Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

economic life in arabia 687
use-value goods. South Arabian spices and incense were much sought-after
items for centuries, and undoubtedly fortunes were made from trade in
them, 56 but overland trade in such goods appears to have collapsed by the
first or second century a.d. 57
In the rest of the peninsula the economy was far more rudimentary. The
interior of the peninsula consists of various types of steppe land where, in
most years, no major cultivation can be sustained because of lack of water.
Reliable water supplies come from wells and oasis springs, and it was
around these that Arabia’s towns developed. The date palm dominated
agriculture in many places, and this and other crops were often cultivated
in large walled gardens (h · awā�it · ) scattered over whatever patches of arable
land there were in or around a settlement. Goats and sheep were kept, and
items produced for sale included hides and leather, wool, cloth, dairy products,
raisins, dates, wine, and utensils and weapons of various kinds. Gold
and silver were mined, but often figured as a replacement for currency
rather than as an export item; perfume was produced, especially in Aden
and Najrān, but beyond the Arabian and Syrian markets it could not
compete with the cheaper products of such Byzantine centres as
Alexandria. 58 Arabian traders in late antiquity were thus known to their
neighbours – in Palestine, for example – as bearers not of costly luxury
items, but rather of animals, wool, hides, oil and grains. 59
Bedouins, on the other hand, were largely herders and pastoralists,
though members of many tribes settled for varying periods of time and
others engaged in opportunistic agriculture – for example by sowing on a
fertile watered plot on their way somewhere else, and then reaping when
they returned. Tenting groups travelled in recognized tribal territories, their
schedules and movements (and willingness to encroach on the lands of
other tribes) largely dictated by the needs of their animals. Those who lived
along the desert fringes tended sheep and goats, as well as the singlehumped
dromedary camel; groups venturing into the depths of the
Arabian steppe lands did best with camels, but on occasion are known to
have taken goats and sheep as well. For barter or sale, nomads could offer
such animal products as hides, leather, wool and dairy products.
The symbiosis between village-dwellers and nomads was important to
the whole economic structure of Arabia. Leather, for example, was an
extremely important product and was the plastic of its day; everything from
buckets to items of clothing was made from it, and agriculture could not
have been maintained without huge supplies of leather for ropes, irrigation
56 Groom (1981). 57 The last reference to it is in the Periplus maris erythraei xxvii.
58 Dunlop (1957) 37–40; Crone (1987) 87–97.
59 Krauss (1916) 335–6; Kraemer (ed.), Excavatons at Nessana iii: Non-Literary Papyri 251–60 no. 89.
The Palestinian church at Dayr al-�Adasa, dedicated in 621, has a mosaic floor bearing various rural
scenes, including one of a caravan of camels carrying oil or wine jars; see Balty (1989) 149–51.
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