Honainu son of Haddudan

Honainu son of Haddudan was a ship-owning merchant, conducting trade between India and Persian Gulf. He is known to us today from an honorary inscription dedicated to another merchant, Marcus Ulpius Iarhai.

“To Marcus Ulpius Iarhai son of Hairan, son of Abgar, the patriot, the merchants who have returned from Scythia on the ship of Honainu son of Haddudan son of…, having helped and assisted them with great willingness, (dedicated this) in his honour, in the month Dystos in the year 468 (AD 157)”.

From this inscription from AD 157 found in the Agora, we know that Palmyrean traders traded to Scythia (the name attributed by Ptolemy and the author of the Periplus to the mouth of the Indus river, where Barbaricum was the principal port and trade center), by boats owned by a certain Honainu, son of Haddudan, presumed citizen of Palmyra living somewhere in Charax or Characene territory, on the on the coast of the Persian Gulf in what is now Kuwait.

Although this is the only reference known to us about Honainu we can assume the type of goods he traded in. From the Periplus we know that Barbaricum exported costus, bdellium, lycium, nard, turquoise, lapis lazuli, Seric skins, cotton cloth, silk yarn and indigo, and imported spurious, figured linen, topaz, coral, storax, frankincense, vessels of glass, silver and gold plates, and some wine. Some of these goods must have been some that Honainu was interested in.