From Ancient Egypt to Islam-Abbasiyah: the Historical Ecosystem of Nusantara Spices in Pre-Colonial Era
Spices from Nusantara has its historical story since thousands of years ago, far before the aerial of the Europeans to the area in the 16th century AD, a period known as “the colonial era”. This article focuses on the study of Nusantara and spices as the leading international trade axis according to the research sources and notes from Ancient Egypt, Greco-Roman, and Arab-Islam Abbasiyah dynasty (the 9th century to 13th century AD). There haven’t been many studies from the period, especially the last period, the 9th to 13th centuries AD, where the Abbasiyah imperium in the Middle East met Srivijaya in Nusantara. World trade was reasonably rapid, thrived, and exuberant at that time through the road and sea routes. The trading activity made the area of Nusantara one of the epicenters of world trade activity that connected it to different parts of the world, from the East to the West.
The research used the historical method. The method began with the heuristic stage, the effort to trace historical sources, both primary and secondary. The next stage is the critical process towards the source and interpretation of the sources. After that, the last stage was historiography.
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A Ginanjar Sya'ban is a lecturer at Nusantara Islamic Faculty, Nahdlatul Ulama Indonesia University, Jakarta.
Editor: Achmad Sunjayadi & Doni Ahmadi
Translator: Dhiani Proboshiwi
Image: Kekunoan via tapak.id
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