Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/71

 than necessary because of its hot climate. There is a fine dam, 219 feet long, and in one place 74 feet 4 inches above bed-rock, with sluice-gates 5 feet 3 inches wide; the whole built of large cut stones without mortar. When in use a large lake would have formed. There are numerous ruins of stone temples and dwellings; the architecture resembling that at Adulis apparently Ptolemaic Greek. The town covered many acres.

Glaser thinks Kohaito is too near Adulis to be the ancient Coloe; but he seems to overlook the stiff climb up the mountain, which would naturally take longer in proportion than the subsequent road over the table-land.

The name Coloe, Glaser notes (Punt und die südarabischen Reiche, 23) is the same as the Arabic Kala'a, (which appears in the Adulis inscription of King Aizanas), and is derived from the same sources as the Calaei Islands and Calon mountains in southeastern Arabia (in §§34–5). He derives the Alabaei Islands in this §4 from the same tribal name, Kalhat, via Halâhila.

4. Ivory.—In the inscriptions of Harkhuf, an Assuan noble under King Mernere of the VIth Dynasty (B.C. 2600) occurs the first definite record of ivory as a commercial article in Egypt.

"I descended (from the country of Yam, southern Nubia) with 300 asses laden with incense, ebony, grain, panthers, ivory, throw-sticks, and every good product. I was more vigilant than any caravan-conductor who had been sent to Yam before." (Breasted: Ancient Records of Egypt, I, 336.)

There are numerous records of the receipt of ivory, in commerce and as tribute, under the XVIIIth Dynasty; coming from Tehenu (Libya, but cf. the Tenessis of Strabo); Punt (Somaliland), God's Land (S.W. Arabia), Gnbti (vicinity of Kuria Muria Islands), Cush (Nubia), the South Countries, Retenu (Syria) and Isy (Cyprus). Also articles made of ivory: chairs, tables, chests, statues, and whips.

Similar records occur under the XIXth and XXth dynasties; the latter, in the Papyrus Harris, being an item in a list of gifts of Rameses III to the god Ptah.

King Solomon's throne was of ivory, overlaid with gold; and his "navy of Tharshish" brought him the ivory every three years, together with gold and silver, apes and peacocks (I Kings X, 18–22).

4. Cyeneum is the modern Sennaar—Eastern Sudan.

4. City of the people called Auxumites.—This is the first known reference to the city of Axum, and serves very nearly to fix the date of its foundation. Pliny and other writers of this period mention the Asachae living south of Meroe and known as