Visiting Research Scholar Lecture: Facing the Indian Ocean: The Sāsānids and the “Late Antique South”

The history of late antiquity has long been studied from the perspective of the Mediterranean and the Fertile Crescent. To a large extent, this habit stems from the fact that most of the written documentation for the period c. 200-700 CE was produced in those regions. But to focus exclusively on the Mediterranean and Fertile Crescent is to overlook those regions to the south which border the Indian Ocean, namely the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and South Asia—an area which may usefully be called the “Late Antique South.”
Attempts to incorporate this area into studies of late antiquity often take the war between the Romans and the Sāsānids as the point of departure. However, a closer examination of the textual, archaeological, and numismatic evidence for the impact of the Sāsānid Empire on the Late Antique South demonstrates that the war with the Romans was not a pressing issue until Justinian took power in 527. In this lecture it will be argued that the Sāsānids had, long before that time, exerted a significant impact on the Late Antique South through their intervention in the tribal politics of the Arabian Peninsula and their promotion of commerce in the Indian Ocean. In both cases the Sāsānids relied on intermediaries: the Lakhmid dynasty of al-Ḥīra in Arabian politics and Nestorian Christians in Indian Ocean commerce. These networks of contact can, in turn, help contextualize the subsequent spread of Islam from Arabia and across the Indian Ocean.

George Hatke obtained his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in 2011 and taught Arabic at the same institution (2008-2011). His interests include the ancient and early medieval history of Ethiopia, Nubia, and South Arabia, Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade, the origins of Islam, and comparative Semitics. He is in the process of turning his dissertation, Africans in Arabia Felix: Aksumite Relations with Himyar in the Sixth Century CE, into a monograph on the history of Ethiopian-Yemeni contact in late antiquity. Dr. Hatke’s article, “Holy Land and Sacred History: A View from Early Ethiopia,” will be published soon by Ashgate in Visions of Community in the Post-Roman World (ed. W. Pohl et al.).

There will be a reception folowing the event.

To RSVP, please email isaw@nyu.edu.