Sailing Around Erythraean Sea: Thirty

Last point was Sachalites ( Khuriya Muriya islands), forty kilometres off the southern coast of Oman. They were also called Zenobii islands. It had an India connection. In 1854, Sultan of Muscat presented the islands to Queen Victoria as a gift, and the Queen in turn granted the authority to look after it to Bombay Residency. The Red Sea & India Telegraph Company was formed in 1858, with the intention to use one of the islands as a base for a telegraph connection between Aden and Karachi. The project was abandoned in 1861 as a section of the cables failed. The British story of Khuriya Muriya islands did not end there. But for the present we may look at the story of our Koine Greek sailor:

On this bay there is a great promontory facing the east, called Syagrus, on which is a fort for the defence of the country, and a harbour and a store house for the frankincense that is collected, and opposite this cape, well out at sea there is an island lying between it and the Cape of Spices opposite, but nearer Syagrus: it is called Dioscorida and is very large but desert and marshy, having rivers in it and crocodiles and many snakes and great lizards of which flesh is eaten and fat melted and used instead of olive oil. The island yields no fruits, neither vine nor grain. The inhabitants are few and they live on the coast toward the north, which from this side faces the continent. They are foreigners, a mixture of Arabs and Indians and Greeks who have emigrated to carry on trade here. The island produces the true sea tortoise, and the land tortoise, and the white tortoise which is very numerous and preferred for its large shells; and the mountain tortoise, which is largest of all and has the thickest shells, of which the worthless specimens cannot be cut apart on the underside, because they are even too hard; but those of value are cut apart and the shells made whole into caskets and small plates and cake-dishes and that sort of ware. There is also produced in this island cinnabar, that called Indian, which is collected in drops from the trees.

My Search:-

1. Syagrus:  Bahrain island located on Persian Gulf. It may look like a promontory looking east. The Bahrain means two seas, the seas north and south of Bahrain islands. The island was originally known to the Arabs as Awal. The ancient Greeks called this place Tylos. Since the unknown author of Periplus Maris Erethraea was a koine Greek settled in Alexandria there is a possibility that Sygros may be a corruption of Tylos. Sygros and Tylos share phonetic similarity. Ancient texts always show corruption in place names due to transcription errors or linguistic evolution.

2. Cape of Spices: Cape of Gaurdafui on the Horn.
3. Discordia: Qatar Peninsula on the Northeastern coast of Arabian Peninsula. It is lying between United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf.

4. Cinnabar: A bright red mineral consisting of mercury sulphide, sometimes used as a pigment. It is the ancient name for mercury sulphide. The author's description of it, being collected in drops from trees is not correct.

End of the Section 

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