Sailing Around Erythraean Sea: Eighteen

The unknown sailor is in Rhapta, in the previous section. He enumerates export to and import from Muza a port city on the coast of Yemen. Continue to read:

And these markets of Azania are the very last of the continent that stretches down on the right hand from Berenice; for beyond  these places the unexplored ocean curves around toward the west, and running along the regions to the south of Aethiopia and Libya and Africa it mingles with the western sea.

Note that no new ports are introduced, and the sailor was stationed at Rhapta.

My Search:-

1. Aethiopia: An ancient Greek term which encompasses modern day Ethiopia, and the entire region south of Egypt. That means Aethiopia covered entire Africa except Egypt. Herodotus described it as a vast region. Ptolemy mapped its geography and Strabo wrote about its culture and trade.

2. Muza was an important trading port on the Red Sea coast of Arabia Felix near the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb in present day Yemen. Due to coast recession Muza is now inland from the modern port city of Mokha.

3. Berenice or Berenike or Baranis is modern day Berenice Troglodytica in Egypt. An ancient sea port on the western shore of Red Sea. It is on a bay. It was founded in 275 BCE, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus who named it after his mother. Troglodytica refers to the natives, which means cave-dwellers.

4. Azania: it is a wide area starting from the south of Eastern Somalia to eastern Mozambique and eastern South Africa.

End of the Section