East Africa in Chinese medieval sources

0565911 - OÚ 2023 RIV ZA eng C - Conference Paper (international conference)
Liščák, Vladimír
East Africa in Chinese medieval sources.
Standardisation and the wealth of place names. Aspects of a delicate relationship. Bloemfontein: SunBonani Media, 2022 - (Loth, C.), s. 207-216. ISBN 978-1-928424-96-3.
[International Symposium on Place Names 2021 /6./. Bloemfontein (ZA), 29.09.2021-01.10.2021]
Institutional support: RVO:68378009
Keywords : China–Africa contacts * Chinese place names * East Africa * medieval contacts
OECD category: History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

My paper will bring a view on the earliest medieval contacts between East Africa and China, based on Chinese sources dating back from as early as the 8th century. It will bring early Chinese place names into comparison with modern names occurring in East Africa. China and Africa have a history of trade relations, sometimes through third parties, as far back as the Han Dynasty (202 BC and 220 AD). Chinese seafaring merchants and diplomats of the medieval Tang Dynasty (618–907) and Song Dynasty (960– 1279) often sailed into the Indian Ocean after visiting ports in Southeast Asia. Chinese sailors would travel to Malaya (currently Peninsular Malaysia), India, Sri Lanka, into the Persian Gulf and up the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq, to the Arabian Peninsula and into the Red Sea, stopping to trade goods in Ethiopia and Egypt (as Chinese porcelain was highly valued in old Fustat, Cairo). The paper will indicate that, from the 9th century onwards, Chinese writers accurately described the geography of Africa.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0341620