Biʾr ʿAlī is a village in eastern

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

. It is located in the

Shabwah Governorate Shabwah ( ar, شَبْوَة, Šabwa) is a governorate (province) of Yemen. Its main town is Ataq. During the Yemeni Civil War in 2015, the province became a battleground. The battle, known as the Shabwah Campaign, ended on August 15, 2015, af ...

. The name means "Ali's

Well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

" in

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

. In pre-Islamic times, the port was called Qanīʾ (Qane, Cana, grc, Κάνη).

Ancient history

Literature

In antiquity, Qanīʾ was mainly a trading port for spices from India and Eastern coast of Africa. Describing the part of his voyage after leaving the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...

and Aden, the author of the ''

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' ( grc, Περίπλους τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς Θαλάσσης, ', modern Greek '), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and ...

'' wrote in 50 CE:

Archaeological finds

Wine jars (

amphorae An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...

) dating back to the 1st century CE were discovered in Biʾr ʿAlī in 1988, in an underwater excavation along the shores of the Indian Ocean. On one of the jars is inscribed a word in the Palmyrene (Tadmori) alphabet and a word in

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

script. The conclusion drawn by researchers, B. Davidde and R. Petriaggi, is that from the mid-1st century CE wine was imported from Italy and Syria upon camels that disembarked from Coptos (

Qift Qift ( arz, قفط ; cop, Ⲕⲉϥⲧ, link=no ''Keft'' or ''Kebto''; Egyptian Gebtu; grc, Κόπτος, link=no ''Coptos'' / ''Koptos''; Roman Justinianopolis) is a small town in the Qena Governorate of Egypt about north of Luxor, situated und ...

) which lies along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt, thence unto ports

Myos Hormos Myos Hormos ( gr, Μυὸς Ὅρμος "Mouse's Haven") was a Red Sea port constructed by the Ptolemies around the 3rd century BC. Following excavations carried out recently by David Peacock and Lucy Blue of the University of Southampton, it is ...

– a place that later became known as al-Quṣayr – and

Berenike Berenice ( grc, Βερενίκη, ''Bereníkē'') is the ancient Macedonian language, Ancient Macedonian form of the Attic Greek name ''Pherenikē'', which means "bearer of victory" . Berenika, priestess of Demeter in Lete (Mygdonia), Lete ca. 350 ...

situated on the western shore of the Red Sea, and from there transported by ship to trade centers in Arabia,

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The ruins of a Jewish synagogue were also discovered in Biʾr ʿAlī, dating back to at least the 3rd century CE. It is presumed that Jewish merchants from Hellenistic communities outside of Yemen may have eventually chosen to settle in that place, where they would have been occupied in the trade of aromatics. This assumption is based on the five-lined Greek inscription that was preserved in the synagogue of ancient Qanīʻ (Biʾr ʿAlī), the content of which being a petition by a man named Kosmās unto the One God (''eis theos'') that he will protect his caravan (''synodia'') while traversing the vast wastelands.Patrich 2011, p. 104.

External links

Hadramawt Towns and villages in the Hadhramaut Governorate

Bibliography

* A. V. Sedov, New archaeological and epigraphic material from Qana, South Arabia. ''Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy'', (1992) pp. 110-137 ** ibid., Qana’ (Yemen) and the Indian Ocean: The archaeological evidence. In: H. P. Raye & J.-F. Salles (eds), ''Tradition and archaeology: Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian Ocean. Proceedings of the International Seminar Techno-archaeological Perspectives of Seafaring in the Indian Ocean 4th cent. BC–15th cent. AD, New Delhi, Feb. 28–March 4, 1994'', Lyon-New Delhi (1996), pp. 11–35 * Jean-François Breton, ''Arabia Felix from the Time of the Queen of Sheba: Eighth Century B.C. to First Century A.D.'' Translated from the French by Albert LaFarge. Notre Dame, Indiana (1999) * Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, Les graffiti en langues nord-sémitique de Bīr ‘Alī (Qāni’). In: J.F. Salles & A. Sedov (eds.), ''Qāni’: Le poet antique de Hadramawt entre la Méditerannée, l'Afrique et L'Inde, Fouilles Russes 1972, 1985-89, 1991, 1993-94'', Lyon 201 (2010), pp. 387 * Joseph Patrich, ''Bet kǝneset yǝhudi qadum bǝ‘ir ha-namel qani she-bǝ-teman''. Qadmoniyyot 142 (2011), pp. 102–106 (Hebrew) * Barbara Davidde & Roberto Petriaggi, Considerations on commercial trades of Laodiceum and Amineum wines through the underwater archaeological findings in the port of Qani’. In: S. Antonini, A. Shu‘lân & Munir Arbach (eds), ''Sabaean Studies: Archaeological, Epigraphical and Historical Studies in Honour of Yusuf Abdallah, Alessandro de Maigret, Christian Robin on the occasion of their 60th birthday'' (2005), pp. 85–95. Naples-Ṣan‘ā’ *

References