What was the Pepper Gate?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

May 21, 2002

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Between 521 and 519 BCE, Darius of Persia, expanded his realm into the Indus valley. Herodotus (Book IV, 404 BCE trans. George Rawlinson) wrote, "Wishing to know where the Indus emptied itself into the sea, he sent a number of men...among them Scylax of Caryanda, to sail down the river...and, after a voyage of thirty (?) months, reached the place from which the Egyptian king [Necos]...sent the Phoenicians to sail round Libya (Africa)."

Pepper Seeds on Plant at Skandis Longhouse, Kesit River, Malaysia
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Two hundred years later, Alexander the Great conquered Persia. He crossed the Khyber Pass where the Kabul River runs through a deep gorge then eastward to the Indus. Nearchos commanded the fleet returning Alexander's troops to Mesopotamia by way of the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. Nearchos was said the first to realize the value of the monsoonal winds for sea trade.

Precisely when black pepper (Piper nigrum Linnaeus) first came to Greece and Rome is uncertain. In earlier years, pepper traveled north to the 'Silk Roads', then east to China and west to the Middle East. Pepper was recommended by the father of medicine, Hippocrates. Romans loved pepper valuing the spice of Malabar as they valued gold.

In 31 BCE, Rome wrested Egypt from Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, the 'heirs' of Egypt from Alexander. Continual warfare with the Parthians had interrupted the trade from the east. To ensure supplies of the valuable pepper, Rome circumvented the overland routes.

By the first years of the Common Era, Rome had sea routes from the Malabar Coast of India to Myos Hormos in the Red Sea. Pepper, cinnamon, silk, ceramics, rice, and gems--caravans from Myos Hormos crossed to Alexandria for shipping throughout the Mediterranean. Alexandria even had a designated entrance for the caravans called the Pepper Gate.

The Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton has discovered the probable ruins of Myos Hormos. To read more about Quseir al-Qadim Project and the items found, click on the link:

http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Research/Quseir/