Egypt
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Wim Broekaert)
Steven E. Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route. California World History Library, 18. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 2011.
- Steven Sidebotham Talking About Berenike (red Sea)
University of Delaware (Ann Manser) With video. For almost two decades, archaeologist Steven Sidebotham has been uncovering—literally, layer by layer—the secrets of an ancient, multicultural Egyptian city that reveals a new chapter of its story each...
- Connections Between Rome, Egypt, India
Frontline (R. Krishnakumar) With maps. One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt’s...
- Armchair Guide To Early Predynastic Egypt
Armchair Prehistory (Edward Pegler) An ultra swift guide to the early Predynastic of Egypt. The Nile valley is a fine thing. A narrow corridor straddling the great Sahara desert it is, strangely, a perfect place to farm. Until the construction of the...
- U.s. And Polish Archaeologists Successful At Berenike
Serwis Nauka w Polsce Fragments of pottery with inscriptions in one of pre-Islamic languages have been found by a U.S-Polish team of archaeologists near Berenike, a Greco-Roman harbour on the Egyptian Red Sea coast. The finds confirm that Berenike was...
- Excavating Berenike
The ancient Red sea port of Berenike founded by Ptolemy II Philidephius has been excavated for the last two decades by Steven Sidebotham of the University of Delaware. The findings have included a pet cemetery as well as a Roman period trash dump and...
Egypt
Book Review: Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Wim Broekaert)
Steven E. Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route. California World History Library, 18. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 2011.
Preview
Rome’s trade with the East, with Arabia, India and China, continues to fascinate scholars of ancient history. The existence of large commercial networks and long-distance maritime routes in a notoriously volatile business world, linking the Mediterranean and the shores of the Indian Ocean long before Europe’s famous Age of Discovery, is indeed a remarkable aspect of ancient trade. In this book, Sidebotham analyzes the actual features of these trading routes by focusing on a single yet important harbor on the Egyptian coast, Berenike, where merchant ships moored after a voyage to the East and products destined for the Mediterranean were discharged and stored before being transported to the Nile. Having organized ten excavations on this site, Sidebotham obviously is best qualified for presenting a vivid and intimate picture of merchants, soldiers, artisans and citizens living and working together in Berenike.
A succinct introduction highlights Berenike’s importance for the Roman-Indian trade and explains why an in-depth study of a single port may be a valuable starting point to analyze trading routes (p. 1-6).
- Steven Sidebotham Talking About Berenike (red Sea)
University of Delaware (Ann Manser) With video. For almost two decades, archaeologist Steven Sidebotham has been uncovering—literally, layer by layer—the secrets of an ancient, multicultural Egyptian city that reveals a new chapter of its story each...
- Connections Between Rome, Egypt, India
Frontline (R. Krishnakumar) With maps. One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt’s...
- Armchair Guide To Early Predynastic Egypt
Armchair Prehistory (Edward Pegler) An ultra swift guide to the early Predynastic of Egypt. The Nile valley is a fine thing. A narrow corridor straddling the great Sahara desert it is, strangely, a perfect place to farm. Until the construction of the...
- U.s. And Polish Archaeologists Successful At Berenike
Serwis Nauka w Polsce Fragments of pottery with inscriptions in one of pre-Islamic languages have been found by a U.S-Polish team of archaeologists near Berenike, a Greco-Roman harbour on the Egyptian Red Sea coast. The finds confirm that Berenike was...
- Excavating Berenike
The ancient Red sea port of Berenike founded by Ptolemy II Philidephius has been excavated for the last two decades by Steven Sidebotham of the University of Delaware. The findings have included a pet cemetery as well as a Roman period trash dump and...