Cultures of the Indian Ocean / [authors: Abdul Sheriff [and others] ; translation: Nicholas Taylor ; revision: Jessica Hallett].

Prepared in conjunction with an exhibition at Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, 1998, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the voyage of Vasco da Gama.

Translation of: Culturas do Indico.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-419).

Representations of the Indian Ocean in 16th-century Portuguese cartography / Alexandra Curvelo Campos -- Ethiopia in the geographical representations of Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe / Manuel João Ramos -- The reality and symbolism of a myth: the tradition of Vasco da Gama's Arab pilot / Michael Barry -- The achievement of Vasco da Gama / Carmen Radulet -- "Brotherhood of the Sea" / Abdul Sheriff -- The Mamluks: between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea / James W. Allan -- The Swahili interface, urban trajectories, and state formation in East Central Africa (c.700-1700) / João Carlos de Senna-Martinez -- Ethiopia: the book and the cross / Richard Pankhurst -- Sacred Word -- Sacred Image. The art of the book in India / John Guy -- "Mother goddesses with child" in ancient and medieval Indian art / Amina Okada.

Madagascar in its Indian Ocean context / John Mack -- Indian trade textiles: sources and transmission of designs / Ruth Barnes -- Jewelled emblems of royalty at the Mughal Court / Susan Stronge -- Individual Body, Social Body: clothing and styles of dress in Rajasthan / Françoise Cousin -- Codification and representation of the body in East Africa / Jean-Claude Penrad -- Mozambique: the body and the bodies / Ana Cristina Roque -- The perception of cultural objects / John Mack -- The ethnographic object as art: invention or reality? / Pilar Romero de Tejeda -- The Portuguese encounter with the Swahili towns of the East African coast / Mark Horton -- Patronage and architecture in Rasulid and Tahirid Yemen / Noha Sadek -- The built environment of Yemen / Fernando Varanda.