Azania

Azania is the name that has been applied to various parts of southeastern sub-Saharan Africa. In Roman times—and perhaps earlier—the name referred to a portion of the Southeast African coast extending from Kenya,^[1] to perhaps as far south as modern Tanzania.

Etymology

The earliest attestations for the name Azania do not explain it. John Hilton alludes to a number of etymologies proposed in the nineteenth century that claimed the name was derived from an Arabic or Persian word referring to the dark-skinned inhabitants of Africa, which he dismisses as examples of the colonial mindset of that period. More recently, G.W.B. Huntingford offered two suggestions for the origin of the word. The first was from the Arabic `ajam ("foreigner, non-Arab"). The second, which he favors, comes from the Greek azainein ("to dry, parch").

Ancient Azania

Pliny the Elder mentions an "Azanian Sea" (N.H. 6.34) that began around the emporium of Adulis and stretched around the south coast of Africa.

The slightly later Periplus of the Erythraean Sea offers more details about Azania (chapters 15,16,18). From chapter 15 of the Periplus, Huntingford identifies Azania proper with the area south of modern day Somalia (the "Lesser and Greater Bluffs", the "Lesser and Greater Strands", and the "Seven Courses").^[2] However, chapter 16 clearly describes Rhapta, as located south of the Puralean Islands at the end of the Seven Courses of Azania, as the "southernmost market of Azania".

Modern identifications of Rhapta place it on the coasts of modern-day Tanzania — indicating that Azania referred to an area perhaps identical to the later Arab Zanj. Felix A. Chami has found archaeological evidence indicating that Rhapta was probably near the mouth of the Rufiji River.

Azania was known to the Chinese as 澤散 Zésàn by the 3rd century CE.^[3]

Later writers who mention Azania include Claudius Ptolemy and Cosmas Indicopleustes.

Probable location

The first mention of the name Azania with a South African connection appeared in the 1930s archaeological reports of excavations at Mapungubwe in the northern Transvaal. The skeletal remains were referred to as "ancient Azanians".

Notes

Bibliography

• Casson, Lionel (1989). The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Lionel Casson. (Translation by H. Frisk, 1927, with updates and improvements and detailed notes). Princeton, Princeton University Press.
• Chami, F. A. (1999). "The Early Iron Age on Mafia island and its relationship with the mainland." Azania Vol. XXXIV 1999, pp. 1–10.
• Chami, Felix A. 2002. "The Egypto-Graeco-Romans and Paanchea/Azania: sailing in the Erythraean Sea." From: Red Sea Trade and Travel. The British Museum. Sunday 6 October 2002. Organised by The Society for Arabian Studies.[2]
• Collins, Alan S. and Pisarevsky, Sergei A. (2005). "Amalgamating eastern Gondwana: The evolution of the Circum-Indian Orogens." Earth Science Reviews, 71, 229-270.
• Huntingford, G.W.B. (trans. & ed.). Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Hakluyt Society. London, 1980.
• Yu Huan, The Weilue in The Peoples of the West, translation by John E. Hill [3]

External links

• Electronic Antiquity Journal: Communicating the Classics, Vol 1 no 5, research by John Hilton at the University of Natal, Durban.
• Azania, Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa

See also

• Rhapta