Commerce, Culture, and Community in a Red Sea Port in the Thirteenth Century ─ The Arabic Documents from Quseir

The ancient port lies about eight kilometers north of the modern town on the Egyptian coast, and three years of excavations there were winding down in February 1982 when a house was uncovered that, among other surprises, contained several hundred paper fragments that turned out to be personal and business correspondence relating to the activities and operations of the family shipping business during the late Ayyubid and early Mamluk era. Guo (Arabic language and culture, U. of Notre Dame) examines and analyzes the fragments to construct the story of an ordinary merchant of the time. His study also contributes to the understanding of the social, economic, and maritime history of Islamic Egypt; trade in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean; and the economic history of the pre-modern world in general. Distributed by Aspen. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Li Guo, Ph.D. (1994) in Arabic Studies, Yale University, teaches Arabic Language and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author ofEarly Mamluk Syrian Historiography: Al-Yunini's Dhayl Mir'at al-zaman (Brill, 1998).