A Historical Summary Of The Ancient Commerce In Precious Stones

(via Roman Book On Precious Stones: 1950) Sydney H Ball writes:

The successive civilizations which occupied the Mesopotamian valley were fortunate in thier position, midway between the eastern and western civilizations. The early Sumerians doubtless got their precious stones from the nearby nomadic peoples; the wandering life of the latter made them familiar with the minerals of the mountains and plains. Later, the people of the Mesopotamian cities became great merchants. From 3000 B.C on they not only had important trade relations with nearby Asia, but with Egypt and India as well. In the Code of Hammurabi (1800 B.C), there are laws for the protection of the wandering trafficker in gems, and soon after the state armies protected the creeping donkey caravans of the Babylonian merchants. The Mesopotamian region and northwestern India were in commercial and cultural contact in the 3rd millennium B.C, if not in the 4th, and Ur of the Chaldees had Indian products. Again, from about 900 B.C to 562 B.C the Assyrians imported from India teak wood and many other products. The trade was probably by caravan, but that going by sea was controlled by the Dravidians, who, availing themselves of the monsoons, voyaged from the southwestern ports of India to Babylon. It was, however, partly in the hands of Aryans. At Babylon these Indians became acquainted with the Semitic alphabet which became the basis of the alphabets of India, Burma, Siam, and Ceylon. Prior to this time, India’s less valuable precious stones (agates, for example; indeed, the fine quality of the carnelian used by the people of Indus Valley in the 3rd millennium B.C suggests that India’s finer agate mines may have been known at that early date) had doubtless been found and from 800 to 600 B.C, the diamond, ruby, and sapphire are believed to have first been known to man. India at that time had an established and rather highly developed industry in jewelry and precious stones. Then, as now, the Hindu wore costly jewelry. The mines were the monopoly of the local rulers and duties on precious stones very heavy.

The Phoenicians were not only early traffickers in amber, but in other luxuries as well. They were daring seamen, and the most aggressive and successful traders of their day. Tyrian industry furnished trade goods, for Tyre had many skilled craftsmen. Homer describes:

‘...a silver bown well wrought,
By Sidon’s artists cunningly adorned,
Bore by the Phoenicians o’er the dark blue sea.’

To satisfy less discriminating nations, she had mass production of salable trade gadgets; for instance, she flooded the Mediterranean market with crudely engraved gems. The prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel was sent into captivity in 598 B.C), referring to the commerce of Tyre, mentions her trade with southern Arabian gem merchants. Tyre got Indian stones by caravan from the coast of Oman; likewise, perhaps, by an all-caravan route. By 550 B.C Phoenician merchants had organized sea-borne trade between the head of the Red Sea and the southern coasts of Arabia and Persia.

Carthage, founded by Phoenician colonists, obtained gems (garnets, certainly; others, likely) by caravan trade from the Sahara, Sudan, and other parts of Africa. Some of these reached Rome.

The Etuscan looked to Phoenicia, ‘the mart of nations’, ‘whose merchants were princes, whose traffickers’ were the ‘honorable of the earth’, for his jewels in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. For the next 250 years the Etruscan and Roman nobles imported their jewelry from Phoenicia, Egypt, and Greece, although even at that early date they must have had some Greek artists in their midst, and Etruscans themselves eventually became master goldsmiths. By the 6th century Roman women got their jewelry from the Etruscans.

The Sabaeans of southern Arabia traded with India at least as early as 1000 B.C, nor was India the only source of gems with which these enterprising merchants were acquainted. They guarded as carefully the source of their gems from their competitors as did the Phoenicians their source of British tin. Indian products were shipped to the coast of Oman, thence by caravan to the Sabaean Kingdom (some cargoes probably arrived to the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Phoenicians, and later to the Romans. Sargon of Assyria (715 B.C) received precious stones as tribute from Arabia. The prophet Ezekeil, referring to the commerce of Tyre, says: ‘The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants; they occupied in they fairs with chief of all spices, and with precious stones and gold.’ The Queen of Sheba, it will be remembered, gave Solomon ‘of spices very great store, and precious stones.’ Aristeas, who probably wrote in the 7th century B.C tells us that Arabian merchants brought precious stones to Italy and he clearly states that the Sabaeans acted as merchants rather than as producers of precious stones. The Kindgom of Axium also had at somewhat later date contact with India and, indeed, Rome kept friendly commerce with that kingdom to assure herself an adequate supply of Indian products. Emperor Augustus evidently became jealous of the wealth of the Nabataeans and Sabaeans, who ‘exchanged their aromatics and precious stones for silver and gold, but never expended with foreigners any part of what they received in exchange.’ In consequence, he sent a mighty punitive expedition under Aelius Gallus, a general who soon became the victim of the wiles of the Arabian chieftains and the difficulties of the desert country.

A Historical Summary Of The Ancient Commerce In Precious Stones (continued)