Dear Sir, your web site is amazing. My deepest thanks and congratulations. Please visit my excavations throught web sites :
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/actions-france_830/archeologie_1058/les-carnets-archeologie_5064/afrique-arabie_5068/kenya-gedi_5496/index.html
and
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/actions-france_830/archeologie_1058/les-carnets-archeologie_5064/afrique-arabie_5068/tanzanie-kilwa_15214/index.html
Dr Stephan Pradines, Ifao, Cairo
--Stephan Pradines
<mailto:[email protected]>

Dear Dr Stephan Pradines;
Thank you for your comments on my website, as you might have imagined I already visited yours years ago.
Kind Regards
Pieter Derideaux

Dear Pieter,

I refer to your doubts whether the Zeng-ki are Africans. In his book "The Marvels of India" ("Kitab al Ajaib al Hind"), the Persian skipper Ibn Shahriyar reports a testimony from an Arab merchant named Ibn Lakis saying that in 945 A. D., he saw a thousand "Waq-Waq" boats landing on the shore of Mozambique to buy goods and "Zeng" slaves. Waq-Waq was the name the Arabs gave to Southeast Asian sailors and merchants at this time.

Also, what I have learned is that "Kun Lun" refers to Southeast Asians, not African. To the Chinese, Southeast Asians were "black", but I suspect they only meant they were just darker than Northern Chinese. 1st century A. D. Chinese texts on a kingdom they call Funan, located in the southern part of today's Vietnam, describe the locals as "black and with curly hair". This is certainly in contrast to the Northern Chinese physical appearance but must not necessarily mean these people looked like Africans or Papuans.

Thank you for your very valuable site.

Yours sincerely,

Anda Djoehana Wiradikarta
Research worker and university teacher in Paris, France

Dear Pieter,

I refer to your doubts whether the Zeng-ki are Africans. In his book "The Marvels of India" ("Kitab al Ajaib al Hind"), the Persian skipper Ibn Shahriyar reports a testimony from an Arab merchant named Ibn Lakis saying that in 945 A. D., he saw a thousand "Waq-Waq" boats landing on the shore of Mozambique to buy goods and "Zeng" slaves. Waq-Waq was the name the Arabs gave to Southeast Asian sailors and merchants at this time.

Also, what I have learned is that "Kun Lun" refers to Southeast Asians, not African. To the Chinese, Southeast Asians were "black", but I suspect they only meant they were just darker than Northern Chinese. 1st century A. D. Chinese texts on a kingdom they call Funan, located in the southern part of today's Vietnam, describe the locals as "black and with curly hair". This is certainly in contrast to the Northern Chinese physical appearance but must not necessarily mean these people looked like Africans or Papuans.

Thank you for your very valuable site.

Yours sincerely,

Anda Djoehana Wiradikarta
Research worker and university teacher in Paris, France

To: Anda Djoehana Wiradikarta

Thanks for your comments, and you are surely correct.

Kind regards

Pieter Derideaux