How ancient Indian Ocean trade shaped civilizations: Louvre Abu Dhabi launches 'spices and wonders'

Louvre Abu Dhabi opened a new exhibition on Wednesday (Oct 14), exploring how maritime trade connected civilisations across the Indian Ocean. Spices and Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean runs until February 14, 2027. Organised with the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts in Paris, the show brings together about 240 artworks and historical objects from 24 lenders. Lenders include the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore, the National Museum of the Philippines and the Al Sabah Collection in Kuwait. The exhibits cover maritime exchange from antiquity to the 17th century and include archaeological finds, jewellery, religious artefacts and objects recovered from shipwrecks.

The exhibition places the Arabian Gulf at the centre of the story. "The story is told from here, and that is something we consider very important at Louvre Abu Dhabi," said Guilhem Andre, the museum's director of scientific, curatorial and collections management. He added that this had not been done on such a scale before.

Visitors enter a darkened opening gallery with lights imitating a star-filled sky, reflecting how ancient navigators relied on the stars and coastal landmarks. Pierre Baptiste, director of collections and curatorial staff at the Guimet, said the aim was to give visitors a sense of what people experienced at the time.

Later galleries display navigational instruments, including the kamal, used in Arab and Indian maritime traditions, and the astrolabe. Twenty-four maps created for the exhibition trace routes linking ports across the ocean. Six large ship models represent Arabian, South-East Asian, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish traditions. Andre said they were built in South Africa over a year, based on extensive historical research. They are shown alongside shipwreck finds that offer evidence of the cargo the vessels carried. Baptiste noted that advances in underwater archaeology since the 1990s have allowed researchers to recover significant material from sunken ships, including objects from China, India, Spain and Mexico.

Trade goods featured include spices, which commanded high prices, along with jewellery, furniture and textiles. The Gulf's pearl industry is a key regional example, with pearls reaching markets in India and beyond, while carnelian was traded across the ocean from ancient times. Andre said discoveries of new sources of gold, spinels, rubies and emeralds influenced jewellery production. Diplomatic gifts show how valuable objects helped build relationships between rulers.

Cultural exchange is another theme. A Buddha sculpture from present-day Pakistan, loaned by the Guimet, reflects the influence of ancient Greek and Roman artistic traditions. The final gallery examines four religious traditions that spread along the same routes as commerce. "Religion was not separate from trade," Andre said.

The narrative ends in the 17th century by design, Baptiste said, to show networks that existed before European powers became prominent. "Europe was only one part of this story," he said. The exhibition will travel to the Guimet in Paris, where it will run from May 12 to September 6, 2027.