Ichthyophagoi

Ichthyophagoi (fish-eaters), coastal people referred to by textual sources (5th cent. BCE – 2nd cent. CE Greek-Roman authors) as living along the ‘River Ocean’ coastlines, between Arabia and Iperborei, and the Erythraean Sea (Red Sea). Archaeological research on the Iron Age of northern coastal Oman defines the area where Ichthyophagoi lived, the Iron Age horizon of coastal seasonal settlements in the inner oases of the al-Ḥajar mountain landscapes.

Sources

Agatharchides of Cnidus, Artemidorus of Ephesus and the anonymous Periplus of the Erythraean Sea stated that the Ichthyophagoi lived along almost the entire Arabian sea shore, except for south-western Arabia (where the Caravan Kingdoms are located), as well as along the Egyptian coast south of Berenike, through the Bāb al-Mandab and beyond, on the African side of the Red Sea. Claudius Ptolemy also stated that they lived all along the Red Sea, although it must be stressed that Ichthyophagoi were widespread from the Indus outlet to Morocco, along the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea shores.

The first mention of Ichthyophagoi is in the Historiae of Herodotus (ca. 484–430 BCE). According to the Greek author, after the conquest of Egypt in 525 BCE, the Achaemenid king Cambyses planned an invasion of Nubia. In order to acquire information regarding the enemies, the King sent some Ichthyophagoi from Elephantine Island to gather information because they were able to understand the Nubian language (Hist. III 17–24, 30). Apart from linguistic skills, no more information was added by Herodotus. After this, all references related to the fish-eaters shift to a negative perspective where no social or technological skills are documented.

A second reference related to the Ichthyophagoi, closer to the eastern Arabia seashore than Elephantine Island, occurs in Nearchus’s account of his journey back to Babylon from India. Between 325–324 BCE, the Macedonian fleet was sailing through the Arabian-Persian Gulf, passing by Maketa (Raʾs Musandam) where fish-eating populations were reported along the Makrān coast (between Pakistan and Iraq). According to Nearchus, the way of life of the Ichthyophagoi was totally based on fish due to inland aridity. He added that only a few of them were able to build boats so that fishing consisted of catching fish with bare hands in the receding tide. Nearchus said that they had nets made of about two stadia in length (about 360 m) for this purpose. He also mentions that they lived in small poor villages and that their houses were built with the bones of beached whales or mangrove wood and covered by fish bones or seaweed. Moreover, they performed their activities naked or wore sea-animals’ skins. They only ate raw fish (sometimes pounded into a sort of flour with a mortar made from whale vertebrae), they made wooden spears or harpoons with fire-hardened tips, and flint knives (Arrian, Indica 29.15, 40.2).

A third note on the fish-eaters of Egypt was written by Clearchus of Soli (4th–3rd cent. BCE), who reported that the king of Egypt, Psammetichus, kept fish-eater slaves because he wished to discover the sources of the Nile (Athenaeus VIII 345d–e).

A fourth rich source of notes came from Agatharchides of Cnidus (220–145 ca. BCE). Based in Alexandria in the 2nd century BCE, he collected the reports of Ptolemaic sailors as sources for a volume on the Erythraean Sea. Agatharchides clearly states that the fish-eaters lived along both the Persian and Arabian coasts: from Carmania to Gedrosia, on one side; and the innermost recess of the Arabian Gulf on the other (Diod. Sic., Bibliotheca Historica III 15.1, Photius, Bibliotheca 250.30–31). Agatharchides provides new information, still from the same negative perspective perceptible in Nearchus. According to him, the Ichthyophagoi did not know the concept of the city or organized territory (Photius, Bibl. 250.31). They had no society and lived like animals in poor huts (Diod. Sic., Bibl. III 19 and Photius, Bibl. 250.43-44), or they lived in caves close to the sea with north-facing openings to catch the marine breeze (Diod. Sic., Bibl. III 19.2; Photius, Bibl. 243.43; see also Artemidorus of Ephesus in Strabo, Geog. XVI 4.13). Their huts were made of soft rock derived from sands and seaweed washed up by the waves and then compacted by the wind (Diod. Sic., Bibl. III 19.5; Photius, Bibl. 243.43 and 47). They did not possess any particular skills and did not have any sort of cult or preoccupation for their own dead (Photius, Bibl. 250.45). They were also isolated, as they had no contact at all with other populations, not even with the people living close to them (Diod. Sic., Bibl. III 20.1).

The fifth source related to the fish-eaters is Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276–194 BCE). This is the only source, after Herodotus, without the Greek topos, stated mainly by Agatharchides, describing the fish-eaters as barbarians living outside society and city rules, spread along the River Ocean at the edge of the world.

The Eratosthenes fragment portrays the Ichthyophagoi in a totally different way to the literary topos of barbarians. According to him, they lived in a small town called Deirē (close to the strait of Bāb al-Mandab), the harbour from where Sesostris the Egyptian subdued the countries of the Aethiopians and Troglodytes and then crossed Arabia (Strabo, Geog. XVI 4.4).

A sixth note figures in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (§ 30). Written in the first half of the 1st cent. CE, it refers to caves and shelters dug by the fish-eaters into the vertical slopes close to the sea.

Finally, in Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia (IV 5.12) (100–178 CE), a reference to the Ichthyophagoi living all along the Red Sea shores occurs.

Some general remarks were already stated by Oscar Nalesini (2009: 10–16):

Greek and Latin writers used the ethnonym ᾽Ιχθυοφάγοι to name several people living on the shore of the ocean, though most of the sources concern the portion of the ocean called Erythraean Sea. Most of these Ichthyophagoi escape our understanding because of the silence of the sources. The few relatively well documented cases show that the cultural meaning embedded in this name changed considerably throughout the centuries, and sometimes differed from an author to another coeval author. In the 2nd century CE the ethnonym was actually used by Claudius Ptolemaeus to name peoples who until then had never been called Ichthyophagoi. The comparison of Agatharchides with Eratosthenes and the stories handed down by Herodotus and Clearchus show that the life of the Ichthyophagoi of the Red Sea was by no means confined to fishing, and that their settlements could be different from wretched villages.

Iron Age coastal archaeological landscape

In spite of a rich literature related to the Prehistory of Eastern Arabian coastal environment, only rare excavations have focused on Iron Age settlements that could potentially contribute to our understanding of the Ichthyophagoi landscape, in particular those conducted at the Late Iron Age (late first millennium BCE – 3rd–4th cent. CE) settlements of Raʾs al-Ḥadd (HD9, HD21, HD60) by Reade (1993); Raʾs al-Jinz (RJ2b, RJ33) by Nalesini (1995); and Tīwī by Korn et al. (2004). More recently, surveys along the coastal strip between Quriyāt and Raʾs al-Jinz, as well as extensive excavations at the Early Iron Age II (900–600 BCE) site of Bimah (BMH1), were conducted by Loreto (2018). Despite the barbarian-like way of life described by the sources, the economic strategy of these coastal populations inferred from the excavation of BMH1 and HD21 actually points to a varied geomorphological scenario allowing hunting, herding, farming, shell-bead crafting and metallurgy, trade and, of course, fishing, as well as social and cultic rituals, and last but not least, funerary practices. Quoting the words of Cleuziou & Tosi (2007: 296):

The Greek scholar Agatharchides of Cnidus, who lived in Alexandria, the most civilized city of those times, describes them as having ‘neither cities nor territories nor any trace of technical skills’; but, as modern archaeologists, we consider that these coastal people had long since reached a high level of adaptation and efficiency in the exploitation of their harsh environment. They had close contacts with the communities of the interior, even if the barren mountains and deserts that form their immediate background appear to suggest a world in almost complete isolation. Mail and milk delivery was not daily, but communications did exist and were carefully maintained. Life was hard for everyone.

Classical sources characterize them as colourful in the representation of an environment no longer simply limited to a costal landscape. Archaeological research on the Iron Age of Eastern Arabia and the definition of actual settlements patterns have clarified the bonds between the inland al-Ḥajar settlements and the sea.

Indeed, by assessing the simple architecture of such coastal settlements and in light of the practice of slaughtering cattle at a young age, it would be more appropriate to define these coastal sites as seasonal shelters. The pottery vessels collected from Quriyāt to Raʾs al-Jinz, with particularly well-documented examples from the BMH1 Early Iron Age II site and the Late Iron Age sites of Tīwī and HD21, clearly indicate that these coastal people were actually mobile seasonal groups from the inland al-Ḥajar chain, respectively from the Early Iron Age II site of Lizq and the Late Iron Age Samad al-Shān culture.

Romolo Loreto

References and suggested readings

• Cleuziou S. & M. Tosi, M. 2007. In the shadow of ancestors. The Prehistoric Foundation of the Early Arabia Civilization in Oman. Muscat: Al-Nahda printing Press.
• Korn, L., J. Häser, J. Schreiber et al. 2004. Tiwi, Ash Shab and Wadi Tiwi: the Development of an Oasis on the North-eastern Coast of Oman. JOS 13: 57–90.
• Loreto, R. 2018. Between Bamah (Bmh2) And Ras Al Had (Hd21). Notes on the 2014-2016 Excavation Seasons in the Framework of the Project “Ichthyophagoi their Culture and Economy. Landscape and People during the Iron Age in Coastal Oman”. JOS 19: 19–65.
• Nalesini, O. 1995. Gli Ittiofagi a Ra’s al-Junayz. Relazione Preliminare dell’Attività Svolta nel Gennaio 1995 (resti dell’Età del Ferro nell’Area di Ra’s al-Junayz). Muscat: Ministry of Heritage and Culture, Sultanate of Oman, unpublished report.
• Reade, J. 1993. Ra’s al-Hadd Excavations, 1992: Summary report. Orient-Express 1993(1): 3–4.