Beginning with an introduction to early global trade, my paper traces the arrival of monotheism in the Red Sea region through a comparative approach taking into account other nodal first-millennium regions (e.g., Central Asia) to reframe the complex interweaving of faith, identity, and economic activity during Late Antiquity.

Valentina Grasso comes to Bard from Catholic University of America, where she taught in the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures. She previously taught at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, and was an affiliate member of the European Research Council (ERC) project “The Qur’an as a Source for Late Antiquity”. 

Image copyright here: https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/145335

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