The harbor of early Roman “Imperial” Berenike: overview of excavations from 2009 to 2015

Abstract

Excavations by the American–Polish project in Berenike on the Red Sea, co-directed from 2008 by Steven E. Sidebotham (University of Delaware) and Iwona Zych (PCMA University of Warsaw), have aimed at uncovering and reconstructing the ancient landscape of the southwestern embayment, tentatively identified as the harbor of the Hellenistic and early Roman city, and its immediate vicinity. A review of the evidence from the excavation of several trenches in this area paints a picture of the bay—still incomplete—and contributes to a reconstruction of the cultural and economic landscape, the "lived experience" of the town's inhabitants and incoming merchants and sailors during the heyday of "Imperial" Berenike, that is, in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.