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colour. This rarity was used by the elite in perfumes and incense. Precious stones are another example. In the fifteenth century it was considered that rubies from Ava were better than those from Sri Lanka. Diamonds came from Vijayanagar and Berar. The important production centre of Sri Lanka sent sapphires and emeralds to Calicut. Fine porcelain came from China. Pearls were another luxury trade item. It was considered that pearls from the Gulfs of Mannar and Persia were best. Marco Polo wrote about the former. He reported that the water was only some ten or twelve fathoms deep (about 20 metres), and men dived from small boats to a depth of between 4 and 12 fathoms, and stayed down as long as they could. This diving was done only in the months between the monsoons, that is in March and April. The king took a tax of one-tenth of all finds.72 A century later, in 1330, Ibn Battuta at Bahrain left a description from which it seems that techniques then and in more recent times have changed very little.73

Most of the port cities were more or less monetised by this time, and we have occasional hints of an extensive trade in gold and silver, both coin and silver. This trade changed dramatically once American gold and silver appeared in the second half of the sixteenth century. It has been estimated that around 1500 at least 1,750 kg of gold, equivalent to 20,500 kg of silver, flowed from Europe to the East, this being about one-quarter of total European production.

The major gold producing area around the Indian Ocean was located in Zimbabwe. Production began slowly at the start of the tenth century, or perhaps earlier, and was at its height in the eleventh to fifteenth centuries; it then declined drastically. At first placer mining, that is washing from alluvium, was most common, but later quite sophisticated reef mining techniques were also employed. This gold was exported through Sofala but marketed at Kilwa, up to 10 tons a year before a decline late in the fifteenth century. A well-informed Portuguese claimed in 1506 that when the land was at peace at least one million, and up to 1.3 million maticals of gold were exported each year from Sofala, and maybe 50,000 from Angoche, this then totalling a little under 6,000 kg.74

It may be that another form of currency was equally as important, namely cowry shells. These are a species of marine snail, and while there are several different types the one used as currency in the Indian Ocean and over much of coastal Africa was the 'money cowrie', a 2.5 centimetre yellow species. The best came from the Maldives, as these were smaller than most and so easier to transport. Their value was not affected by their size. At first sight an eccentric choice for a unit of currency, they had several important advantages. They were very durable, and they could not be counterfeited or melted down. They also had an aesthetic appeal which may be lacking in precious metals. They can be beautifully striped, and their Latin name, Cypraea moneta, reveals another aspect of their appeal. The first part of the name comes from 'Cyprus', thought to be the home of Aphrodite, or Venus, the goddess of fertility, and the long, slender orifice of the shell's underside is very like a vagina. Ibn Battuta described how they were produced. The shell fish were harvested from the ocean, and then put in pits until the flesh had dissolved leaving only the shell.

These remote and otherwise quite obscure islands produced a good which was widely traded all over the ocean and beyond to Africa and China. There was an extensive trade in them to Yunnan from the ninth century, some done overland and some by sea via eastern India and southeast Asia, where in both places they were much in demand as currency. Again Ibn Battuta's account is revealing. The inhabitants of the Maldives sold them for the common currency, the dinar, or in exchange for rice from Bengal, or to Yemenites who used them instead of sand for ballast. Later in his travels he found them in Mali and Gao in West Africa.75

The trade in slaves represents another