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0029 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 29 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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10. ADEN   13

  1.  ADAM

adaam L   V, VA, VB, Z; G, R

adam F, FA, FB, LT, TA3,   adamo TA', TA3; R

adan F, V addam LT

On Adam's Peak, cf. Zu, 51 ; Y, II, 320-322 ; Fe, 688 ; DAMES, Barbosa, II, 117 ; HALLBERG, 6-7 ; BEFEO, iv, 358-359 ; HR, 73-75 ; TP, 1915, 379 ; 1933, 433.

The name of Adam is written N7 A A-t'an (*•ii-d'âm) in a Nestorian work of about the 8th cent. (cf. SAEKI, The Nestorian Documents, Tôkyô, 1937, 213, and Chin. text, 56) ; j iJ tt A-tan in the Sino-Jewish inscriptions of 1489, 1512 and 1663 (ToBAR, Inscr. juives, 36, 57, 65); and (spi

01 A-tan by Ma Huan in the first half of the 15th cent. (both tan were pronounced tam until about 1400-1450, and, from the 11th to 12th cent., a Chinese unaspirated t- served to render a foreign d-).

While associating the name of Alexander the Great with the wonders of Adam's Peak, Ibn Battûtah does not ascribe to Alexander the making of the chains spoken of by Polo; YULE quotes such an ascription only from a Persian poet of the 15th cent. But this last form of the legend must have existed earlier ; Mufaual knows it in the middle of the 14th cent. (cf. BLOCHET, Moufazzal, 697 ; the note is irrelevant). Western travellers also heard of it ; it occurs on Fra Mauro's map (Zu, 51).

  1. ADEN

adam FAt, LT   V (cor.), VB, Z   arbe TA3

adan F, L, V, Z   adenti TAI, TA3   arden, dan, denti, edenti, TA'

adern P, VA, VB, VL; R   adorn, adon G   edem LT, P, VA; G

aden F, Fr, t, FA, FB, L,   andar V   eden F, LT

Polo deals with Aden (Ar. 'Aden) from hearsay, but I am not inclined to believe in the occasional confusion between Aden and Adel to which YULE refers, though with some diffidence, in Y, II, 433. Cf. also EI, s.v. «Aden » (very scanty); HALLBERG, L'Extrême-Orient, 8-10; L. DAMES, Barbosa, I, 53-58; Fe, 688. The name of Aden, is7 J A-tan, does not appear in Chinese texts before the first quarter of the 15 th cent.; cf. DUYVENDAK, Ma Huan re-examined, 59-62 ; TP, 1933, 343, 420422 (where I have shown that, in 1421 [or 1416-1419?], the name of the golden coin then in use at Aden was known under the Western name of fulûri, « florin ») ; TP, 1935, . 287. For a valuable description of Aden in Arabic, then unpublished, cf. FERRAND, in JA, 1921, II, 320. Important native sources on Aden have been recently edited by Oscar LÖFGREN, Arabische Texte zur Kentniss der Stadt Aden im Mittelalter, Leipzig-Upsal, 1936.

It may be partly due to the obscurities of Polo's second-hand information on Aden that