SECTION A - Reading Read the passage given below. 1 For centuries, the rain-soaked forests of Kerala and the rich spices they grew, have attracted explorers. Legend has it that ancient Phoenicians traded with the southwest coast of India and sailors from the Malay Peninsula are believed to have reached Kerala as early as 350 BC for spices like cardamom, cinnamon and black pepper. While most of the young Jewish community have now moved out in search of better opportunities, old timers near the charming synagogue recount legends of King Solomon's men who came in search of trade-teak, ivory, peacocks and spices. "The sea-facing land was the byword in ancient times for exotic trade of a cosmopolitan nature which brought the foreigner to the shores even as far back as the third millennium BCE. The coastline supported by a hinterland laced with waterways had everything that facilitated the growth of a littoral civilization," writes Bhawani Cheerath in the coffee table book Kerala and the Spice Routes, published in 2015. 2 In her extensive writings on Kerala's culinary heritage, educator and author of Peppertrail.com Ammini Ramachandran traces the history of the spice trade and how it made the cheeni chatti (a cooking vessel from China) and the South American-origin banana household kitchen essentials in the region. "The nomadic pre-Islamic tribes of central Asia and Jews were among the first who came to Kerala for trade. Traders took Kerala's native spices and other commodities that had arrived at the port from the East across the great expanse of the Indian Ocean to Africa and Arabia, and from there, to points farther west," says Ramachandran. The spice trade flourished during the Roman Empire, and after its fall, the Arabs stepped in. During the latter half of the fifteenth century, the royal families of Spain and Portugal financed dozens of expeditions in search of a sea route to the spice coast of India, which, Vasco da Gama discovered in 1498. 3 It was the trade route that introduced Kerala---and India--to newer foods that the region swiftly adopted, making it a melange of multiple cultures. Tamarind, which finds mention in Arab texts from the Middle Ages, is believed to be one of the earliest trees transplanted into
Answers
The term Phoenicia is an exonym from ancient Greek that most likely described a dye also known as Tyrian purple, which was a major export of Canaanite port towns. The term did not correspond precisely to Phoenician culture or society as it would have been understood natively;[10] it is debated whether Phoenicians were actually a distinct civilization from the Canaanites and other residents of the Levant.[11][12] Historian Robert Drews believes the term "Canaanites" corresponds to the ethnic group referred to as "Phoenicians" by the ancient Greeks.[13]
The Phoenicians came to prominence in the mid 12th century BC following the decline of most major cultures in the Late Bronze Age collapse. They developed an expansive maritime trade network that lasted over a millennium, becoming the dominant commercial power for much of classical antiquity. Phoenician trade also helped facilitate the exchange of cultures, ideas, and knowledge between major cradles of civilization such as Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. After its zenith in the ninth century BC, Phoenician civilization in the eastern Mediterranean slowly declined in the face of foreign influence and conquest; its presence would remain in the central and western Mediterranean until the mid second century BC.