Periplus

'Periplus' -- it is like Mocha, a name given to several bays on the Arabian coast, and I think we discovered why Ptolemy called it Abyssapolis, as I will presently explain.

Southern Arabia Mabel Bent

Note 62: For examples of the diversity in naming, see Horton, "Periplus," 95 – 99; D.W. Phillipson, "Some Iron Age Sites in the Lower Tana Valley" Azania 14 (1979): 155 – 60; Paul Sinclair, "Chibuene — An Early Trading Site in Southern Mozambique," Paideuma 28 (1982): 149 – 164. back

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

The 'Periplus' speaks of it as Moscha, Ptolemy as Abyssapolis, and the Arabs as Merbat; but as there is no harbourage actually at Merbat, it clearly could not be there.

Southern Arabia Mabel Bent

It is referred to by the author of the 'Periplus' as containing a very mixed and Greek-speaking population drawn together for trading purposes, trafficking with Arabia and India.

Southern Arabia Mabel Bent

Neither Ptolemy nor the author of the 'Periplus' gives us any definite information about the existence of a town in the harbour of Maskat, and consequently the first reliable information we have to go upon is from the early Arabian geographers.

Southern Arabia Mabel Bent

It is interesting to read in the 'Periplus' (p. 32) a description of this coast and of the high mountains behind, 'where men dwell in holes.'

Southern Arabia Mabel Bent

Hanno's "Periplus," or the "Coasting Survey of Hanno," is one of the few Phoenician documents that has lived through the long ages.

A Book of Discovery The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole

'Periplus' more than one thousand years ago tells us the same thing; and now we have a representative of the same country and the same race governing the island still.

Southern Arabia Mabel Bent

Hanno's "Periplus" may have been composed on a model of these earlier treatises, which at a later date furnished materials to Marinus for his great work on geography.

History of Phoenicia George Rawlinson 1857

But the "Periplus" of Hanno will lead us to modify this judgment.

History of Phoenicia George Rawlinson 1857