The rise of Islam in Western Arabia changed the political and religious landscape of the Western Indian Ocean completely. However, monotheism—now in the form of Islam—was already a well-known phenomenon. During the Early Late Antique period, traders, mariners, and monks spread the Christian faith from Roman Egypt and Palestine to Aksum, Arabia, Socotra, and beyond….
A frequently cited anecdote in multiple tenth-century Byzantine chronicles recounts how Emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842), upon discovering that a ship passing the Boukoleon belonged to Empress Theodora, ordered the vessel and its valuable cargo to be completely burned. Outraged, he lamented that he, an emperor appointed by God, oímoi, had been reduced to the role…
This paper aims to reconstruct the commercial activities in the western Black Sea coastal area by examining the diverse itineraries and combinations of overland and maritime routes and the commodities transported along them in the 9th and 10th centuries. During the 7th to early 10th centuries, maritime trade between Constantinople and the western Black Sea…