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South Asia (1st–5th c.)Society and economy

The Muziris papyrus: a loan for a cargo from India

A Greek papyrus of the mid-2nd century, now in Vienna, preserves part of an agreement on a maritime loan for a cargo from Muziris on the Malabar Coast, shipped on the Hermapollon to the Red Sea and carried across the desert to Koptos and down the Nile to Alexandria. Its valuation of the three quarters of the cargo left after the import duty — almost 7 million drachmas — is unique evidence of the scale of Roman trade with India.

Date
between 140 and 160exact date unknown: an interval is given
Place
Muziris (probably Pattanam)approximate locationtoday: Pattanam near Kodungallur, Kerala, India · South Asia
Route
Muziris (probably Pattanam) → Bab-el-Mandeb → Berenice (or Myos Hormos) → Koptos → Alexandria
Participants
Roman Empire
Threads
South Asia (1st–5th c.)
Also known as
P. Vindob. G 40822; SB XVIII 13167; Hermapollon; Vienna papyrus; Музирисский папирус; Гермаполлон

The papyrus (P. Vindob. G 40822) was bought by the Austrian National Library in 1980; where in Egypt it was found is unknown. H. Harrauer and P. J. Sijpesteijn published it in 1985. Both sides date from the middle of the 2nd century. The recto preserves part (the second column) of an agreement between a borrower and his creditor: the borrower undertakes to have the goods carried by camel from the Red Sea port — Myos Hormos or Berenice — across the Eastern Desert to the public warehouses at Koptos, then by boat down the Nile to the warehouse at Alexandria where the import duty of one quarter was collected, keeping them all the while under the creditor’s name and seal; if he failed to repay the loan on the date set in the loan contracts — “at Muziris” in Lionel Casson’s reading, “for the trip to Muziris” in Dominic Rathbone’s translation — the creditor could take over and sell the goods. Casson thought that the loan had been contracted at Muziris; G. Thür, Federico Morelli and Federico De Romanis place it in Alexandria, before the voyage to India.

The verso values the cargo of the ship Hermapollon: 60 containers of Gangetic nard, ivory and further goods — textiles in Casson’s reading, but above all pepper according to the later studies of Morelli and De Romanis. The total — 1,151 talents 5,852 drachmas in Morelli’s revised reading (the first edition read 1,154 talents 2,852 drachmas), almost 7 million drachmas — is, in Rathbone’s interpretation, the value of the three quarters of the cargo left after the duty; Casson compared the sum with the 7 million drachmas that, according to Philostratus, the aqueduct of Alexandria Troas had cost. The document shows the huge capital that the India trade required and how merchants financed it with loans secured on the goods.

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2nd century

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Muziris
  2. Wikipedia (English): Indo-Roman trade relations
  3. Wikipedia (Russian): Индо-римская торговля
  4. Casson L. New Light on Maritime Loans: P. Vindob. G 40822 // Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. — 1990. — Bd. 84. — S. 195–206.
  5. Rathbone D. The ‘Muziris’ papyrus (SB XVIII 13167): financing Roman trade with India // Alexandrian Studies II in Honour of Mostafa el Abbadi (Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie d’Alexandrie 46). — Alexandria, 2000. — P. 39–50.
  6. Morelli F. Dal Mar Rosso ad Alessandria. Il verso (ma anche il recto) del «papiro di Muziris» (SB XVIII 13167) // Tyche. — 2011. — Bd. 26. — S. 199–233.
  7. De Romanis F. The Indo-Roman Pepper Trade and the Muziris Papyrus. — Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.