Dear Mr.Pieter Derideaux,
I would like to express my deepest gratitude for publishing the complete work of Al-Jahiz "Book of the Glory of the Black Race". I was ready to pay a fortune in order to get this book...Thank You for Your unselfish work.I live in Japan and sometimes i would like to ask You some questions... is that possible?
Yours sincerely,
Prof.Mira
Author:Anonymous
Dear Sir, your web site is amazing. My deepest thanks and congratulations. Please visit my excavations throught web sites :
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/actions-france_830/archeologie_1058/les-carnets-archeologie_5064/afrique-arabie_5068/kenya-gedi_5496/index.html
and
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/actions-france_830/archeologie_1058/les-carnets-archeologie_5064/afrique-arabie_5068/tanzanie-kilwa_15214/index.html
Dr Stephan Pradines, Ifao, Cairo--Stephan Pradines
Author:Anonymous
Dear Dr Stephan Pradines;
Thank you for your comments on my website, as you might have imagined I already visited yours years ago.
Kind Regards
Pieter Derideaux2008-07-31 12:52:31 GMT
Author:Anonymous
Dear Pieter,
I refer to your doubts whether the Zeng-ki are Africans. In his book "The Marvels of India" ("Kitab al Ajaib al Hind"), the Persian skipper Ibn Shahriyar reports a testimony from an Arab merchant named Ibn Lakis saying that in 945 A. D., he saw a thousand "Waq-Waq" boats landing on the shore of Mozambique to buy goods and "Zeng" slaves. Waq-Waq was the name the Arabs gave to Southeast Asian sailors and merchants at this time.
Also, what I have learned is that "Kun Lun" refers to Southeast Asians, not African. To the Chinese, Southeast Asians were "black", but I suspect they only meant they were just darker than Northern Chinese. 1st century A. D. Chinese texts on a kingdom they call Funan, located in the southern part of today's Vietnam, describe the locals as "black and with curly hair". This is certainly in contrast to the Northern Chinese physical appearance but must not necessarily mean these people looked like Africans or Papuans.
Thank you for your very valuable site.
Yours sincerely,
Anda Djoehana WiradikartaResearch worker and university teacher in Paris, France2008-10-25 12:25:27 GMT
Author:Anonymous
To: Anda Djoehana Wiradikarta
Thanks for your comments, and you are surely correct.
Kind regards
Pieter Derideaux
Monumentum Adulitanum
BeantwoordenVerwijderen4th-century monumental inscription by King Ezana of Axum
The Monumentum Adulitanum is a 4th-century monumental inscription by King Ezana of Axum recording his various victories in war. It is lost, but its text was copied down in the 6th century by Cosmas Indicopleustes in his Christian Topography.
It describes Ezana's easternmost conquest as the "land of Aromatics", also translated "Land of Incense" or "frankincense country":
“I am the first and only of the kings my predecessors to have subdued all these peoples by the grace given me by my mighty god Ares [Mahram], who also engendered me. It is through him that I have submitted to my power all the peoples neighbouring my empire, in the east to the Land of Aromatics, to the west to the land of Ethiopia [Kush] and the Sasou [?Sesea]; some I fought myself, against others I sent my armies.”