian Ocean, ships came from the ports of the Red Sea, southern Arabia, and the Gulf. Those from the Red Sea included Roman boats that sailed from the ports in the north but also ships made by the Axumites, a kingdom in East Africa in what is now Eritrea and Ethiopia.66
THE AXUM EMPIRE
In the third century the Axumites were a major political and trading power. Axum was listed as one of the four most important kingdoms in the world by the Persian religious teacher Mani (ca. 216–74)—alongside Persia, Rome, and China.67 Two centuries earlier, the Periplus had noted Axum’s importance as a market for ivory: “Here is brought all the ivory from the land beyond the Nile, across the region called Cyenum and thence to Adulis.” This is sometimes given as the reason for the siting of the Axumites’ capital, Axum, relatively far west from the coast, as it acted as a hub for ivory hunters working inland to bring their goods over the Sudanese steppes and through the Nile valley.68 But the city also lay on fertile ground with ready access to water. Adulis, described by the Periplus as a “large village,” had become the major port by the third century. From Axum, it was an eight- to ten-day journey over the highlands and down into the coastal plain and the port. Although the Axumites had a written language, Ge’ez, and also used Greek, there are no extant documents from this period. The name of the Axumite king contemporary with Vasudeva’s reign is known from inscriptions found in southern Arabia. The script used for this gives consonants and no vowels, and in this unvocalized form he is named “GDRT.”69 This is tentatively vocalized as Gadarat. He was succeeded in about 230, the same time as the end of Vasudeva’s reign, by “DBH” (possibly Azaba or Adhebah).70 Although the Axumites started minting regular coinage only under King Endybis (r. ca. 270–ca. 300), they were familiar with the concept before this. The Periplus mentions that they were importing brass “for cutting as money” and also that they imported money for “use by the foreign community.” When coins were minted by Endybis they were probably based on Roman coinage and produced in gold, silver, and bronze. They showed the head of the king and stalks of the indigenous wheat (Eragrostis tef) on the obverse, with a disc and crescent at the top. The inscription on the gold coins was in Greek, but the silver and bronze coins used the local language and script, Ge’ez, suggesting that the latter were for local use and the former for international trade.
Archaeology in Axum has revealed complex palace structures but also, most notably for this period, large stone built tombs (assumed to be royal burials) marked with carved stelae. The largest of these, which weighed 517 tonnes and would have been 32.6 meters tall if successfully erected, would have been the largest monolith to be raised by humans at that time.71 It was made from granite quarried on a hill close by and possibly transported by elephants—although they are no longer found here. The stelae are carved with representations of the local architecture of multistoried monumental buildings. These were constructed of dressed granite with recessed facades, rebated walls, wooden tie beams, and monumental staircases. Archaeology of sites in Axum dating from the second century onward reinforces this, with remains of several substantial complexes tentatively identified as palaces but also large elite residences, indicating a society with considerable wealth.72 Finds in the tombs and elsewhere show evidence for trade both north and south from Adulis, including Roman glass and Indo-Pacific beads.73
Even though the written and archaeological evidence is scarce, it suggests that the Axumites were probably used to foreign visitors—traders, religious figures, and diplomats. But we enter the area of speculation by proposing that the gift of coins was brought by a diplomatic mission sent by the Kushans directly to the Axumites. Possibly it was intended for some other recipient and was waylaid here, or it might not have been a single hoard at all.74 We therefore have to make a leap of imagination to picture the Kushan mission disembarking at Adulis after their long sea journey. From here they would have