Spice Islands

:This article covers the history of the idea of the Maluku Islands in other cultures, that is, as The Spice Islands. For the islands' internal history, see Maluku Islands.

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Spice Islands most commonly refers to the Maluku Islands (formerly the Moluccas), which lie on the equator, between the Celebes and the New Guinea islands in what is now Indonesia. The term has also been used in reference to other islands known for their spice production, notably the Tanzanian group off East Africa consisting of Zanzibar, Mafia Island and Pemba.

Related Topics:
Maluku Islands - Equator - Celebes - New Guinea - Indonesia - Tanzanian - Zanzibar - Mafia Island - Pemba

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The Moluccas were, until the late eighteenth century, the only source of economically significant spices including clove, nutmeg and mace. Archaeological and linguistic evidence places Spice Island traders within a seaborne circuit reaching as far as mainland India and Arabia around 200 BC. Pliny the Roman author describes cloves not long afterwards, while Rome traded for spices along India's Malabar Coast. Javanese and Chinese merchants were heavily involved in the spice trade, and spices reached Europe only after passing through many foreign hands, with the main western terminus of the trade at Alexandria in Egypt.

Related Topics:
Spices - Clove - Nutmeg - Mace - Archaeological - Linguistic - Pliny - Javanese - Chinese - Spice trade - Alexandria - Egypt

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For this reason, spices appeared in the European imagination as a miraculously expensive natural commodity. Their location was probably unknown to the Muslim traders of Alexandria, but wild stories were invented about the exotic conditions necessary for their cultivation, and the extreme hazards endured to harvest and transport them. This heady mixture of myth, romance and fabulous riches was the El Dorado of Europe's pre-Columbian consciousness.

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