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Pearl Fisheries InformationPrincipal pearl fisheries information of antiquity? Where were ancient pearls obtained?
The principal fisheries of antiquity were in the Persian Gulf, on the coasts of Ceylon and India, and in the Red Sea. The pearls referred to in ancient Chinese literature appear to have been taken from the rivers and ponds of that country, while those in Cochin China and Japan. seem to have come from the adjoining seas. The pearls were distributed among the nations in control of the fisheries, and from them, other people received collections, either as presents, in conquest, or by way of trade. History makes no mention of pearls having been obtained elsewhere than in the Orient up to the time of Julius Caesar, when small quantities of inexpensive ones were collected in Britain by the invading Romans.
And in the first century A.D., Pliny states that small reddish pearls were found about Italy and in the Bosphorus Straits near Constantinople.
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