Worksheet

Pepper for Gold: Sailing the Monsoon to India

Grade 6 economics: use a trade table, a sailing calendar, a merchant's guidebook and a Tamil poem to explain barter, coins and the Rome–India sea route.

Grade 6Social StudiesInteractive · Printable

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10 questions
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Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Social Studies
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students explain how coins solved problems of barter in trade between Roman Egypt and India.
Students use a trade table and two sources to trace goods moving each way on a sea route.
Students give evidence that trade routes moved ideas as well as goods.

How to use

Read the passage and the two tables together, then have students answer the source questions on their own and share evidence for the final claim.

Curriculum

C3 Framework standard covered

ECO.6.2

Explain barter, the invention of coins and money, and how ancient trade routes moved goods and ideas.

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Pepper for Gold: Sailing the Monsoon to India

Read trade data, a merchant's guide and a Tamil poem to see how coins, goods and ideas crossed the sea.

The monsoon route

Read the passage and the sailing calendar. Then answer the questions.

Across the Arabian Sea

1For thousands of years, many traders bartered, swapping one good for another, or paid with weighed pieces of metal. Barter works only when each side wants what the other has. After about 600 BCE, stamped coins spread from Lydia, in present-day Turkey, to Greece, Persia and beyond. By about 400 BCE, people in India were making silver coins stamped with small symbols.

2In the first century CE, merchants from Roman Egypt sailed straight across the Arabian Sea to India. Ships left Red Sea ports such as Berenike in July, when strong monsoon winds blow from the southwest toward India. Months later, when the winds turned and blew from the northeast, the ships sailed home. At the Red Sea ports, Roman officials collected a tax of one-fourth of the value of goods arriving from India.

3One of the busiest Indian ports was Muziris, on the southwest coast of India, in a land ruled by the Chera kings. Pepper vines grew in the hills nearby. Ships from Egypt also stopped at Barygaza, a port in northwest India.

4Evidence survives at both ends of the route. At Berenike, archaeologists found about 7.5 kilograms of black peppercorns in a large jar made in India, and pieces of pottery scratched with names in Tamil, a language of southern India. In southern India, people have found many buried hoards of Roman silver and gold coins. Some of the gold coins have a deep cut across the emperor's face. Some historians think the cuts showed that people valued the coins as metal, not as Roman money.

5Ideas traveled with the goods. Sailors shared knowledge of the winds, and Greek and Roman writers described Indian plants, ports and kings. Over the following centuries, traders and teachers carried Buddhist and Hindu ideas from India by sea to Southeast Asia.

The sailing year between Egypt and India (approximate)
Time of year	What ships did
July	Leave Berenike for India
About September	Reach Muziris or Barygaza
December to January	Leave India for home
Late winter or spring	Arrive back at Berenike

Use paragraph 2 and the calendar. Why did ships leave Berenike in July instead of in January?

A. In July the winds blew from the southwest, toward India.
B. In January the Red Sea ports were closed for the tax count.
C. In July the winds blew from the northeast, toward Egypt.
D. In January the pepper vines near Muziris had no fruit left.

Use paragraph 2. The tax was one-fourth of the value of goods arriving from India.

A trader lands pepper worth 2,000 drachmas at Berenike. He pays a tax of drachmas.

Goods, coins and two sources

Read the notes, the trade table and both sources. Then answer the questions.

About Source A: The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is a guidebook for merchants written in Greek about 50 CE. Its writer, whose name is unknown, was a merchant living in Roman Egypt. He describes each port, what sold there and what to bring. The table below lists some of the goods he names.

Some goods at two Indian ports, from the Periplus
Good	Port	Which way it went
Pepper	Muziris	India to Egypt
Pearls	Muziris	India to Egypt
Gold and silver coin	Muziris	Egypt to India
Grain for the sailors	Muziris	Egypt to India
Cotton cloth	Barygaza	India to Egypt
Wine	Barygaza	Egypt to India
Gold and silver coin	Barygaza	Egypt to India
Copper and tin	Both ports	Egypt to India
Ivory	Both ports	India to Egypt

Source A: adapted from a translation of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

Large ships sail to Muziris because of the great amount of pepper there. Merchants bring here a great amount of coin, and some glass, copper, tin and wine, but not much wine. They bring grain only to feed the sailors, because the merchants of this place do not deal in it. At Barygaza, the gold and silver coin that traders bring is exchanged for the money of the country at a profit.

About Source B: This is part of a poem in Tamil from the Akananuru, a collection of poems from southern India composed in the early centuries CE. Tamil poets used the word Yavanas for Greek-speaking traders and others who came from the west.

Source B: adapted from a translation of a Tamil poem

The fine ships of the Yavanas come to Muziris, splashing white foam on the river. They arrive with gold and leave loaded with pepper. Wealth pours into Muziris, the busy port.

Source A says merchants brought only a little wine to Muziris. How did bringing coins help them buy pepper there?

A. Pepper growers had to accept Roman wine whenever traders offered it.
B. Coins were lighter than pepper, so ships could carry home more coins.
C. Sellers could take gold and silver instead of goods they did not want.
D. Coins let the traders skip paying the tax at the Red Sea ports.

Which conclusion is best supported by the trade table?

A. Indian traders paid for Egyptian wine with Roman coin.
B. Muziris and Barygaza traded exactly the same goods.
C. Pepper and pearls went to India, while coin came to Egypt.
D. Coin went to India, while pepper and pearls came to Egypt.

Source A says coin brought to Barygaza was exchanged "for the money of the country at a profit." What does this show?

A. India had its own money, and traders swapped one for another.
B. The Chera kings made traders pay in Roman gold coins.
C. Traders at Barygaza bartered and did not use any money.
D. Roman coins were the first coins that people in India had seen.

Underline the sentence in Source B that best corroborates Source A about how foreign traders paid for pepper.

The fine ships of the Yavanas come to Muziris, splashing white foam on the river.They arrive with gold and leave loaded with pepper.Wealth pours into Muziris, the busy port.

Why is it useful that Source A and Source B come from different places?

A. The guidebook was in Tamil, so Tamil readers could check it.
B. Both writers lived in Muziris, so they saw the same ships.
C. A view from Egypt and one from India describe the same trade.
D. The poem was written first, so the guidebook copied it.

More than goods

Use the whole page.

A student says, "People in India used Roman coins just the way Romans did." Which evidence most challenges this idea?

A. About 7.5 kilograms of peppercorns were found at Berenike.
B. Some gold coins found in India have deep cuts across them.
C. Merchants brought grain to feed the sailors at Muziris.
D. The ships left Berenike in July with the monsoon winds.

Which two details best show that the sea route moved ideas or people, not just goods? Choose two.

A. Copper and tin were shipped to both Indian ports.
B. Pepper vines grew in the hills near Muziris.
C. Pottery at Berenike is scratched with names in Tamil.
D. Buddhist and Hindu ideas later reached Southeast Asia by sea.

10.

Claim: both Roman Egypt and the people of Muziris gained from the pepper trade. Do you agree? Use at least one detail from the trade table and one from Source A or Source B as evidence, and explain how coins, goods or ideas moved in each direction.