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Stephenson:Neal:The System of the World:480:For the goods were to be fenced through an Arabian auction

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

Beyond the Pillars

Herodotus, The History, 4, 196: The Carthaginians tell us that they trade with a race of men who live in a part of Libya beyond the Pillars of Herakles. On reaching this country, they unload their goods, arrange them tidily along the beach, and then, returning to their boats, raise a smoke. Seeing the smoke, the natives come down to the beach, place on the ground a certain quantity of gold in exchange for the goods, and go off again to a distance. The Carthaginians then come ashore and take a look at the gold; and if they think it presents a fair price for their wares, they collect it and go away; if, on the other hand, it seems too little, they go back aboard and wait, and the natives come and add to the gold until they are satisfied. There is perfect honesty on both sides; the Carthaginians never touch the gold until it equals in value what they have offered for sale, and the natives never touch the goods until the gold has been taken away. (Translation by Aubrey de Selincourt). There are other translations: Arkenberg, Presky, Making it great.

The Corvallis site goes on: Two Arab authors, the Moroccan Abû Abdallâh Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Idrisi (1100-1166) and the Syrian Ibn Abdallâh ar-Rûmî al-Hamawi Yâcût (1179-1229), independently state that this method of bartering was still practiced in their own days by gold producers from the Bambouk region. A longer version of Al-Idrisi's name is Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abdallah Ibn Idris al-Qurtubi al-Hasani ("Father of Abdallah Muhammad son of Abdallah son of Idris the Cordobese the son [?] of Hasan"). He was born in Ceuta (North Africa, now Spain), studied in Córdoba and travelled around before establishing in Norman Sicily.