SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Several thousand glass beads excavated in the Maryam Anza (Tigray, Ethiopia) cemetery over three seasons between 2014 and 2016 tell the story of the direct or indirect long-distance contacts of the people buried there. By combining typological and quantitative studies of drawn glass beads, this paper provides new bead evidence on the subject of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade in Late Antiquity. The assemblage is dominated by tiny monochrome glass beads of mid-fourth/fifth-century AD date that were brought as ships’ cargo from South Asia through Arabian ports, reaching Northeast Africa at a time of intensive Indian Ocean trade. Close proximity to the Red Sea port at Adulis (in modern Eritrea) also allowed the transport of other overseas bead imports produced in Egypt or the East Mediterranean region. Comparative percentage analysis makes Aksum and the Maryam Anza community one of the major accumulators of India/Sri Lankan beads in Northeast Africa.