The Abode of Water: Shipwreck Evidence and the Maritime Circulation of Medicine Between Iran and China in the 9th Through 14th Centuries by Amanda Respess A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology and History) in the University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Professor Kathryn Babayan, Chair Professor Miranda Brown Assistant Professor Jatin Dua Professor Carla Sinopoli, University of New Mexico Amanda Respess
[email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4616-701X © Amanda Respess 2020 DEDICATION “...for by reason we have comprehended the manufacture and use of ships, so that we have reached unto distant lands divided from us by the seas; by it we have achieved medicine with its many uses to the body.” - al-Rāzī, The Spiritual Physick of Rhazes, Of the Excellence and Praise of Reason “Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession. They are called cultural treasures, and a historical materialist views them with cautious detachment. For without exception the cultural treasures he surveys have an origin which he cannot contemplate without horror. They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries.” -Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History For my family. For Khwāja ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, whose gravestone in China gave the title to this work.