> Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:22:00 -0400 (EDT)
> To: andrei@rsuh.ru
> From: David Lloyd-Jones <dlj@inforamp.net>
> Subject: Re: South Arabian world system/civilization?
> Cc: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> At 04:43 PM 07/06/96 +0300, Andrey wrote:
>
> >With respect to the political-military-diplomatic transactions
> >you specifically ask about we know e.g. the following (in addition to the
> >famous trip by the Queen of Sheba (= Saba') to Solomon:
> >1. The Sabaean embassies to Assyria (the end of the 7th - beg.6 cent.
> >BC) [Assyrian royal inscriptions].
> >2. The Roman attempt to conquer SA in 26 BC (Strabo, Pliny &c).
> >3. Continuous embassies by which the (Himyarite?) kings in Zafa:r
> >made themselves friends of the Roman Emperors (mentioned by
> >Periplus).
> >4. The events of the 6th century CE in South Arabia greatly
> >influenced by the SA involvement in the the political-military-diplomatic
> >game of that age (involving first of all Byzantine, Persia and
> >Ethiopia) &c.
>
> Andrey,
>
> You jump the Red Sea from time to time. Does your "South Arabia" include
> the Meroitic Empire?
>
> We have here in New York a Professor Leonard Jeffries, universally denounced
> by whites as an antisemite, but who in fact trades in a number of popular
> African cultural themes, some of them philosemitic, some of them
> nationalistic, some of them folklorique. The problem critics of Jeffries
> face is that scholarship on Africa is thin on the ground, and he makes
> enough claims and good guesses that he is bound to be proved right on a
> great deal of what he says over the next few years.
>
> To what degree do you think you are laying the groundwork for a Red Sea
> centered culture and trade (in that order, for the religious liturgy
> determines the price of the francinsense)? Is it to parallel the
> Mediterranean, and then succumb, rather than being ancillary to it?
>
> Speculatively,
>
> -dlj.
>
>
>
>
According to the archaeological materials recently (1994-96) excavated by the
German-Russian team at Sabir (near Aden) it seems possible to speak
about the WS of the type you mention (East Africa centered, including
South Arabia) with respect to the 2nd mil.BC - the very beginning of
the 1st mil.BC). However, with respect to the most of the 1st mil.BC
and after) it seems to have been the other way round (i.e. a SA
centered WS, including parts of East Africa [ - but excluding Meroe
with which it however had some contacts - studied by Berzina]).
Yours,
Andrey.