From sponges to pearls: Aegean mariners in the Red Sea (19th–early 20th century)

• Type of Material: Poster
• Authors: Roxani Margariti, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-07-06
• Publisher: Emory University Libraries
• Copyright Statement: 2022 Margariti
• Final Published Version (URL): https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/94621001/SpongesToPearls_Poster_7_25-libre.pdf?1669055944=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DFrom_sponges_to_pearls_Aegean_mariners_i.pdf&Expires=1726233200&Signature=W1313-bUfDqvfvVGLrYwt22Cmr3HJ8rVDwCGUQyD99Ezot7wsBVT4CoNZeaxx~a2OrQP6UvoliVcm8h2jeC7AL3gDBNJCcnMF7tolkIS28NSrVdvIGpSc23ZV1Vgm2tKMU01NmewwmHfUe2MdkxNhBW-TvpCkTxXffD086zKLakOSLJcvW5t3Lh5DYamvPkDWi8RsHVi9lIA75RQf3riu0XIeJmcenMGZXdynLN3tMvv86I5JvreO4Agpa1EmExZu1iNjQX1Boua6-Mh5pT0lWvwGzsrzezbZzdDmSeRUligGkvyDqAjI3XsxreGZUm7mUz5PKZ-svzBTaGDhgMO4w__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
• Conference or Event Name: Red Sea Project X. Conference
• Keywords: Michalis Kantounias; Syme; Horn region; Hellenistic times; sub-imperial; mariners; Red Sea; Suez Canal; Greek-speaking; sponge merchant; labor networks; transnational encounters; Colonial regimes
• Research Categories: History, European; Economics, Commerce - Business; Engineering, Marine and Ocean

Abstract

There is evidence for Greek-speaking mariners in the area of the Red Sea earlier in the 19th century and intermittently since Hellenistic times. But the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 ushered a new era in the maritime labor networks between the two seas. Colonial regimes (British, French, Italian) in the Red Sea and Horn region attracted European and Southern Mediterranean entrepreneurs, who acted in sub-imperial roles. Small-scale maritime enterprise via the Suez Canal appears to have constituted a discrete-if not unrelated-strand in the global networking and opportunities for transnational encounters that the Canal generated. A case in point is the remarkable diary of Michalis Kantounias, a sponge merchant from the island of Syme. The diary describes a pearl-oyster fishing venture from his home port to the Red Sea in 1890. This project summarizes and evaluates the information the diary contains about geography, toponymy, marine economy and maritime networks of the Southern Red Sea in the late 19th-century. It also explores the interplay between small-scale maritime labor initiative and imperial-colonial structures in the Red Sea region in the 19th and early 20th century. Histories of sponge and pearl fisheries.The last decade of 19th century is a turning point in the history of Aegean sponge fisheries because of two developments: a) the introduction and gradual adoption of the diving helmet (or "diving machine," μηχανή, and b) the subsequent mechanization of sponge-diving vessels. These developments ushered new realities in the organization of sponge fisheries and in the lives of the fishermen (Olympitou 2022). Very little is known about sponge diving in the Red Sea; the first observations about sponge exploitation come from the mid-to late 19th century (eg. Munzinger 1864). Pearl-diving in the southern Red Sea became the subject of intense colonial, especially Italian, interest in this same period at the close of the 19th century (Zaccaria 2007).