国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

He mentions the abundant oversea imports which made Sīrāf the chief emporium
for them, and refers to its merchants as the richest in the whole of Persia.

When Muqaddasī wrote his account of Sīrāf towards the close of the tenth
century, its decline as a great emporium had already begun; still he praises the
splendour of its houses. But a severe earthquake about A.D. 977 had caused
great damage to the buildings. Already many of its inhabitants had left Sīrāf
for other ports. 'In consequence of the great heat Sīrāf is a gate of hell. Water
has to be brought from a great distance; only a small conduit supplies fresh
water. Also fruit-trees are rare. The town is situated between the hills and the
sea, the surroundings are not cultivated and only a few date-palm groves are
found near by.' When Yāqūt visited Sīrāf early in the thirteenth century it had
already lost its trade to the new emporium established on the island of Qais, and
had fallen into ruin. He notes its being known to traders by the name of Shīlāw,
and mentions having found 'there only some very poor families whom solely the
love of their native soil retained there'. He saw there 'the remains of remarkable
edifices as well as of a fine mosque with columns of teak wood. The town lies at
the foot of a high mountain. . . . The inhabitants get their drinking water
brought by a conduit from a spring of fresh water.' The town lay closely con-
fined between the mountain and the sea, the distance from the sea being at all
points less than an arrowshot. Yāqūt notes quite correctly that ships did not find
at Sīrāf a proper harbour, but in the case of stormy weather had to seek a safe
anchorage in the bay of Naiband.

The accuracy of all topographical details recorded by these Arab geographers
was fully borne out by the observations made in the course of a careful survey
of the ruined site, as shown by Plan 17 and the photographs reproduced.⁴
But their descriptions of the great wealth of Sīrāf and the opulence displayed
in the mansions of its merchants made the contrast presented by the picture
of utter desolation now prevailing at the site all the more impressive. For
a distance of fully a mile the sea-shore is adjoined by terraces rising, at first
gently and then steeply, all overlaid by shapeless debris heaps from stone-built
houses, right up to the narrow crest of a rugged limestone ridge which to the
east attains a height of more than 300 feet. It would have been difficult for me
to realize how this town could have held within the narrow space available so
large a population as those accounts indicate, had memory not recalled the nar-
row lanes closely packed with tiered high houses I had seen at similarly situated
old ports on the Genoese Riviera.