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From a single merchant's list of baggage begins a history that explores the dynamic world of medieval Indian Ocean exchanges. This fresh and innovative perspective on Jewish merchant activity shows how this list was a component of broader trade connections that developed between the Islamic Mediterranean and South Asia in the Middle Ages. Drawing on a close reading of this unique twelfth-century document, found in the Cairo Genizah and written in India by North African merchant Abraham Ben Yiju, Lambourn focuses on the domestic material culture and foods that structured the daily life of such India traders, on land and at sea. This is an exploration of the motivations and difficulties of maintaining homes away from home, and the compromises that inevitably ensued. Abraham's Luggage demonstrates the potential for writing challenging new histories in the accidental survival of apparently ordinary ephemera.
From a single merchant's list of baggage begins a history that explores the dynamic world of medieval Indian Ocean exchanges. This fresh and innovative perspective on Jewish merchant activity shows how this list was a component of broader trade connections that developed between the Islamic Mediterranean and South Asia in the Middle Ages. Drawing on a close reading of this unique twelfth-century document, found in the Cairo Genizah and written in India by North African merchant Abraham Ben Yiju, Lambourn focuses on the domestic material culture and foods that structured the daily life of such India traders, on land and at sea. This is an exploration of the motivations and difficulties of maintaining homes away from home, and the compromises that inevitably ensued. Abraham's Luggage demonstrates the potential for writing challenging new histories in the accidental survival of apparently ordinary ephemera.
1. Introduction. A list of luggage from the Indian Ocean world; 2. From Ifriqiya to Malibarat – introducing Abraham Ben Yiju; Part I. A Mediterranean Society in Malibarat: 3. Making homes and friends: on shopping and Ṣuḥba; 4. Making a meal of it: on food cultures; 5. A Jewish home: on ritual foods; Part II. A Mediterranean Society at Sea: 6. The 'simple' bare necessities: on water and rice; 7. 'Things for the cabin': inhabiting the Ocean; 8. The balanced body: on vinegar and other sour foods; 9. From Malibarat to Misr and beyond – afterlives; Appendix: Abraham's list of luggage.
From a single merchant's list of baggage begins a history that explores the dynamic world of the medieval Indian Ocean.
Elizabeth A. Lambourn is a historian of South Asia and the Indian Ocean world, specializing in cultural exchanges with the Middle East before 1500. She is Reader (Associate Professor) in South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at De Montfort University, Leicester.
'Transforming a twelfth-century list into a history of the stuff of
life, Lambourn brilliantly demonstrates how Southern India was
linked to the Middle East. From the production of food to the
maintenance of purity, and even staying watered and well on the
journey itself, this is exemplary Indian Ocean history.' Michael
Laffan, Princeton University, New Jersey
'Abraham's Luggage opens a fascinating window onto a world of
interconnected Indic, Islamic, and Jewish traditions in the
medieval Indian Ocean. From cultures of dining, gifting, medicine,
packing, and religious ritual to mercantile shopping habits and
shipping, the book is awash with original insights. Its holistic
approach offers a compelling and innovative model of
interdisciplinary scholarship.' Finbarr Barry Flood, Institute of
Fine Arts and founder-director of Silsila: Center for Material
Histories, New York University
'Lambourn's deeply learned and intellectually enterprising
reconstruction of the biology and materiality of travel along the
maritime highways of the western Indian Ocean enriches our
understanding of how humans have inhabited ships and the high seas
in a crucial period of world history.' Roxani Eleni Margariti,
Emory University, Georgia
'Elizabeth A. Lambourn brings to life the trip home to Egypt of a
twelfth-century Jewish trader, transforming a Geniza fragment into
a mirror of macrohistory and reconstructing the life of a
Mediterranean household in India. A fascinating, path-breaking
study for Geniza research and the history of material culture in
the Indian Ocean.' Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Tel-Aviv University,
Israel
'… Lambourn's book is an ethnography of an 800-year-old cultural
world, but its human feel makes it unlike any previous work about
the region and period.' Erik Gilbert, Journal of Interdisciplinary
History
'… Abraham's Luggage is flawlessly produced and well thought out,
with hyperlinks enabling quick cross-referencing of chapter
endnotes, references to other chapters in the volume and figures
and tables. Abraham's Luggage will no doubt inspire much of that
work and makes a powerful contribution in its own right.' Rebecca
Darley, Journal of Early Modern History
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