Shaping a city and its defenses; fortifications of Hellenistic Berenike Trogodytika

Abstract

Key information on the location, size and dating of the Ptolemaic fortifications of Berenike Trogodytika comes from archaeological excavations carried out in 2013–2015, following the 2012 season when the presence of military architecture in the Red Sea harbor was first discovered and identified (Woźniak and Rądkowska 2014). Sections of a thick wall constructed of gypsum anhydrite blocks on a wide foundation were recorded in the northern part of the site (trenches BE-13/90 and BE13-93). The wall was part of the defenses protecting the harbor from the north, the only land access to the site through marshy ground on the fringes of the so-called “northern lagoon”. Further work in trenches BE14-97 in 2014 and BE15-104 in 2015 uncovered the remains of a well preserved early Hellenistic fortified city gate, built of gypsum anhydrite blocks and chunks of coral. The complex has no parallel at present anywhere in the Red Sea region. A series of shallow basins interconnected by pipes made of truncated necks of early Hellenistic amphorae, found to the east of the gate, served probably to collect rainwater. The water function? of the gate was confirmed further by a large basin or cistern, about 1 m deep, abutting the complex on the southwest. A subterranean network of four rock-cut chambers(?) was discovered at the bottom of the internal gate chamber. A corridor in the east wall of the gate shaft, with a covered channel in the floor, led off to the northeast, in the direction of a rectangular anomaly observed on the magnetic map, which could be another rock-cut shaft.