ABSTRACT
The contribution of the lucrative Far East trade to the prosperity of the Middle East and to the economy of parts of the Arabian Peninsula goes back to the period before the advent of Christianity. Some early sources and archaeological finds furnish fragmented information about the pattern of this trade, which reached the Middle East by way of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Flourishing trading metropolises such as Adulis, Sheba and Kataban, Hormuz and Kuwait and trading colonies established by Greek, Roman, Arab, Persian, Indian and other merchants along the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf bear evidence of the prosperity of this trade.1
