Milk Incense and Myrrh: Shipwrecks and the Material History of Medicine along the Maritime Silk Road

This presentation will explore the role of shipwreck archaeology in illuminating the intellectual and material history of medicinal herbs and commodities exchanged along premodern maritime trade routes. Many herbs and organic materials moving along the circuit between the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and China, known as the Maritime Silk Road, have survived wrecks dating from the Abbasid (750-1258 CE), Ilkhanid (1256-1335 CE), Srivijayan (650-1377 CE), Tang (618-907 CE), Song (960-1279 CE) and Yuan (1271-1368 CE) periods in the Java and South China Seas. An examination of organic materials recovered from the Belitung, Intan, Java Sea, and Quanzhou ships within transregional materia medica and records of long-distance trade provides an history of the premodern spice routes and important physical evidence of the exchange of medical goods and knowledge in the interconnected global middle ages.