Erythraean Sea Remembered

Context of the Red Sea & "Operation Prosperity Guardian. "

The Red Sea is in the news with the launch of the military Operation - Prosperity Guardian.¹

But what did ancient sailors know of the Red Sea? To them it was part of the Erythraean Sea.

Erythraean Sea. A Periplus

The Erythraean Sea is a former maritime designation that included the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean as a single maritime area. The designation, Erythraean Sea, was used throughout Europe until the 18–19th centuries. A Greek merchant of the first century wrote a periplus for the Erythraean Sea.

A periplus is a manuscript document that lists the ports and coastal landmarks, in order and with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. You can read a translation of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.² Below is an easy to read map.

There is a digital map: The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

Below is the map from 40 AD

Where are the Manuscripts?

The history of the travel of the manuscript of Periplus of the Erythraean Sea includes the Thirty Years War, corrupt editions and Napoleon. There is a great deal of scholarship about the Periplus.³ The original is now at Heidelburg University Library.

1. More than 20 countries now part of US-led Red Sea coalition, Pentagon says.Reuters, December 22, 2023; Op Prosperity Guardian: A look at the new force that's protecting shipping in the Red Sea (forces.net)

2. THE PERIPLUS OF THE ERYTHRAEAN SEA.TRAVEL AND TRADE IN THE INDIAN OCEAN. BY A MERCHANT OF THE FIRST CENTURY. (translated from the Greek and annotated by WILFRED H. SCHOFF, Secretary of the Commercial Museum, Philadelphia. (1912).

3. Casson, Lionel, ed. (1989), The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Princeton: Princeton University Press; Schoff, Wilfred Harvey, ed. (1912), The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century, New York: Longmans, Green, & Co; Vincent, William, ed. (1800), The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, Containing an Account of the Navigation of the Ancients, from the Sea of Suez to the Coast of Zanguebar, vol. I, London