How the Merchants of Ifriqiya Coded Commerce Before Silicon

The Forgotten Syntax of Salt and Gold: How the Merchants of Ifriqiya Coded Commerce Before Silicon MacV · Follow 4 min read · 3 days ago 3 days ago -- 1 Listen Share A visual ode to the Sifraniyah: salt, gold, and the cryptic tools of a forgotten mercantile code etched into the sands of Ifriqiya. In the annals of mercantile legend, obscured by the noisy clamor of Florentine ledgers and Venetian fleets, there existed a curious enclave on the southern periphery of the Mediterranean — a guild nestled in the sandstone arteries of Ifriqiya, in what we would now inelegantly label southern Tunisia. These traders, known in scant scrolls as the Sifraniyah, did not merely exchange silks and salt — they compiled trade. Our attention was first drawn to them while examining folio 112r of the Istanbul copy of Kitāb al-Masālik wa’l-Mamālik (The Book of Roads and Kingdoms) by Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm al-Iṣṭakhrī, circa 951 CE. During a research residency at the Topkapi Palace Manuscript Library, we noted ... Read full article.