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A buried ancient Egyptian port reveals connections between distant civilizations
At the site of Berenike, in the desert sands along the Red Sea, archaeologists are uncovering wondrous new finds that challenge old ideas about the makings of the modern world
One Greco-Roman text, known as the Periplus Maris Erythraei, or “Voyage around the Erythraean Sea”—which Bhandare, of Oxford, described as “a kind of Lonely Planet guide for the first century A.D.”—lists the port as a hub for maritime trade routes stretching south as far as modern-day Tanzania, and east, past Arabia, to India and beyond. Cherian, of the PAMA Institute for the Advancement of Transdisciplinary Archaeological Sciences in Kerala, began excavations at Pattanam and have since found a wharf area, a 20-foot-long wooden canoe apparently used to ferry goods to ships anchored in deeper water, and thousands of pottery sherds from the Mediterranean: amphoras used to transport wine, olive oil and garum(a beloved Roman fish sauce). They’ve also unearthed spindle whorls and gaming counters; fragments of marble, iron, copper and gold; nearly 100,000 glass beads and thousands more of semiprecious stone; and, in 2020, a rare seal ring made of banded agate, an Indian gemstone, yet carved with an elegant Egyptian sphinx.
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