But what is lacking in identifiable artefacts is more than made up by the wealth of
textual data. For instance, there are detailed contemporary descriptions of the structure
of the trade in the Periplus, in Strabo’s and Ptolemy’s Geographies and Pliny’s Natural
History.11 There is sufficient detail that historians such as Rashke and archaeologists such
as Wheeler have been able to develop a comprehensive and, on the whole, convincing
structure for trade between India and the Roman world, as it existed at the beginning of
the Christian era.12 These exchange systems were more developed than those described
for Southeast Asia and approximate to the “Middleman”, and “Port of Trade” modes. In
many cases, particularly at the western ends of the trade routes, these were