D&D General African D&D

[Azzy]

I'd buy it.

Me too.

 

[Zardnaar]

People also tend to forget that the Land of Punt (Eritrea-Djibouti-Eritrea region) was a major civilization in the ancient world that traded with the Greeks, Egyptians and Mesopotamia (probably via Egypt)

And they still don't know where it was definitively. Eritrea area is a prime candidate. They also cant find one of the Ptolemy red sea ports (it was probably a trading outpost). The also cant find/identity one of the Indian ports.

Roman empire also reached further than generally thought. They got deeper into Arabia (Hejaz region) than previously thought and a Roman outpost has been found near Yemen on an Island iirc.

Quantity of trade probably wasn't a lot but they were likely trading directly sown to what's now Somalia and indirectly further down the coast.

Roman expedition also crossed the Sahara.

 

[Azzy]

And they still don't know where it was definitively. Eritrea area is a prime candidate. They also cant find one of the Ptolemy red sea ports (it was probably a trading outpost). The also cant find/identity one of the Indian ports.

Roman empire also reached further than generally thought. They got deeper into Arabia (Hejaz region) than previously thought and a Roman outpost has been found near Yemen on an Island iirc.

Quantity of trade probably wasn't a lot but they were likely trading directly sown to what's now Somalia and indirectly further down the coast.

Roman expedition also crossed the Sahara.

The Romans got up to a lot. And so did China.

 

[Zardnaar]

The Romans got up to a lot. And so did China.

I'm aware.

Silk road, Indian Ocean trade kinda interesting. Kilwa coins turning up in Australia things like that.

Kobold Press did The Southlands. Not sure on the 5E version. There 4 or 5 obvious non Egyptian standouts for inspiration. More if you dig deeper.

 

[Bluenose]

Roman empire also reached further than generally thought. They got deeper into Arabia (Hejaz region) than previously thought and a Roman outpost has been found near Yemen on an Island iirc.

Quantity of trade probably wasn't a lot but they were likely trading directly sown to what's now Somalia and indirectly further down the coast.

Roman trade went very far indeed. There's a surviving text, The "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which covers ports as far as India and a fair way down the coast of Africa. How much trade there was is debatable; plenty of Roman writers complaining about expensive luxuries will tell you that huge amounts of the Empire's coin was sent there - they exaggerate, I suspect. They were trading for spices with the Malay/Indonesian traders who'd come even further but there's certainly evidence for a fair amount of contact. There's even a story in one of the Han annals of traders from "Rome" bringing gifts to the emperor, so some enterprising merchants got that far).

And they still don't know where it was definitively. Eritrea area is a prime candidate. They also cant find one of the Ptolemy red sea ports (it was probably a trading outpost). The also cant find/identity one of the Indian ports.

Personally I'd suspect a sea route along the south coast of Arabia (studded with ancient ports) and into the Gulf with even more ports on both shores.



Over on Freelance Traveller there's a set of variant Traveller rules called Mercator which takes the basic game design and the Free Trader concept and applies it to the ancient Mediterranean. I always thought it would be fun to apply it to the Erythraean Sea ports to expand the scope and perhaps add non-"Roman" sailors to it. This is making me nostalgic.

 

[Zardnaar]

Roman trade went very far indeed. There's a surviving text, The "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which covers ports as far as India and a fair way down the coast of Africa. How much trade there was is debatable; plenty of Roman writers complaining about expensive luxuries will tell you that huge amounts of the Empire's coin was sent there - they exaggerate, I suspect. They were trading for spices with the Malay/Indonesian traders who'd come even further but there's certainly evidence for a fair amount of contact. There's even a story in one of the Han annals of traders from "Rome" bringing gifts to the emperor, so some enterprising merchants got that far).

Personally I'd suspect a sea route along the south coast of Arabia (studded with ancient ports) and into the Gulf with even more ports on both shores.



Over on Freelance Traveller there's a set of variant Traveller rules called Mercator which takes the basic game design and the Free Trader concept and applies it to the ancient Mediterranean. I always thought it would be fun to apply it to the Erythraean Sea ports to expand the scope and perhaps add non-"Roman" sailors to it. This is making me nostalgic.

You also have African powers contemporary with Rome or close to it.

Ran into an Ethiopian at our FLGS ended up talking about Ticket to Ride game. Think he was shocked when I knew about Axum. Several civilization there as well. Ethiopia is an obvious inspiration, Kush, Mali and Kilwa would be the obvious one (outside Egypt).

Amazon has a show here called Archeo. Covers some less well known sites its interesting.

 

[Tonguez]

You also have African powers contemporary with Rome or close to it.

Ran into an Ethiopian at our FLGS ended up talking about Ticket to Ride game. Think he was shocked when I knew about Axum. Several civilization there as well. Ethiopia is an obvious inspiration, Kush, Mali and Kilwa would be the obvious one (outside Egypt).

Amazon has a show here called Archeo. Covers some less well known sites its interesting.

dont forget Kanem-Bornu and Hausalands, not least for the presence of mounted knights in chainmail armour

 

[Zardnaar]

dont forget Kanem-Bornu and Hausalands, not least for the presence of mounted knights in chainmail armour

They're not particularly well known though. I can't remember if Songhai annexed one of them.

 

[Bluenose]

Amazon has a show here called Archeo. Covers some less well known sites its interesting.

The Golden Rhinoceros - which I borrowed from my local library - covers African kingdoms from the 9th to 15th century. Slim and there's a lot of short chapters on different places but it's also got a decent bibliography. I don't know of an equivalent for ancient Africa - there were some places away from the Nile Valleyand Horn of Africa.

 

[Tonguez]

The Golden Rhinoceros - which I borrowed from my local library - covers African kingdoms from the 9th to 15th century. Slim and there's a lot of short chapters on different places but it's also got a decent bibliography. I don't know of an equivalent for ancient Africa - there were some places away from the Nile Valley and Horn of Africa.

Translations are available for "The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea" a 1st century Koine Greek manuscript listing trading ports around the Erythraen Sea (Red Sea-Arabian Sea- Horn of Africa). Notably it mentions Aksum, Opone (in Somalia), Azania (speculated to extend south of Somalia possibly to Mozambique) and also the island of Menuthias (probably Madagascar, possibly Zanzibar). At the time the people of this area were primarily Cushitic, as it was before the Bantu Expansion had reached the area.

By early medieval times the area of Mozambique - Madagascar - South Africa gained the name Zanji Coast as it was the home of the Zanj (Black) - one theory is that Zanji is an Arabic form derived from the Javanese word Jenggi, the old Javanese name for Zanzibar.