This study of a thirteenth-century dwelling on Egypt's Red Sea Coast draws on multiple lines of evidence--including texts excavated at the site--to reconstruct a history of the structure and the people who dwelt within. The inhabitants participated in Nile Valley-Red Sea-Indian Ocean trade, transported Ḥāǧǧ pilgrims, sent grain to Mecca and Medina, and wrote sermons and amulets for the local faithful. These activities are detailed in the documents and fleshed out in the botanical, faunal, artifact, and stratigraphic evidence from the University of Chicago's excavations (1978-82). This compound eventually consisted of two houses and a row of storerooms and became the center of mercantile activity at Quseir al-Qadim. Over time, as the number of named individuals who received shipping notes addressed to the "warehouse of Abū Mufarij" increased, living rooms and storerooms were added to accommodate this expansion of commerce. While most merchants were dealing in textiles, dates, and grains, additional commodities traded included perfumes, gemstone-decorated textiles, resist-dyed textiles, and porcelains. Specialist studies by Steven Goodman on the avian faunal remains and Wilma Wetterstrom on the macrobotanical finds reveal that the compound's occupants enjoyed a diet of chicken and Nile Valley produce such as grapes and watermelon, and they were supplemented by high-priced imports: nuts and fruits from around the Mediterranean, along with medicinal plants from as far away as India, indicate the wealth and status of this family of merchants. The evidence from this small portion of Quseir al-Qadim yields a rich local story that is a microcosm of Nile Valley-Red Sea-Indian Ocean trade under the last Ayyubid sultans of Egypt.

This book is a collected volume that crosses traditional boundaries between methodologies. Each of its sixteen articles is based on imaginative combinations of data provided by excavations, artifacts, monuments, urban topography, rural layouts, historical narratives and/or archival records. The volume as a whole demonstrates the effectiveness of interdisciplinary research applied to historical, cultural and archaeological problems. Its five sections - Economics and Trade, Governmental Authority, Material Culture, Changing Landscapes, and Monuments – bring forth original studies of the medieval, Ottoman and modern Middle East, amongst others, of voiceless and silenced social groups. Contributors are: Nitzan Amitai-Preiss, Jere L. Bacharach, Simonetta Calderini, Delia Cortese, Katia Cytryn-Silverman, Miriam Frenkel, Haim Goldfus, Hani Hamza, Stefan Heidemann, Miriam Kühn, Ayala Lester, Nimrod Luz, Yoram Meital, Daphna Sharef-Davidovich, Oren Shmueli, Yasser Tabbaa, Daniella Talmon-Heller, and Bethany Walker.

A single, unique document - a list of one merchant's baggage - is the starting point used to bring to life the twelfth-century Indian Ocean. Drawing connections between material culture, foodstuffs and the construction of identity, Lambourn examines notions of home and mobility at a key moment in world history.

The economic history of early India is a rich and diverse area of study, covering agricultural developments, trade, markets, occupation and professional groups, urbanization and the institutions that govern the economy. Recent research has expanded our understanding of the processes of transformation of the economy in different temporal contexts within the Indian sub-continent. They have particularly led us to explore connected histories given the trans-continental trading networks and movements of people from very early times. This volume seeks to draw attention to this vast and unexplored terrain in the economic history of early India, by bringing together essays on a new and rich historiography. Essays in the volume cover neglected regions, economic processes and structures. Scholars have looked at questions of settlements, crops that were cultivated and market orientation. Essays cover material culture and provide insights into how early Indians lived, what kinds of activities they were engaged in, and how they organised their production activities within and outside domestic spaces. Further the volume bring new insights on hierarchy of settlement types, nature of exchange, and the significance of a nodal site in exchange networks. Maritime history as well as the understanding of trade in its varied forms and manifestations are covered in several essays.

This is a study and edition of the Arabic documents uncovered in Quseir, Upper Egypt. These documents shed light on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade in the thirteenth century. They also reveal aspects of the everyday life, popular culture, and linguistic features of the communities involved.

This volume is the final report on the first and second century a.d. and thirteenth and fourteenth century Islamic glass excavated at Quseir al-Qadim on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. The report not only describes the glass finds but also studies their distribution from the Red Sea to Arabia, East Africa, and India and raises some specific questions about the export of glassmaking technology and about the character of long-range trade in glass in both periods.

This volume presents the results of recent archaeological and historical studies of the Ottoman fort of Quseir, which was Upper Egypt's only direct outlet to the Red Sea at that time. Illustrated with over 100 maps, drawings, and photos, this groundbreaking study examines a key example of Ottoman-era material culture in Egypt--a topic largely overlooked by archaeologists. With contributions from seven historians and archaeologists, Quseir traces the development and history of an important Ottoman fortress, built near an abandoned medieval port. Its establishment was part of a constant struggle by the Ottoman state to maintain control of the desert and the routes across it. Studies of the archaeological remains from the fort reveal the presence of reused stones from a Greco-Roman temple and emphasize its key role as a regional grain entrepôt and port of embarkation for Muslim pilgrims on the way to Mecca. Quseir is a portrait of a place at the boundary of two powerful cultural and economic systems. While serving as an outlet for the pilgrims and produce of Upper Egypt, Quseir also played a role in the distinctive maritime culture of the Red Sea. This study also reveals in detail for the first time the story of the struggle between the British and French for control of Quseir during the Napoleonic occupation of 1798-1801. Drawing on recent archaeological investigations and new archival research, Quseir offers important new scholarship on a key Ottoman site. American Research Center in Egypt Conservation Series 2