Pearl

Resurgent East Arabian pearl fishing and trade is apparent by the mid-1st mill. BCE. Strong intercontinental demand for pearls from the 1st cent. BCE prompted a transition to large-scale operations. Pearl diving probably experienced a gradual decline from the late 3rd cent. CE, re-emerging as a flourishing enterprise in the Early Islamic period.

The evidence indicates esteem for pearls as early as the Neolithic based on more than 200 pearl oyster banks along the East Arabian seaboard. Renewed appreciation and exchange of pearls in the first half of the 1st mill. BCE is seen in finds from Late Dilmun contexts in Bahrain (Hope 2020: 451), and from al-Quṣayṣ, Dubai (Carter 2012: 9). A reference to a pearl diving weight in a recension of The Epic of Gilgamesh (XI. 289-293) from the library of Assurbanipal (668-before 627 BCE), and a few pearls reported from a Babylonian Temple of Marduk, dated to the reign of Nabopolassar (625-605 BCE), support this assessment.

The large number of pearls reaching Iran by the fall of the Neo-Babylonian empire to the Achaemenids ca. 539 BCE shows their greater prestige and a thriving, organised pearl fishing and commerce by the mid-1st mill. BCE. But while successive Achaemenid, Seleucid and Characene interests in eastern Arabia helped drive pearl output in the second half of the 1st mill. BCE, the evidence also emphasises increasing Arabian demand, supplied by pearling centres located at “certain islands in the Red Sea” (Theophr. De Lap. 36), considered a reference to the Persian Gulf. One of these, Stoidis (Plin. HN 6.28), a valuable pearl fishery in the Lower Gulf (Strabo Geog. 16.3.7), Arrian (Indica 38.3), remained active for centuries (Peripl. M. Rubr. 35).

Pliny (HN 6.32) is the earliest extant source identifying Tylos (Bahrain) as the location of a second important pearl fishery. However, the archaeological evidence (Hope 2020: 457-458), suggests strongly that ca. a century prior Isidorus (Ath., Deip. 3.46) was describing Tylos when he recorded pearl diving from rafts to a depth of 20 fathoms around “a certain island in the Persian Gulf where many pearls are found”.

Buoyant Lower Gulf pearl commerce is confirmed in evidence from Ed-Dur in the United Arab Emirates, a cosmopolitan trading port and pearling centre flourishing between 50 BCE-200 CE. Finds include 41 pearls and a lead diving weight with an attachment for a rope. Some associate Ed-Dur with Omana, source of “inferior” pearl exports (Peripl. M. Rubr. 36).

Booming demand for luxury commodities from the 1st cent. BCE-2nd cent. CE saw pearl fishing transition to a far larger scale (Hope 2021: 38-43). Pearling centres like Bahrain and Ed-Dur tapped into the international exchange system serving the Roman and Parthian empires (Carter 2012: 21). The main gateway for this commerce was Characene capital Spasinou-Charax. Pearl markets were located at its port, Apologos (Peripl. M. Rubr. 35), and probably at nearby Forat, the latter frequented by traders from Petra (Plin. HN 6.32).

Palmyrene merchants organised an extensive pearl export business from permanent trading posts in Spasinou Charax (PAT 1376, 1584), Forat (PAT 1412), and in Babylonian cities on the Tigris (PAT 0197).

Eastern Arabia remained a source of pearls in the 3rd cent. CE according to Philostr. (VA 3.57). Persian esteem for pearls (Amm. Marc. 23.6.84-88), seen in the pearl earring “of extraordinary size” Perozes (Firuz, r. 459-84 CE) wore into battle (Procop. Pers. 1.4.14-15), is further attested in representations of richly pearl-adorned Sasanian kings and senior officials (Hope 2020: 139-142), and in pre-Islamic verse (al-Shamlan 2000: 33-34). The chief source of the pearls that supplied Persian demand in the Sasanian period is less clear. The archaeological record from Arabia points to a likely gradual decline in pearl fishing from the late 3rd cent. Contributing factors include the sack of Palmyra following the defeat of Zenobia in 272 CE and a major reorganisation of the Gulf region’s pearl trade. This possibly saw the centre of Gulf pearl commerce shift from Bahrain to a Sasanian naval base at Rishahr (Bushehr Peninsula), also the location of an important pearl market (Carter 2012: 29). Sasanian focus on Taprobane (i.e. Sri Lanka), apparent from the late 4th to the early 7th cent. CE, when a fleet of 35 Persian merchant ships anchored at one of the island’s ports (Weerakkody 1997: 136), suggests a further rich source of pearls.

Constantine I’s elevation of pearls as imperial insignia (Hope 2020: 226-242), Church of the East appropriation of pearls as a Christological symbol, and Church records suggesting that in the 6th century CE “a significant Christian pearl-diving population existed in the Gulf” (Carter 2012: 23-24), set the scene for a potential increase in Arabian pearl output. However, without a scientific method for establishing a pearl’s provenance it is impossible to assign with confidence Gulf origins to hundreds of pearls surviving in finds of luxurious Late Antique jewellery from Cyprus, Egypt, and elsewhere (Hope 2021: 76-84).

The pearl-fishing practices and highly organised trade detailed by geographers and scholars in the 10th-12th cent. CE (e.g. al-Bīrūnī/Said, Precious Stones 86-140) reflect the industry’s revival in the Early Islamic using traditions that evolved over millennia.

Deborah Hope

References and suggested reading

Sources

• al-Bīrūnī/Said: Al-Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad / Ed. Said, H.M. 1989. The book most comprehensive in knowledge on precious stones: al-Beruni’s book on mineralogy [Kitāb al-jamāhir fī maʿrifat al-jawāhir]. Trans. by H.M. Said. Islamabad: Pakistan Hijra Council.
• PAT: Hillers, D.R. & Cussini, E. (eds) 1996. Palmyrene Aramaic Texts. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Peripl. M. Rubr.: Casson, L. 1989. The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Theophr. De Lap.: Theophrastus / Ed. Eichholz, D.E. 1965. De Lapidibus. London: Oxford University Press.

Studies

• Al-Hijji, Y.Y. 2010. Kuwait and the Sea: A Brief Social and Economic History. London: Arabian Publishing.
• Al-Shamlan, S.M. 2000. Pearling in the Arabian Gulf: A Kuwaiti Memoir. London: Centre of Arab Studies.
• Carter, R.A. 2012. Sea of Pearls: Seven Thousand Years of the Industry that Shaped the Gulf. London: Arabian Publishing.
• Charpentier, V., C.S. Phillips & S. Méry 2012. Pearl fishing in the ancient world: 7500 BP. AAE 23(1): 1–6.
• Donkin, R.A. 1998. Beyond Price. Pearls and Pearl-Fishing: Origins to the Age of Discoveries. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
• Hope, D.B. 2020. Lustre: The Pearl Trade in Antiquity. PhD thesis. Sydney: Macquarie University.
• Hope, D.B. 2021. Pearls Found in Ancient Greek and Roman Contexts in the Mediterranean. Mediterranean Archaeology 32/33: 23–122.
• Potts, D.T. 1998. Seas of Change, in P. Hellyer (ed.) Waves of Time: The Marine Heritage of the United Arab Emirates: 44–67. London: Trident Press.
• Seland, E.H. 2016. Ships of the Desert and Ships of the Sea: Palmyra in the World Trade of the First Three Centuries CE. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Unesco World Heritage Committee. 2012. Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy (Bahrain). https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1364/
• Weerakkody, D.P.M. 1997. Taprobanê: Ancient Sri Lanka as Known to the Greeks and Romans. Turnhout: Brepols.

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