Spice Islands most commonly refers to the Maluku Islands (formerly the Moluccas), which lie on the equator, between Sulawesi (Celebes) and New Guinea 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. Maluku redirects here. ... World map showing the equator in red In tourist areas, the equator is often marked on the sides of roads The equator marked as it crosses Ilhéu das Rolas, in São Tomé and Príncipe. ... Sulawesi (formerly more commonly known as Celebes, IPA: a Portuguese-originated form of the name) is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. ... Map of Zanzibars main island Zanzibar is part of Tanzania Coordinates: , Country Tanzania Islands Unguja and Pemba Capital Zanzibar City Settled AD 1000 Government  - Type semi-autonomous part of Tanzania  - President Amani Abeid Karume Area  - Both Islands  637 sq mi (1,651 km²) Population (2004)  - Both Islands 1,070... Mafia Island (Chole Shamba) is part of the Tanzanian Spice Islands, together with Zanzibar and Pemba. ... Map of Pemba Island Pemba is an island about 50 kilometres to the north of the island of Zanzibar. ...

Early history

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 westwards as far as mainland India and Arabia around 200 BC. Pliny the Roman author describes cloves not long afterwards, as 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. External links Wikibooks Cookbook has more about this subject: Spice Food Bacteria-Spice Survey Shows Why Some Cultures Like It Hot Citat: ...Garlic, onion, allspice and oregano, for example, were found to be the best all-around bacteria killers (they kill everything). ... Binomial name (L.) Merrill & Perry A single dried clove flower bud Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum, syn. ... It has been suggested that Legal drugs#Nutmeg be merged into this article or section. ... Species About 100 species, including: Myristica argentea Myristica fragrans Myristica malabarica The nutmegs Myristica are a genus of evergreen trees indigenous to tropical southeast Asia and Australasia. ... Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... Pliny the Elder: an imaginative 19th Century portrait. ... Javanese is a term used to describe a native of the Indonesian island of Java. ... Spices at the central market of Agadir, Morocco in May 2005 The spice trade has been of major economic importance throughout human history and it particularly helped spur the Age of Exploration. ... Nickname: Alexandria on the map of Egypt Map of Alexandria Coordinates: , Country Egypt Founded 334 BC Government  - Governor Adel Labib Population (2001)  - City 3,500,000 Time zone EET (UTC+2)  - Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3) Twin Cities  - Baltimore  United States  - Cleveland  United States  - ConstanÅ£a  Romania  - Durban  South Africa...

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 became the El Dorado of Europe's pre-Columbian consciousness. El Dorado or Eldorado (Spanish for the gilded one) is a legend that began with the story of a South American tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and would dive into a lake of pure mountain water. ...

Islands of northern Indonesia and southern Philippines, commonly called the Spice Islands

Image File history File links Magellans voyage: Cebu, Mactan, Palawan, Brunei, Celebes, Spice Islands on the relief globe of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Magellans voyage: Cebu, Mactan, Palawan, Brunei, Celebes, Spice Islands on the relief globe of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...

Arabic influence

One ancient Arabic source appears to know the location of the Islands, describing them as fifteen days' sail East from the 'island of Jaba' - presumably Java — but direct evidence of Islam in the archipelago occurs only in the late 1300s, as China's interest in regional maritime dominance waned. With Arabic traders came not just Islam, but a new technique of social organization, the sultanate, which replaced local councils of rich men (orang kaya) on the more important islands, and proved more effective in dealing with outsiders (See Ternate & Tidore articles). View of the Puncak area in West Java Java (Indonesian: Jawa) is the most populous of Indonesias islands, and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. ... For people named Islam, see Islam (name). ... A sultan (Arabic: سلطان) is an Islamic monarch ruling under the terms of shariah. ... A 1720 depiction of Ternate. ... Tidore is an island and town in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, just west of the larger island of Halmahera. ...

Venice and the Age of Exploration

Venice came to monopolise the spice trade in Europe between 1200 and 1500, through its dominance over Mediterranean seaways to ports such as Alexandria, after traditional overland connections were disrupted by Mongols and Turks. The financial incentive to discover an alternative to Venice's monopoly control of this lucrative business was perhaps the single most important factor precipitating Europe's Age of Exploration. Portugal took an early lead charting the route around the southern tip of Africa, securing various bases en route, even accidentally discovering the coast of Brazil in the search for favourable Southerly currents. Portugal's eventual success and the establishment of its own absolutist monopoly provoked the other maritime powers in Europe, Spain (see Ferdinand Magellan), France, England and the Netherlands to challenge and overcome the Portuguese position. For other uses, see Venice (disambiguation). ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... Nickname: Alexandria on the map of Egypt Map of Alexandria Coordinates: , Country Egypt Founded 334 BC Government  - Governor Adel Labib Population (2001)  - City 3,500,000 Time zone EET (UTC+2)  - Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3) Twin Cities  - Baltimore  United States  - Cleveland  United States  - ConstanÅ£a  Romania  - Durban  South Africa... A monopoly (from the Greek language monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a product or service, in other words a firm that has no competitors in its industry. ... The so-called Age of Exploration was a period from the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century, during which European ships were traveled around the world to search for new trading routes and partners to feed burgeoning capitalism in Europe. ... For the Presidential railcar named Ferdinand Magellan, see Ferdinand Magellan Railcar. ...

The ideal of the Spice Islands, eventually to be enveloped by the Netherlands' Dutch East Indies empire, had led to the accidental discovery of the West Indies, and lit the fuse of centuries of rivalry between European maritime powers for control of lucrative global markets and resources. The tattered mystique of the Spice Islands finally died when France and Britain successfully smuggled seeds and plants to their own dominions on Mauritius, Grenada and elsewhere, making spices a more commonplace and affordable commodity. This article is about the trading company. ... The Caribbean or the West Indies is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. ...

Further reading

• George Miller (editor), To The Spice Islands And Beyond: Travels in Eastern Indonesia, Oxford University Press, 1996, Paperback, 310 pages, ISBN 967-65-3099-9
• Severin, Tim The Spice Island Voyage: In Search of Wallace, Abacus, 1997, paperback, 302 pages, ISBN 0-349-11040-9
• Bergreen, Laurence Over the Edge of the World, Morrow, 2003, paperback, 480 pages
• An interesting article linking British possession of Run, a Banda Island, with the history of New York
• Jeremy Seabrook on the same theme
• Inter-Faith Alliances in the Moluccas

Indonesia Portal

Coordinates: 2°00′S, 128°00′E Image File history File links Portal. ... Map of Earth showing lines of latitude (horizontally) and longitude (vertically), Eckert VI projection; large version (pdf, 1. ...