Beneath
Egypt's Desert Lie Ancient Seaports
Posted July 22.02
Berenike artifacts indicate wide-ranging, cosmopolitan mix
of people
South of Suez, the Egyptian shore of the Red Sea used to be
sprinkled with ports that throbbed with life and commerce in
antiquity, especially during the heyday of the Roman Empire.
But long ago, the relentless desert buried their remains. Under
the sand lie pivotal links in a maritime trade route that rivaled
the better-known overland Silk Road.
From here, ships ventured down the coast to Ethiopia, Somalia
and beyond, bringing back ivory and tortoise shells, drugs and
slaves. Other vessels headed for the southern shore of Arabia,
mainly for frankincense and myrrh. The biggest ships sailed
the monsoons to and from India to satisfy the bounding appetites
in the Mediterranean world for spices, precious stones and other
exotic goods.
So robust was the India trade 2,000 years ago that Emperor
Tiberius, concerned over Rome's increasingly adverse balance
of payments, complained that "the ladies and their baubles
are transferring our money to foreigners."
Perhaps the greatest of these ports in the India trade was
Berenike, about 600 miles south of Suez, near Egypt's border
with Sudan. Historians knew of it from written records, yet
nothing remained on the surface at the sere and forlorn site
except some lines of coral and scattered potsherds. These were
hardly sufficient to flesh out the bones of texts into a semblance
of the seamen and merchants in their milieu at Berenike, in
prosperity and decline over eight or nine centuries.
But archaeologists have now completed eight years of excavations
under harsh conditions at Berenike and found what they say are
the most extensive remains so far from the ancient world's sea
trade between East and West.
Jewels, peppercorns
The archaeologists' spades uncovered building ruins, teak and
metal from ships, sail cloth, sapphires and beads, wine and
stores of peppercorns. Some of the goods show that Berenike
was trading, at least indirectly, with places as far away as
Thailand and Java. Inscriptions and other written materials
in 11 languages, including Greek and Hebrew as well as Latin,
Coptic and Sanskrit, attest to the cosmopolitan mix of people
who lived in or passed through the town.
The co-directors of excavations at Berenike – Steven Sidebotham,
a historian at the University of Delaware, and Willeke Wendrich,
an archaeologist at the University of California, Los Angeles
– say the research showed that the maritime trade route between
India and Egypt in antiquity appeared to be even more productive
and longer-lasting than scholars had thought.
Also, it was not an overwhelmingly Roman enterprise, as had
been generally assumed. The researchers say artifacts at the
site indicate that the ships might have been built in India
and probably had Indian crews.
"We talk today about globalism as if it were the latest
thing, but trade was going on in antiquity at a scale and scope
that is truly impressive," Dr. Wendrich says.
The two researchers, working under the auspices of Egypt's
Supreme Council on Antiquities, reported their findings in this
month's issue of the journal Sahara. They also described their
work in interviews and in a recent article in Minerva, a British
magazine of ancient art and archaeology.
Other archaeologists praised the Berenike discoveries as important
contributions to the history of long-distance trade in the classical
world. Lionel Casson, an author and a retired professor of classics
at New York University, says, "It's nice to have archaeologists
find concrete evidence for what is attested in the texts."
In writings on early maritime commerce, the Indian Ocean's
role has been eclipsed by the richer body of literary and archaeological
evidence for activity in the Mediterranean and Black seas. And
the Silk Road, an Asian network of camel caravan routes, is
legendary as the primary cultural and commercial link between
China and Europe between about 100 B.C. and the 15th century.
"The Silk Road gets a lot of attention as a trade route,
but we've found a wealth of evidence indicating that sea trade
between Egypt and India was also important for transporting
exotic cargo, and it may have even served as a link with the
Far East," Dr. Sidebotham says.
Transfer points
As developed by Greeks and Egyptians, then expanded by the
Romans, the Red Sea ports served as transfer points for cargoes
to and from India and other places in Africa and Arabia. Goods
unloaded at the ports were hauled by camel train across the
desert to the Nile, at Koptos, and carried by boat to Alexandria.
From there they moved by ship to markets throughout the Mediterranean
basin.
The course was reversed for exchange goods, wine and glass
and fine tableware, bound for Indian Ocean markets.
Archaeologists are also investigating the probable sites of
two other Egyptian ports, Myos Hormos and Nechesia.
At some ruins 100 miles north of Berenike, archaeologists led
by John Seeger of Northern Arizona University, assisted by Dr.
Sidebotham, are excavating a building from the first or second
century A.D. It could be part of Nechesia, but no one can yet
be sure.
David Peacock, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton
in England, is more certain that he and colleagues have, by
examining literary texts and satellite photographs, identified
the site of Myos Hormos. It is 200 miles north of Berenike,
near the present-day settlement of Quseir.
Excavations there were started in the 1980s by Americans under
Don Whitcomb of the University of Chicago, and a British team
under Dr. Peacock has worked there for the last four years.
The place was definitely an ancient port, Dr. Peacock says,
but it was not until an inscribed piece of pottery was recently
uncovered that he could be sure "beyond reasonable doubt"
that this was Myos Hormos.
Both Myos Hormos and Berenike, also known as Berenice, were
established in the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, in the
early third century B.C., when Egypt was under Greek influence.
Berenike was named after the ruler's wife.
Writing in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Dr. Peacock
said: "It appears that Myos Hormos was pre-eminent during
the second century B.C. and that Berenice began to rise in importance
during the first century B.C. and became dominant in the first
century A.D. The India trade was thus developed in Ptolemaic
times and the Romans merely took over and perhaps expanded a
well-established concern."
Site rediscovered
The site of Berenike was rediscovered by European explorers
in the early 19th century. But it was so remote from settlements
and supplies that archaeologists shied away, until Dr. Sidebotham
and Dr. Wendrich came along in 1994. Their excavations revealed
that Berenike experienced three periods of prosperity. The first
was in the early Ptolemaic times, the third and second centuries
B.C. Then after a century of decline, the port under the Romans
enjoyed its second and greatest boom, in the late first century
B.C. and through the first century A.D.
An enormous Roman rubbish dump, covering some of the Ptolemaic
ruins, yielded a variety of ancient Indian goods, ranging from
Indian coconuts and batik cloth to glass beads and gems. A pot
held 16 pounds of peppercorns, one of the most common commodities.
"If you find it in the trash, then the amount transported
through the town must have been mind-boggling," Dr. Wendrich
says.
Dr. Sidebotham and Dr. Wendrich also reported finding a discarded
customs archive, which was written on potsherds reused as a
kind of notepaper. This revealed some of the trade procedures
as well as goods.
The archaeologists were especially intrigued by the large amounts
of teak, a hardwood native to India, found in the ruins. They
surmised that the teak arrived as hulls of ships. When ships
were damaged beyond repair, the teak was probably recycled in
furniture or building materials. The presence of so much teak
also suggested to the researchers that many of the ships were
built in India, one of the indications of a major Indian role
in the trade.
But Dr. Casson, a specialist in ancient maritime history, says
it was also possible that the teak timber was shipped to Berenike
and turned into vessels there. Written records refer to ships
in the India trade being among the largest of the time. That
means, Dr. Casson says, that they could have been as long as
180 feet and capable of carrying 1,000 tons of cargo. Such ships
had stout hulls and caught the wind with a huge square sail
on a stubby mainmast.
Mariners' compass
An indispensable source of knowledge of the India trade is
found in The Periplus Maris Erythraei, the circumnavigation
of the Red Sea, a book written by an anonymous merchant or ship's
captain in about the first century. A recent translation and
commentary was prepared by Dr. Casson and published in 1989
by Princeton University Press.
A practical guide to mariners, the book described the Red Sea
ports in their prime and identified landmarks on the main trade
routes. A round trip to India covered about 3,500 miles. Ships
left Egypt in July to take advantage of strong summer winds
out of the north in the Red Sea. Out in the open ocean, ships
were carried by the southwest monsoon, bound for Arabia and
across to India's northwest coast, at the port of Barygaza,
or headed directly across to Muziris on India's southwest coast.
As the Periplus author wrote of the southwest winds, "The
crossing with these is hard going but absolutely favorable and
shorter."
Returning, the ships usually departed in December or January
to catch a favorable shift in winds. Still, they had to buck
the prevailing northerly winds in the Red Sea. This was the
reason the ports were several hundred miles south of Suez: better
the long transfer of goods by camel and Nile boat than the battle
against unceasing Red Sea winds.
The rewards must have more than compensated for the risks and
hardships, historians conclude. At times when adversaries blocked
the Silk Road, the India sea trade was the only reliable alternative.
At all times, historians say, it cost less to ship by the sea
route because it circumvented many of the Silk Road's middlemen
with hands out for bribes and commissions.
Yet the fortunes of Berenike were fickle, and it was long thought
by historians that the port and town were abandoned in the third
or fourth centuries. Then the archaeologists digging there came
upon a surprise. Prosperity had returned for a third time to
Berenike, in the fourth century. Dr. Wendrich reported finding
that an entire area on the seaside was leveled and completely
rebuilt and expanded.
Sometime before the mid-sixth century, though, Berenike, its
harbor silted over, was finally abandoned for good, vanishing
beneath the encroaching desert. The reasons are unknown.
• Story originally published by:
The New York Times via Dallas News / TX - July 22.02
